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 Page A
Authors: Mark Kistler
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confusing optical illusion.
Understanding these relationships among the Nine Fundamental Laws of Drawing will help you effectively and confidently resolve positioning problems in your illustrations. We will learn more about how to position your objects to alleviate depth ambiguity when we draw clouds, trees, and two-point perspective cities in later lessons.
Now let’s draw!
1. Draw a large picture frame, taking up an entire page of your sketchbook. Sometimes it’s fun to place your drawing inside a drawn frame like I did in my sketchbook drawings of the koala, the spheres, and these towers.
2. Using guide dots, draw the first foreshortened circle.
3. Draw more foreshortened circles, some large, some small.
4. As you continue to draw more foreshortened circles, be sure to place some high in the frame.
5. Draw a few more foreshortened circles positioned slightly out of the frame. These peeking towers have a nice visual effect. A few of my students have gone on to illustrate for DC Comics and Marvel Comics. When I’ve had the privilege of speaking with them over the years, I’ve always picked their brains for techniques to share with my students. Probably the most valuable tidbit I’ve heard over and over again is to position objects slightly off frame. For example, when working on Spiderman or The Hulk , these artists will draw the character moving into the frame or moving out of the frame with just partial views, such as an arm, a shoulder, and an edge of the face.
6. Draw vertical sides down from the lowest foreshortened circle. When you are drawing full scene pictures like this, it is always a good idea to detail in the lowest objects first. Why? Because the lowest objects will be overlapping every other object in the picture. One scenario where you wouldn’t necessarily want to draw the lowest objects first is if you are drawing a space scene of planets (think the opening segment of Star Trek: The Next Generation or a space scene from Star Wars ). Another scenario would be if you were drawing a flock of birds in flight. The bird positioned highest in the frame might be drawn larger in size and overlapping other smaller birds lower in the frame. In both scenarios, overlapping still trumps all the other Nine Laws.
7. Continue drawing the vertical sides down for the lowest row of towers.
8. Concentrate on overlapping, drawing the important peeking lines down from each and every foreshortened circle.
CAUTION: Avoid drawing the sides of two towers lining up like this:
If this happens, go ahead and erase the edge and part of one of the foreshortened circles. Extend the erased foreshortened circle a smidge—just enough to ensure that it is overlapping behind or in front of the other tower. This idea of “offsetting” objects just enough so that the edge lines don’t merge is a very small but helpful tip to put in your drawing toolbox.
9. Complete all the towers, moving from the lowest in the frame to the highest.
NOTE: There is one small problem you may encounter as you are drawing the towers. There’s a tendency for your drawing hand to smear the lower towers as you move over them to draw the higher towers. A simple practical solution to this is to place a small piece of clean scratch paper over the completed portion of your drawing, place your hand on the scratch paper, and draw the next row. Then pick up the scratch paper and reposition it higher. Do not push the scratch paper with your drawing hand to reposition it. I use this scratch-paper-shielding technique in every pencil and ink illustration I create.
Begin your nook and cranny shadows at the top, and work your way down using your scratch-paper shielding. You want to avoid smearing your drawing during this detail phase. I can’t tell you how many nearly complete thirty-hour illustrations I have totally smeared by drawing a final detail near the top of the frame. Avoid smearing!
10. Complete the blended shading on the remaining
Understanding these relationships among the Nine Fundamental Laws of Drawing will help you effectively and confidently resolve positioning problems in your illustrations. We will learn more about how to position your objects to alleviate depth ambiguity when we draw clouds, trees, and two-point perspective cities in later lessons.
Now let’s draw!
1. Draw a large picture frame, taking up an entire page of your sketchbook. Sometimes it’s fun to place your drawing inside a drawn frame like I did in my sketchbook drawings of the koala, the spheres, and these towers.
2. Using guide dots, draw the first foreshortened circle.
3. Draw more foreshortened circles, some large, some small.
4. As you continue to draw more foreshortened circles, be sure to place some high in the frame.
5. Draw a few more foreshortened circles positioned slightly out of the frame. These peeking towers have a nice visual effect. A few of my students have gone on to illustrate for DC Comics and Marvel Comics. When I’ve had the privilege of speaking with them over the years, I’ve always picked their brains for techniques to share with my students. Probably the most valuable tidbit I’ve heard over and over again is to position objects slightly off frame. For example, when working on Spiderman or The Hulk , these artists will draw the character moving into the frame or moving out of the frame with just partial views, such as an arm, a shoulder, and an edge of the face.
6. Draw vertical sides down from the lowest foreshortened circle. When you are drawing full scene pictures like this, it is always a good idea to detail in the lowest objects first. Why? Because the lowest objects will be overlapping every other object in the picture. One scenario where you wouldn’t necessarily want to draw the lowest objects first is if you are drawing a space scene of planets (think the opening segment of Star Trek: The Next Generation or a space scene from Star Wars ). Another scenario would be if you were drawing a flock of birds in flight. The bird positioned highest in the frame might be drawn larger in size and overlapping other smaller birds lower in the frame. In both scenarios, overlapping still trumps all the other Nine Laws.
7. Continue drawing the vertical sides down for the lowest row of towers.
8. Concentrate on overlapping, drawing the important peeking lines down from each and every foreshortened circle.
CAUTION: Avoid drawing the sides of two towers lining up like this:
If this happens, go ahead and erase the edge and part of one of the foreshortened circles. Extend the erased foreshortened circle a smidge—just enough to ensure that it is overlapping behind or in front of the other tower. This idea of “offsetting” objects just enough so that the edge lines don’t merge is a very small but helpful tip to put in your drawing toolbox.
9. Complete all the towers, moving from the lowest in the frame to the highest.
NOTE: There is one small problem you may encounter as you are drawing the towers. There’s a tendency for your drawing hand to smear the lower towers as you move over them to draw the higher towers. A simple practical solution to this is to place a small piece of clean scratch paper over the completed portion of your drawing, place your hand on the scratch paper, and draw the next row. Then pick up the scratch paper and reposition it higher. Do not push the scratch paper with your drawing hand to reposition it. I use this scratch-paper-shielding technique in every pencil and ink illustration I create.
Begin your nook and cranny shadows at the top, and work your way down using your scratch-paper shielding. You want to avoid smearing your drawing during this detail phase. I can’t tell you how many nearly complete thirty-hour illustrations I have totally smeared by drawing a final detail near the top of the frame. Avoid smearing!
10. Complete the blended shading on the remaining
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