Complete Idiot''''s Guide to Drawing- P14 pptx

Part 3
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Starting Out: Learning You Can See and Draw
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Fitting Other Shapes into the Boxes They Came In
Most things in your life came in a box. That box sat on the table or the floor before the ob-
ject was taken out of it. It might take a little pushing or prodding, but that object would fit
back inside. Visualize your object inside a box. You can even draw the box in lightly to
make sure it is sitting at the correct angle. Then, simply draw the object inside the box and
you will have it where you want it. Try it!
Try drawing your object in its original box to get it where you want it.
Drawing That Still Life
You already have all the tools to draw your still life, you just need to use them. This more
complicated composition will take more patience, time, and clear seeing, but these are skills
that you now have, right?
See Your Still Life in Space
Sit and see your composition in space, with or without the viewfinder
frame or the plastic picture plane.
Site the Arrangement on the Page
Draw the horizontal and vertical center lines on your paper. You can
use the diagonals of your viewfinder frame to make a box on your
paper that is proportionally equal to the frame. Site the arrangement in
that box on your paper. Then pick a place to start and draw the first
shape.
Try Your Hand
Patience is a virtue, especially in
drawing.
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Chapter 9
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Step Up to a Still Life; Composition, Composition, Composition

Start out with some planning lines in addition to the center hori-
zontal and vertical lines. Make a light set of shapes and lines that
establish placement on the page, position of objects, and amount
of overlap. Try drawing a light set of lines that enclose your com-
position. You can use these lines to judge shapes and spaces
against.
In addition, you may want to check relative heights and widths
against each other. To do this, select a baseline or measurement
that you can consider having a length of “1.” Then, use that meas-
urement to gauge other lengths, widths, curves, shapes, and
spaces. Establish the ratio between the base and any line you
measure against it, such as 1:2, 1:4, 1:5, etc.
Start with a Light Sketch to Position
As usual, you should begin with the lightest line, your H or HB pencil, and a light touch to
draw in the basic shapes and angles and relations between things. Take your time. Don’t
rush. A complicated arrangement takes more time. Consider the following as you begin:
➤ Start with the lightest of directional lines for each object.
➤ See how they overlap.
➤ Try to see each one in its own spot, but relative to the others.
➤ Imagine that you have x-ray vision and can see the backs of your objects, where they
touch or are close to one another.
➤ Make sure you have left enough space for each.
Check Your Spacing
Don’t go on until you are sure of everything and everything is in its place, and that you
have a place for everything. An object with a shape and size has to have the space in your
drawing that it needs to look three-dimensional. If two objects are in the same three-
dimensional spot in your drawing, they will both look flat. Give them the room they need
to look full.
God is in the details.
—Buckminster Fuller (And he was right.)

See the Detail in Each Object and Draw What You See
When you have located and drawn the shape of each object in your composition, the rest is
clear seeing and drawing of the remaining detail.
Your finished drawing should reflect all the work you have done lately. An arrangement
that you would have thought impossible to draw is now within your grasp. It is a great
feeling.
In the next chapter, we will look at getting things to look a little more full of volume and
detail. We will look at volume, weight, light, and shadow, and how to draw them by adding
a bit of tone to your line drawing. Detail and still more detail will give your work the com-
plexity that makes it special.
Try Your Hand
The planning lines in your work
should be light, and need not be
erased later. They can add a vital-
ity and they show the process that
you have been through, too.
Part 3
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Starting Out: Learning You Can See and Draw
Your Sketchbook Page
Try your hand at practicing the exercises you’ve learned in this chapter.
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Chapter 9
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Step Up to a Still Life; Composition, Composition, Composition
The Least You Need to Know
➤ A still life is a composition of objects chosen and arranged for interesting shapes,
spaces, and some special sense of you and your choices.
➤ Composition is based on some classic rules, but is basically working until you have a
pleasant arrangement of your objects in space.

➤ Vantage point and viewpoint are important considerations in composition.
➤ Once you have decided on your composition, see what you arranged and draw what
you see.

Chapter 10
Toward the
Finish Line
In This Chapter
➤ Establishing volume and tone
➤ Using light and shadow
➤ Creating a balance between line and tone
➤ Knowing when you are finished
The most obvious reason for drawing disciplines is to train the eye and the hand to instanta-
neous coordinated activity. Artists of the past and present have made countless drawings, not
only as students, but all through their lives.
—Harry Sternberg
You’ve heard the phrase “It’s all in the details.”, and when it comes to drawing, those details
include volume and tone, line and shape, and light and shadow. How do you add those fin-
ishing touches? In this chapter, you’ll find out.
Line and Shape Are in the Lead, Form Follows Close
Behind
For many drawings, a clear, sensitive contour line can say as much as you need to say. You
may enjoy the line quality as it is, feel the shapes and spaces between shapes to be accurate,
and have enough detail to feel your drawing is finished.
In other drawings, it helps to define the form or fullness of things by rendering them with
tone. Light and shade come into play here, and the direction from which an object is light-
ed will determine the play of light upon it, the direction of the shadow it casts, and
whether that shadow is on the object next to it and how much.
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Light and shadow can create strong patterns that are part of your com-
position and can make an object seem more full of volume and weight.
Detail and texture are on the surface of an object, further defining it.
Sometimes they can be confusing when they don’t follow the form. It is
better to concentrate on shape and space first, volume and weight sec-
ond, and light and shadow next, and then detail and texture can follow
along later.
You’ll want to make a graded chart for yourself as a guide for your
range of
tones to establish light, shadow, and volume.
1. Measure and draw a box 6" wide and 1" high.
2. Draw a horizontal center line to make two long boxes,
1
/
2
" high.
3. Measure and draw vertical lines at 1" intervals to make six
boxes on the top row and six on the bottom row.
Artist’s Sketchbook
Tone refers to shades between
light and dark, or white and
black, that can be used in draw-
ing to define areas of light and
shadow or render the fullness of
an object.
Making a set of boxes
for a tonal chart.
4. Label the first box on the upper left-hand corner “#1.” (Lefties

can begin in the upper right-hand corner and work left.)
5. Box #1 will stay white.
6. Label the next box #2.
7. Starting with box #2, lightly and evenly shade the rest of the
top line of boxes.
8. Label the next box #3.
9. Start with #3 and evenly shade over the rest for a shade darker
than box #2.
10. Label the next box #4.
11. Begin with it and make another layer of shading over the re-
maining three boxes.
12. Label the next box #5.
13. Begin with it and make another layer of shading.
14. Label the last box #6.
15. Make the final layer of shading in it.
Back to the Drawing Board
If you get ahead of yourself and
get confused between shape and
the detail on the surface, or
confused about what makes vol-
ume and what makes texture,
just take a step back. Sit until
you can see where you are and
what you should do next, includ-
ing a good erasing.
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Chapter 10
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Toward the Finish Line
You can do this for a six-box tonal scale, or you can make it nine boxes or twelve boxes, as

many as you want. Start with six boxes for now. You have a range from white to light to
medium to dark.
Now, on the lower row, practice matching the various tones you made on the top of the
chart. Start by trying to match the darkest tone. Keep shading it in until it matches the
upper box. Then, try to match one of the light tones, then try to match one of the mid-
tones. Continue until you have matched all the tones of the scale and filled in the bottom
part of the chart.
Here is a filled-in tonal
chart.
In this tonal chart,
we’ve filled in the bot-
tom row of tones to
match the top row.
Your tonal chart gives you an idea of the tonal range that you can use when you are look-
ing at your drawing and deciding how to add tone to it.
The Art of Drawing
You can make tonal charts using a selection of pencils, different hardnesses, particularly if you
like very rich tones. It is important to jot down how you got each set of tones and with which
pencils so that you will be able to use the same technique for building up tone on a drawing.
Try a chart or two with a different range, a light one or a dark one that might not even begin
with white.
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You can make a tonal scale with different textural marks instead of solid tones. Try making
a tonal chart that is made up of different textural marks, keeping them all the same for
each tonal chart so you can see the range of tone easily. Eventually, you will be able to
jump from tone to textural tone and back again while adding whatever tonal value you
want because you will “see” them in your mind’s eye.

Here is a dark tonal
scale.
Here are some circles
with different textural
marks to make the range
of tones. Your own tone
boxes can be in rows of
boxes or looser shapes
filled in with a range of
tone in one texture.
Here are some additional tonal tips to consider:
➤ Keep looking at your composition and your tonal scale. See the
shapes that each tone fits into. You’ll have different tones for
highlights on things, the light sides of things, the mid-tones,
the darker sides of things, shadows, shadows across things, and
the darkest cracks and spaces between things.
➤ Get up, walk away, and then come back and look at your work
with fresh eyes. You may see things you missed when you were
sitting right on top of your drawing. Correct any problems you
see.
➤ You may want to darken the shade of your darkest tone to in-
crease the contrast between your lights and darks.
➤ Half-close your eyes, or let them go out of focus. This can help
you see tone, and then you can work on detail.
➤ For practice in form, light, and shadow, try drawing eggs, rocks,
shells, or even mushrooms.
Try Your Hand
The more you practice seeing
and adding tone to an accurate
contour line drawing, you will

begin to do it sooner, as you
move from the planning lines to
the drawing of the shapes, be-
cause you will be able to see line
and tone together.
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Toward the Finish Line
Weight Is in the Rear, but Coming Up Fast
Let’s go back to those basic shapes you collected and practiced drawing in space. In Chap-
ter 9, “Step Up to a Still Life: Composition, Composition, Composition,” you drew them as
contour line drawings. Now, try them as toned 3-D objects. Pick objects that are simple and
not too richly colored or patterned for starters.
1. Establish a light source and direction. See how the light plays on the objects. See the
gradation of tone relative to your chart of tonal range.
2. Squint at your arrangement, you will find it easier to see the lights and darks.
Squinting makes it easier to see the tones. It softens detail and blurs the mid-tone so
that you can see the extremes on your tonal scale.
3. Pick the lightest spots like highlights on fruit or the lighted side of a cube or mug.
These areas will be at the light end of your tonal range.
4. Decide on the darkest spots, like spaces between things or a
darker object. These areas will be on the darker end of your
scale of darks. How dark do you want the darks to go?
5. Pick the middle tone between the lightest one and your choice
of the darkest. Try to see that tonal color in your arrangement,
what is halfway between light and dark. This play of light and
dark has a name, naturally:
chiaroscuro.
No amount of tonal rendering will make for a sense of weight and

volume if the object drawn doesn’t have enough space to be three-
dimensional. Your careful seeing and drawing of the shape and the
relationships between things must come first. Then, contour line on
flatter items and tone on things with greater weight can suggest the
differences in volume.
First Things First: Shape and Space
As with tone, light, and shadow, no amount of detail or texture will help a drawing when
the basic shapes and the spatial relationships are not seen and drawn well. When this is the
case, you will waste your time adding detail when you should be correcting the shapes and
spaces.
Similarly, all the rendering in the world will not make an asymmetrical vase symmetrical,
make a bowl sit on the table if it is jumping up, or make two apples look round if they are
so close as to occupy the same space on your page.
Sometimes, the best thing to do is start over. If, after a while, it seems that everything you
add detracts from your drawing rather than enhances it, try, try again may be the route to
take.
Now Start Again
Pick another arrangement to draw. Choose a few objects that seem to require tone to make
them appear as full as they are. Keep them simple, geometric shapes like fruit, plain boxes,
a cup or mug, or some toy blocks. Try to pick objects that are close in color so the color
won’t be confusing you. Later you can pick objects that require your ability to establish true
color differences using tone.
Artist’s Sketchbook
Chiaroscuro is Italian for light
and shadow. It refers here to a
system of tonal shading to render
an object so it appears three-
dimensional.