Two lines crossing make four corners. Rounding is going back to each of those corners and turning it into a smooth curve — so the two lines stop meeting at a point and start joining like a branch joins a trunk.
The two pictures at the end of this lesson are the same drawing. Nothing was added between them and nothing was taken away. Every line is where it was; only the crossings changed. It is worth going back and forth between them for a moment, because that difference is what the rest of this course is about.
How it is done
Work from one corner into the next. Start the curve on one line a little before the crossing and bring it round onto the other line a little after. Smooth and continuous — the same hand you used for the line itself.
Go boldly into the white. The curve needs room, and the empty paper is there for it. A timid rounding that hugs the corner leaves the corner.
Fill what will not round. Where a crossing is too small, or your marker too thick to get a curve in, just fill the space in solidly. That is not a compromise, it is the same move — you can see plenty of filled joints in the second picture.
Fill evenly. A patchy fill, half-covered, with white specks left in it, is the one thing here that reads as a mistake later. Solid or not at all.
One at a time, all of them. Every crossing on the sheet, in order, without picking the easy ones. A drawing with some corners rounded and some left sharp is not half-finished, it is a drawing of hesitation.
Two rules with no exceptions
Finish in one day. Whatever else happens, do not leave a drawing with its corners half-rounded overnight. If you have twenty minutes and the sheet needs an hour, start the sheet tomorrow instead.
Do not start over. However the drawing is going, round the one in front of you. The whole practice is in the going-back-over; a fresh sheet is a way of never doing it.
What you will notice
It takes longer than you expect and it is monotonous, and about two thirds of the way through most people stop thinking about it and just do it. That is a fine place to be.
The other thing people notice is at the end, looking at the sheet: the spiky tangle has become a set of smooth connected forms, and it got that way corner by corner, under your own hand. Nothing about it happened on its own.
Your practice
Take a sheet with crossings on it — the drawing from the last lesson, or any of the ones you have made so far — and round every crossing on it.
Set aside enough time to finish it. Work across the sheet in some order rather than jumping about.
Photograph it and put it in the journal. If you still have the photo from before rounding, this is the pair worth having.
In the note: what changed in the drawing once there were no sharp corners left — and what, if anything, you noticed while doing it.
