Read Online You Can Draw in 30 Days: The Fun, Easy Way to Learn to Draw in One Month or Less by Mark Kistler - Free Book Online
Authors: Mark Kistler
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shading. Make sure to use a direction SW guide line to place your cast shadows correctly.
Lesson 10: Bonus Challenge
Okay, now we are ready to start applying our drawing lessons to the real world. Go into your kitchen, and find three soup cans, three soda cans, or three coffee mugs, all of the same size. Arrange the objects on the kitchen table in the same positions that we have just drawn them.
Sit down in a chair in front of your still life. Notice how the tops of the cans are not nearly as foreshortened as we have drawn them. This is because your eye level is much higher than where we imagined it to be in our picture. Push yourself back from the table a bit, and lower your eye level until the tops of the cans match the foreshortening that we have drawn. Experiment with your eye level, moving your eyes even lower until you can’t see the tops of the cans. This is a glimpse of two-point perspective that I will be getting to in a later lesson.
Now, stand up and watch what happens to the foreshortened can tops. They expand; they open up to near full circles depending on where your eye level is.
Understanding the Nine Fundamental Laws of Drawing will give you the skill to draw objects you see in the world around you or that you create in your imagination in any position. Now grab nine cans or mugs (varying sizes are okay). Position them in any way you want on one end of the kitchen table. Sit at the other end of the kitchen table with your sketchbook and pencil. Look at your still life. Draw what you see. Feel free to place a box under your cans to raise them to a higher, more foreshortened perspective.
As you draw what you see, you will recognize the words that you have been learning in these lessons. You will begin to discover how these Nine Fundamental Laws of Drawing truly apply to seeing and drawing the real world in 3-D in your sketchbook.
Here is an important point: In every three-dimensional drawing you create from your imagination or from the real world, you will always apply two or more of the Nine Laws every time, without exception. In this lesson we applied foreshortening, overlapping, placement, size, shading, and shadow.
Student examples
Take a look at how student Susan Kozloski explored changing the eye level in her drawings.
LESSON 11
ADVANCED-LEVEL CYLINDERS
I n this lesson I will explore the fun visual effect of drawing multiple cylinders in a cityscape scene. The skills we will be practicing in this drawing are overlapping, foreshortening, blended shading, shadows, and nook and cranny shading. While practicing these skills, we will also push the envelope and expand our understanding of the Nine Fundamental Laws of Drawing. Look at the lesson illustration on the previous page.
Everything looks fine and organized according to the Nine Laws. However, take a closer look at the lowest cylindrical tower. It is much smaller than the surrounding towers, so according to our understanding of the laws, it should appear farther away. Yes? This is an example of how some design laws have more visual power than others. The lowest smaller cylindrical tower appears closer because it is overlapping in front of the other much larger towers. Interesting, isn’t it? Overlapping will always trump size.
Here’s a mindbender. Look at the two hovering cylinders. The larger one could be closer or farther away. We don’t have any reference as to its position. It is not overlapping an object to pull it closer; it is not casting a shadow to indicate that it is directly above or next to an object. In this situation, its size doesn’t give us any indication of its position. Now in comparison, look at the smaller hovering cylinder over on the left. Because it is overlapping the other tower and casting a shadow, we can determine it is closer. If I had drawn the center hovering disk a tiny bit in front of a tower, or a tiny bit behind a tower, I would have given the viewer a context of where the disk was, thus eliminating a
Lesson 10: Bonus Challenge
Okay, now we are ready to start applying our drawing lessons to the real world. Go into your kitchen, and find three soup cans, three soda cans, or three coffee mugs, all of the same size. Arrange the objects on the kitchen table in the same positions that we have just drawn them.
Sit down in a chair in front of your still life. Notice how the tops of the cans are not nearly as foreshortened as we have drawn them. This is because your eye level is much higher than where we imagined it to be in our picture. Push yourself back from the table a bit, and lower your eye level until the tops of the cans match the foreshortening that we have drawn. Experiment with your eye level, moving your eyes even lower until you can’t see the tops of the cans. This is a glimpse of two-point perspective that I will be getting to in a later lesson.
Now, stand up and watch what happens to the foreshortened can tops. They expand; they open up to near full circles depending on where your eye level is.
Understanding the Nine Fundamental Laws of Drawing will give you the skill to draw objects you see in the world around you or that you create in your imagination in any position. Now grab nine cans or mugs (varying sizes are okay). Position them in any way you want on one end of the kitchen table. Sit at the other end of the kitchen table with your sketchbook and pencil. Look at your still life. Draw what you see. Feel free to place a box under your cans to raise them to a higher, more foreshortened perspective.
As you draw what you see, you will recognize the words that you have been learning in these lessons. You will begin to discover how these Nine Fundamental Laws of Drawing truly apply to seeing and drawing the real world in 3-D in your sketchbook.
Here is an important point: In every three-dimensional drawing you create from your imagination or from the real world, you will always apply two or more of the Nine Laws every time, without exception. In this lesson we applied foreshortening, overlapping, placement, size, shading, and shadow.
Student examples
Take a look at how student Susan Kozloski explored changing the eye level in her drawings.
LESSON 11
ADVANCED-LEVEL CYLINDERS
I n this lesson I will explore the fun visual effect of drawing multiple cylinders in a cityscape scene. The skills we will be practicing in this drawing are overlapping, foreshortening, blended shading, shadows, and nook and cranny shading. While practicing these skills, we will also push the envelope and expand our understanding of the Nine Fundamental Laws of Drawing. Look at the lesson illustration on the previous page.
Everything looks fine and organized according to the Nine Laws. However, take a closer look at the lowest cylindrical tower. It is much smaller than the surrounding towers, so according to our understanding of the laws, it should appear farther away. Yes? This is an example of how some design laws have more visual power than others. The lowest smaller cylindrical tower appears closer because it is overlapping in front of the other much larger towers. Interesting, isn’t it? Overlapping will always trump size.
Here’s a mindbender. Look at the two hovering cylinders. The larger one could be closer or farther away. We don’t have any reference as to its position. It is not overlapping an object to pull it closer; it is not casting a shadow to indicate that it is directly above or next to an object. In this situation, its size doesn’t give us any indication of its position. Now in comparison, look at the smaller hovering cylinder over on the left. Because it is overlapping the other tower and casting a shadow, we can determine it is closer. If I had drawn the center hovering disk a tiny bit in front of a tower, or a tiny bit behind a tower, I would have given the viewer a context of where the disk was, thus eliminating a
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