7 Reasons Why Tracing is not Cheating
How Tracing Can Help You Improve Your Drawing Skills
Have you ever heard someone say that tracing is cheating when learning to draw?
Maybe you’ve even felt a little guilty about tracing your reference photo before starting an animal portrait.
But tracing can actually be a very helpful learning tool.
When drawing animals with pastel pencils, there are so many things to think about at once—proportions, colors, layers, blending, fur texture, light, shadow, and all those tiny details.
Tracing gives you an accurate starting point so you can spend more time learning and practicing these other skills.
And tracing doesn’t create the finished portrait for you. The real drawing begins when you start building your layers, creating textures, adding depth and color, and slowly bringing your animal to life.
Here are 7 reasons why tracing is not cheating and how it can help you develop your drawing skills.
1. TRACING HELPS YOU LEARN PROPORTIONS
Getting proportions right is one of the hardest parts of drawing.
Tracing helps you understand how the shapes and sizes relate to each other.
As you trace, pay attention to where the different features are positioned. Look at the distance between the eyes, the size of the nose, the shape of the head, and where the ears begin.
You’re not only creating an outline—you’re also learning to recognize the proportions that make the animal look like itself.
2. IT BUILDS YOUR OBSERVATION SKILLS
When tracing carefully, you start noticing:
shape, angles, curves, relationships between features. This improves your eye for detail.
Tracing encourages you to slow down and really look at your reference.
The more carefully you observe these little details, the more you’ll begin to notice them naturally when working on future drawings.
3. IT LETS YOU FOCUS ON OTHER SKILLS
Tracing allows you to concentrate on learning:
shading, texture, fur. blending, color layering
Instead of struggling with everything at once.
This can be especially helpful when you’re new to drawing animals with pastel pencils.
Instead of trying to master every skill at the same time, you can focus your attention on creating realistic fur, choosing colors, blending, and building your pastel layers.
4. IT CAN BOOST YOUR CONFIDENCE
When your proportions are correct from the start, you feel more confident and can enjoy the drawing process more.
Confidence helps you keep practicing and improving.
Seeing your animal portrait gradually come to life can be incredibly encouraging.
And the more you enjoy drawing, the more likely you are to keep practicing and developing your skills.
5. OVERCOMING MENTAL BLOCK
Tracing can help beginners start animal portraits more easily, overcoming mental blocks or the fear of blank pages. It boosts confidence and encourages creativity.
A blank piece of paper can sometimes feel intimidating, especially when you’re still learning.
Having your basic outline ready gives you a clear place to begin and allows you to move into the drawing process without that initial worry.
6. MANY PROFESSIONAL ARTISTS TRACE
Tracing has been used by artists for centuries.
It is simply one tool among many to help artists work more accurately.
Many renowned old masters used tracing in their artistic process, creating timeless masterpieces. This shows tracing can produce high-quality art without diminishing its value.
Artists use many different tools and techniques to help them create their work.
What matters is everything you do with that starting outline afterward.
5. IT SAVES TIME
Tracing saves valuable time, allowing artists to focus on creativity. This helps meet tight deadlines and manage multiple projects efficiently.
Sometimes you simply want to spend more of your drawing time working with your pastel pencils rather than creating the initial outline.
Tracing can help you get started sooner and leave more time for building colors, textures, details, and all the parts of the portrait you enjoy most.
Final thought:
Tracing doesn’t do the drawing for you. It simply gives you a helpful starting point.
It can help you understand proportions, improve your observation skills, focus on other techniques, build confidence, overcome the fear of starting, work more accurately, and save time.
The real work—and the creativity—comes afterward, when you use your pastel pencils to build layers, create fur and texture, add light and shadow, and turn that simple outline into a beautiful animal portrait.
Do you want to learn how to draw a sweet little cat with pastel pencils? Join my beginner-friendly cat drawing workshop here!
Want to start drawing realistic animals today? Click here!
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