The Exercise

Open the file, Drawing with the Pencil Tool.svg.
Enable the Pencil tool F6 or P , also called the Freehand Tool.
In the Tool controls bar, set Smoothing to 15 using the plus and minus buttons, or type in the box. Set other things as below:
Zoom in . Starting at the top row, trace the three white lines.
The two identical lines in the second row allow you to try out different settings. Trace them per instructions and notice the difference.
It’s ok if you can’t finish a line without stopping. Place your mouse in the tiny square at the end of a line, press the mouse button, and you can continue, extending the same line. If you don’t see the tiny square, re-select the path, switch back to the Pencil tool, and then continue.
To create a closed path, look for the tiny square where you started the line. Release the mouse button while it’s over the square.
When you’re finished practicing, save with the name Exercise 3 Drawn Myself.svg.

By default, Smoothing is set a bit low. With that, you are usually drawing in too much detail.
The line will have too many nodes.
So make sure to set Smoothing to 20 or higher. Smoothing ranges from 1 to 100.

This tutorial is part of the course Inkscape For Artists.
We also have a page with more tutorials from the course.

The tutorial and video are published under the following license: CC-BY: K. Roth-Koch – Inkscape for Artist.