Showing posts with label drawing exercise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drawing exercise. Show all posts
Monday, 26 January 2009
Exercise 5
This week's sketchbook exercise builds directly upon last week's.
By now you should be able to quickly make a stack of 8 1" squares and create a pile of 3/5 wide ovals down the center like so:
The next steps are to divide the second square in half horizontally, make a dark point at the center of the divide between the 3rd and 4th squares, and vertically divide the bottom 4 squares in half.
Make sure the line dividing the 2nd square is 2" long and centered. This is two-head lengths wide and is the typical male shoulder width, for a female the line would be two-head widths (1 1/5" in this exercise).
The midpoint is where we generally place the widest point of the hips, we make this two-heads wide, you can choose to draw in two of the ovals as I've done, or just indicate the width in the line.
Make a triangle of the outermost points of the top line and the center of the line between the 4th and 5th squares. The triangle gives you the shoulder width and the length of the torso to the crotch or pubis.
Using the outer points of the two-heads-wide line at the 4th square I draw two lines up towards the top oval that intersect with the half-oval on the shoulder line as illustrated, Next I draw another two lines going down to the bottom of the 8th square, both lines touching the outer sides of the oval in that square. That's all you have to per day this week outside of your own drawing for pleasure.
It's a pretty simple head-on figure shape and greatly resembles part of Reilly's method, though it gets more evolved and thorough than just the simple straight-on view shown. Jack Faragasso's Mastering Drawing the Human Figure is largely based on Frank Reilly's teachings and is a book I highly recommend.
It really is just a few lines away from becoming a more developed figure.
It should be pretty clear why we started with all the 1" squares six weeks ago as, by the end of this week, should be able to judge shape and distance better than when you started, have better control when drawing straight and curved lines and now you're able to apply all that to something considerably more complex, like a basic human figure.
We are still dealing with flat forms, though. Putting the figure into 3D space is the ultimate goal, but there's still quite a bit to cover as we work toward that.
By now you should be able to quickly make a stack of 8 1" squares and create a pile of 3/5 wide ovals down the center like so:
The next steps are to divide the second square in half horizontally, make a dark point at the center of the divide between the 3rd and 4th squares, and vertically divide the bottom 4 squares in half.
Make sure the line dividing the 2nd square is 2" long and centered. This is two-head lengths wide and is the typical male shoulder width, for a female the line would be two-head widths (1 1/5" in this exercise).
The midpoint is where we generally place the widest point of the hips, we make this two-heads wide, you can choose to draw in two of the ovals as I've done, or just indicate the width in the line.
Make a triangle of the outermost points of the top line and the center of the line between the 4th and 5th squares. The triangle gives you the shoulder width and the length of the torso to the crotch or pubis.
I was doing something similar to this, cobbled together from a stew of Loomis, Hamm and others, but when someone showed me some sketches of Reilly's figure abstraction method a light bulb went off in my head. I don't build figures completely to Reilly's method, but it's simplified the process for me.
Using the outer points of the two-heads-wide line at the 4th square I draw two lines up towards the top oval that intersect with the half-oval on the shoulder line as illustrated, Next I draw another two lines going down to the bottom of the 8th square, both lines touching the outer sides of the oval in that square. That's all you have to per day this week outside of your own drawing for pleasure.
It's a pretty simple head-on figure shape and greatly resembles part of Reilly's method, though it gets more evolved and thorough than just the simple straight-on view shown. Jack Faragasso's Mastering Drawing the Human Figure is largely based on Frank Reilly's teachings and is a book I highly recommend.
It really is just a few lines away from becoming a more developed figure.
It should be pretty clear why we started with all the 1" squares six weeks ago as, by the end of this week, should be able to judge shape and distance better than when you started, have better control when drawing straight and curved lines and now you're able to apply all that to something considerably more complex, like a basic human figure.
We are still dealing with flat forms, though. Putting the figure into 3D space is the ultimate goal, but there's still quite a bit to cover as we work toward that.
~Richard
Monday, 19 January 2009
Exercise 4
New daily exercise for in your sketchbooks! I hope you're all comfortable with your squares, circles, & Golden Spirals and that you might feel your developing some more line control.
This week I want you guys to start with another 8" square towards the top of the page of your sketchbook:
Nothing new there!
You start drawing another 1" square, but this one is appended to the bottom of the previous one. Again, you're going to try to be as accurate as you can while drawing everything freehand.
You keep adding 1" squares until you have a total of 8 of them. After I drew mine, I measured and was off by over an 8th of an inch. That was better than I expected as there does tend to be a certain amount of sway and wobble in the lines as they get longer. Do use all your visual clues to help you though; the edge of the paper is straight and the top should be reasonably perpendicular.
Next you'll divide the top square into fifths. Don't worry about measuring this as long as you feel you have 5 reasonably equal sections you're good to go. I dropped marks down the whole of the 8 squares. Again, use the previously drawn marks as guides as you go even though you may have some sway in the sides of the squares, the general idea is to get a nice set of marks to follow for the next step
Draw lines down both interior sides of your stacked squares. Just draw along the "first" fifth and the last. You should end up with something that looks like this:
Try to do all the above in 10-15 minutes.
Apart from a new wrinkle on developing your spacial recognition and further developing your line control, the 8 squares develops toward another bit of knowledge and a later series of exercises. Many artists draw their figures' proportions based on a measurement in heads. Just to clarify; an artist wanting to draw a standing human figure from their imagination, could divide the space the figure was to occupy into 8 equal sections and then use that measurement to draw a proportionate figure. Of course, the head would occupy a full 1/8th section of that space.
This week I want you guys to start with another 8" square towards the top of the page of your sketchbook:
Nothing new there!
You start drawing another 1" square, but this one is appended to the bottom of the previous one. Again, you're going to try to be as accurate as you can while drawing everything freehand.
You keep adding 1" squares until you have a total of 8 of them. After I drew mine, I measured and was off by over an 8th of an inch. That was better than I expected as there does tend to be a certain amount of sway and wobble in the lines as they get longer. Do use all your visual clues to help you though; the edge of the paper is straight and the top should be reasonably perpendicular.
Next you'll divide the top square into fifths. Don't worry about measuring this as long as you feel you have 5 reasonably equal sections you're good to go. I dropped marks down the whole of the 8 squares. Again, use the previously drawn marks as guides as you go even though you may have some sway in the sides of the squares, the general idea is to get a nice set of marks to follow for the next step
Draw lines down both interior sides of your stacked squares. Just draw along the "first" fifth and the last. You should end up with something that looks like this:
Finally, draw 8 ovals into the newly defined inner rectangles. Think of them as stretched circles and have them touch all four sides and swoop nicely through the corners.
Try to do all the above in 10-15 minutes.
Apart from a new wrinkle on developing your spacial recognition and further developing your line control, the 8 squares develops toward another bit of knowledge and a later series of exercises. Many artists draw their figures' proportions based on a measurement in heads. Just to clarify; an artist wanting to draw a standing human figure from their imagination, could divide the space the figure was to occupy into 8 equal sections and then use that measurement to draw a proportionate figure. Of course, the head would occupy a full 1/8th section of that space.
While I'll get to proportions later, it's understood that the an average figure is 7 1/2 heads tall, many artists prefer figures that stand 8 heads tall, as they tend to look more impressive. In fashion drawing and a few other venues, 9 heads is not uncommon. My approach to comics kinda runs along those lines as well; the average adult running around the street would be 7 1/2 heads tall, the bulk of the super-heroes or villains they'd meet would be 8 heads, and the really iconic ones -- like Superman or Captain America -- would be 9 heads. I also play with height when doing this; regular folks are 5'8"-5'10", heroes 6'-6'2", Supes or Cap types would be 6'4"-6'6". Of course, character specifics play into that, since Wolverine is 5'3" and Kingpin is 6'7" I'd be using radically different head measurements for these characters.
Next exercise leaves boxes behind for a bit.
Next exercise leaves boxes behind for a bit.
~R
Saturday, 27 December 2008
The Second Drawing Exercise
After a week of drawing 1-inch squares in your sketchbooks you're probably ready for the next step. It's really an add-on to the previous exercise and will take the same amount of drawing time per day, though you'll only spend half of that 10-15 minutes drawing those same 1-inch squares, the other half of that time you'll be drawing circles that fit exactly into them.
When drawing the squares, make an effort to keep the lines lighter as they're really guidelines for the circle drawing. Take the time to get the squares right; you may want to draw just the squares then go back and draw the circles afterwards instead of drawing a square then popping a circle inside then drawing another square. You should be drawing consistently good squares at this point as wobbly shapes or rectangles don't allow you to make good circles.
Break the squares into bite-sized portions when starting (dividing the square into quarters as demonstrated in exercise #1 is perfectly okay to start, but you do want to move towards drawing without too many guides). Lightly indicate the curved arc moving from one side to another then continue into the next quadrant. If you're working on a table, feel free to rotate your sketchbook as you go. If the circle seems to wander into diamond-shape territory you can lightly draw in the corner-to-corner diagonals and measure a half-inch from the centre and make a tick-mark. The circle is an inch in diameter no matter what point you slice it in half, so this gives you another guide to work with until you're comfortable with the circle.
A circle is essentially a sphere without any depth added. When we get around to perspective we'll discuss how to draw those oval "ellipses" accurately, but, I think it's important to show where any exercise leads to later on. Since a circle sits exactly inside a square, it's not a great leap to understanding that a sphere fits inside a cube in the same way.
When drawing the squares, make an effort to keep the lines lighter as they're really guidelines for the circle drawing. Take the time to get the squares right; you may want to draw just the squares then go back and draw the circles afterwards instead of drawing a square then popping a circle inside then drawing another square. You should be drawing consistently good squares at this point as wobbly shapes or rectangles don't allow you to make good circles.
Break the squares into bite-sized portions when starting (dividing the square into quarters as demonstrated in exercise #1 is perfectly okay to start, but you do want to move towards drawing without too many guides). Lightly indicate the curved arc moving from one side to another then continue into the next quadrant. If you're working on a table, feel free to rotate your sketchbook as you go. If the circle seems to wander into diamond-shape territory you can lightly draw in the corner-to-corner diagonals and measure a half-inch from the centre and make a tick-mark. The circle is an inch in diameter no matter what point you slice it in half, so this gives you another guide to work with until you're comfortable with the circle.
A circle is essentially a sphere without any depth added. When we get around to perspective we'll discuss how to draw those oval "ellipses" accurately, but, I think it's important to show where any exercise leads to later on. Since a circle sits exactly inside a square, it's not a great leap to understanding that a sphere fits inside a cube in the same way.
All these simplified shapes do lead to even more complex construction, like Loomis's sphere method for sonstructing heads, but you really need to have control of the basics so that the end result turns out how you want it to.
Like last week, spend 10-15 minutes of the exercise portion of your daily sketchbook drawing, then another 15-20 minutes drawing anything anyway you like. Of course, spreading the exercise and other drawing over the course of your day will make that half-hour seem like no time at all. Next week I'll be adding another, slightly more difficult step.
I hope all of you are having a great holiday season!
Friday, 19 December 2008
The First Drawing Exercise
After telling you all that I think there are some very basic skills not being taught at the earliest stages of traditional arts training and then making a convincing argument how important daily drawing is for the developing artist I'm ready to drop the first exercise on you.
Exercise #1
For one week spend at least ten to fifteen minutes a day drawing 1 inch squares in rows. Draw them as accurately as you can and make the rows as straight as you can. It's doesn't matter whether you draw them all at once or scattered across the day (though they do get easier as you go). I tried to keep them about a quarter-inch apart (I think the alleys between the squares help). You can draw the first one with a ruler to make it easier to draw the rest. I measured the first one I drew, but freehanded all of them. Now, I rarely try to get any line in one go; I usually lightly indicate where I think the line should be with the faintest of lines then make a stronger, darker line when I'm comfortable with the size, straightness and length of the line I'm going to draw.
I'm sure there are artists out there who can do this without the wobbles and rough edges you can see in my boxes. I'm also pretty sure some of you may struggle with this exercise, but it should develop your hand-eye coordination as well as some simple spacial analysis. While I think that's worthy enough for freehand squares to be an exercise, being able to draw squares with some degree of accuracy is very useful for drawing the figure and perspective from imagination.
It's pretty simple geometry, but rectangles and squares can be easily divided into halves, quarters, and thirds without having to recall too much math. Perspective drawing, which is really the bread and butter of imaginative drawing, really comes alive if you can take simple blocks and divide them into smaller sections, but I'm getting ahead of myself on that.
The great Andrew Loomis also built his standard head within a square. As you can see he placed things with more complex planning.
Exercise #1
For one week spend at least ten to fifteen minutes a day drawing 1 inch squares in rows. Draw them as accurately as you can and make the rows as straight as you can. It's doesn't matter whether you draw them all at once or scattered across the day (though they do get easier as you go). I tried to keep them about a quarter-inch apart (I think the alleys between the squares help). You can draw the first one with a ruler to make it easier to draw the rest. I measured the first one I drew, but freehanded all of them. Now, I rarely try to get any line in one go; I usually lightly indicate where I think the line should be with the faintest of lines then make a stronger, darker line when I'm comfortable with the size, straightness and length of the line I'm going to draw.
I'm sure there are artists out there who can do this without the wobbles and rough edges you can see in my boxes. I'm also pretty sure some of you may struggle with this exercise, but it should develop your hand-eye coordination as well as some simple spacial analysis. While I think that's worthy enough for freehand squares to be an exercise, being able to draw squares with some degree of accuracy is very useful for drawing the figure and perspective from imagination.
It's pretty simple geometry, but rectangles and squares can be easily divided into halves, quarters, and thirds without having to recall too much math. Perspective drawing, which is really the bread and butter of imaginative drawing, really comes alive if you can take simple blocks and divide them into smaller sections, but I'm getting ahead of myself on that.
The square is also used by artists as the base shape from which to develop the profile of the head. George Bridgman's is a great place to start playing with the head in a square and, again, this connects with perspective as you can use this as the basis for putting the head in a 3D box and draw the head accurately in perspective.
The downside to getting that head accurately in perspective is that Bridgman's head is really an intentional simplification, as you can see when I drop a square (rectangle, actually, since the head isn't anywhere near square) over a human skull.
Now, there is a great deal of skull-shape variation within ethnic types so the way a head would fit in a square could change quite a bit as you cross the globe, but, as will most things in drawing you have to start somewhere!
The downside to getting that head accurately in perspective is that Bridgman's head is really an intentional simplification, as you can see when I drop a square (rectangle, actually, since the head isn't anywhere near square) over a human skull.
Now, there is a great deal of skull-shape variation within ethnic types so the way a head would fit in a square could change quite a bit as you cross the globe, but, as will most things in drawing you have to start somewhere!
The great Andrew Loomis also built his standard head within a square. As you can see he placed things with more complex planning.
So that's the first exercise, draw as many accurate squares in rows as you can in 10-15 minutes over the course of the day, every day for seven days. Try and spend an additional 10-15 minutes drawing something entirely for you and have fun doing it. Don't worry about anything while doing this part of the daily drawing as there's a good chance the squares were somewhat frustrating. Draw longer if you're having fun, of course.
The next exercise will build on this one and be somewhat more difficult as we start introducing some line weight control.
I've convinced my eleven-year old son to give this a shot and I'll post his results as long as he wants to continue.
~R
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