When Using Shapes To Draw, What Type Of Shapes Are We Identifying?

Introduction

Many of you may recognise this process if you lot bought my Watercolour Secrets DVDs in the past, or viewed the lessons more recently on Art Tutor.

It's based upon using a few very simple geometric shapes to construct animals, though the technique tin be used for human figures, landscape objects, buildings, vehicles - in fact near annihilation.

Still, it's ane of those skills that do good from periodically re-visiting, as a reminder to those who notwithstanding struggle and every bit an assistance to those who are just setting out.

Even experienced artists volition tell you that regularly doing some little basic doodles similar this refreshes their brain and helps them from over-complicating pictures.

The Problem - And the Solution

Ane of the difficulties for anyone learning to draw is that the brain tries to take in all the data and detail information technology sees in their discipline and so in attempting to transfer information technology to paper all in one go, shapes and proportions get jumbled upwards and distorted.

Very quickly, the item they're cartoon appears all misshapen and incorrect and frustration sets in.

Fear not. The solution can be pretty straightforward and that, equally with many things art, is to simplify.

If I gave you lot the post-obit list of numbers to expect at for v seconds then wait abroad for 30 seconds and then repeat them aloud, you'd probably struggle.....

402

626

285

517

783

Withal, if I rounded them up or down to the nearest 100, yous'd find things a lot easier to call back. So we have:-

400

600

300

500

800

In fact, you'd probably instinctively simplify even farther in your head, remembering  4,6,3,5 & 8  and and then just add the hundreds to each one as yous quoted them.

And that'southward really all we're going to do here, except nosotros use a pencil and simplify a complex figure to just v basic geometric shapes - the triangle, oval, oblong, circle and square.

In fact, if you lot think that the oval and oblong are but a stretched circumvolve and square respectively, you've actually only three shapes to think nearly.

In this short lesson, we're going to look how to draw a flamingo, a wondrous mix of elegant torso, spindly legs, the oddest-shaped beak and never-catastrophe neck.

I've chosen this because equally you'll see, it's made up of just those few shapes that can exist easily reproduced. The only area that we then take to bargain with is getting the relative proportions correct of each part of the body.

In a previous life, I adult a off-white corporeality of cartoon skills attending many a wearisome meeting, waiting for my items to be discussed.

This was long before Art Tutor was built-in but the contrary of those agenda papers provided an countless source of free drawing surfaces...

Ok, I couldn't take a photo of a flamingo into the meeting with me, merely by then, I was able to keep images in my head which I used to re-create from memory.

You lot tin can exercise the same the more you try it. Sketch by sketch, the easier it becomes.

This is how we (you) do it.

Permit's Become Started

Hither'due south the master reference photo of a lovely pink flamingo on a bright, sunny day. Information technology's a archetype pose, with the bird in shallow h2o, ready to use that huge beak to dig out morsels from the silt for his lunch.

Now if you step dorsum and detect the photo, y'all can see that information technology'due south quite like shooting fish in a barrel to interruption downwardly into several bones shapes. The body forms a user-friendly oval, with the tail creating a triangular fleck at the rear.

The long neck can be represented by a couple of oblongs, while the head and the beak tin, for now, be sketched as a pocket-sized oval and triangle respectively.

You lot can see from the blue shapes that I've overlaid on the photo how very uncomplicated the technique is. Not only does the image expect much less daunting, simply this is going to help considerably in making sure your proportions are correct earlier you start on the details.

Hither, I've deleted the photo and nosotros're left with the basic shapes. Without fifty-fifty picking upward the pencil, you can run across already that the outline looks pretty good and very much like a flamingo, even though it's merely triangles, ovals and oblongs.

More than importantly, the proportions are correct, ie: the legs wait long and spindly plenty, that neck is the correct length and the body is neither too large or small.

The confidence this gives you now to move in and add together the more realistic shapes and details cannot exist overstated.

Now Information technology's Your Turn

Now print a copy of my reference photograph at the size y'all desire - black and white will exist fine.

Using a piece of tracing paper (or if you lot oasis't got tracing newspaper, greaseproof/baking newspaper will piece of work just besides) tape it downward lightly over your photograph to keep information technology in place.

Now lightly sketch in several basic shapes to create the crude outline of the flamingo. Don't add whatever detail all the same.

Yous don't have to use the aforementioned shapes that I've used. Y'all might encounter diverse parts of the bird differently. That's fine. Information technology's how you see it that matters.

I've done my pencil outline a niggling heavier than normal and then you can see it clearer, but when y'all exercise this yourself, keep it feint and simply dark enough that yous can see it.

Once y'all've put in the bolder, more realistic lines, you lot tin can gently erase the guidelines to get out a make clean image.

Remember, you're not tracing the outline. It's merely an estimation of shape and form - just it will be a close one at that.

Next, remove your tracing paper from the photograph and comparison it all the time, start making a more realistic outline of the bird, using the bones shapes equally a guide, as I have started to practise on the photo below.

Annotation that my sketch is a bit smudgy. This is because I was using a plastic eraser on the grease-proof newspaper and it's made it look a fleck messy. A putty eraser would accept been better.

Once you lot've completed this bit, gently erase the original crude guidelines and add in whatever further detail you want, such as feathers, the eye, shading and and then on. Here's my version beneath. I've gone over this i in ink so you can encounter information technology more clearly just a pencil is fine.

I could have added a lot more particular and fifty-fifty worked a bit slower to go a more refined prototype. However, I wanted to bear witness you that you lot can attain a very passable impression of your subject in a very short fourth dimension.

Now Do It Again...

Ok, now do this all over again, but this time, using ordinary drawing paper, skip the tracing paper stage and endeavor to sketch the crude outline freehand, once again using bones shapes and comparing with the sketch you've just produced.

This previous endeavor you lot've made volition however exist fresh in the memory and y'all may surprise yourself how close y'all get to a well-proportioned drawing, without the use of the tracing paper over the photo.

Do it a niggling larger or smaller if y'all like, but concentrate on those bones shapes and keeping the proportions the same.

Don't be afraid to use the eraser if you think one of the shapes is a bit out. Once more, some other reason for cartoon just lightly at this stage.

Compare this with your first effort. It may not be quite as close, but I bet it won't exist too far out.

Here'due south a few more at different sizes. The whole lot took nigh two minutes and I didn't use an eraser.

If a line or shape was 'out' as in the body, height left, I but carried on with a bigger oval until it looked right. The extra lines actually add energy and movement.

What you volition find is, with a niggling practice, your encephalon becomes attuned to judging the size and relationship of these basic shapes past eye, but past glancing at the photo or your previous sketches as you lot draw.

For this flamingo sketch, I'd give yourself say thirty to sixty seconds to judge the shapes and put them over the photo, with perhaps another minute to put in the more than realistic outline.

Possibly another minute for the details and shading. Three minutes tops.

If these times seem tight, that'due south intentional. Y'all'll stop getting bogged down into detail and become the basics right.

Once you've striking these timescales, reduce them and exercise it once again, then yous can finish the whole detailed sketch in just a minute or so.

It'll contain a character and a realism that you lot'll never achieve with a laborious overworked cartoon.

There'south No Bad-mannered Angles, Only Different Shapes

And to help you along the way, I've added some more than flamingo photos for you to exercise below.

Remember, the shapes will be slightly different, as will their positions, only it should show you that at that place'due south no such thing every bit an 'awkward angle' that is more difficult to depict than another.

It's all a matter of picking out each part of the trunk and selecting a shape that suits that detail pose.

Here'due south my version below of some of these photos. Notation in the sketches, bottom centre, how I've done niggling more than scribble a few indeterminate shapes.

The eye sees the nearest flamingos to the left and tells the brain that those other shapes in the groundwork are actually more of the aforementioned.

And in the one, meridian left, I've sketch two ovals inside each other similar 2 doughnuts to allow myself to navigate the double bend in the cervix of the flamingo. Accept a look at the relevant reference photograph above to run across what I mean.

When you accept a few moments, perhaps on the train or sitting downward with a drink for 10 minutes, have a go then. Continue it unproblematic. Treat these every bit not much more doodles, and then there's no pressure on you if yous don't finish them.  However, set yourself that deadline to stop yourself little.

I do hope yous'll attempt this technique. It's one that volition help to acuminate up your sketching skills by encouraging you to not only simplify things simply to speed up your drawing as well. The more than you do it, the more than natural it becomes and the better information technology will look.

Remember, exercise is the all-time tutor of all!

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Source: https://www.arttutor.com/blog/201801/how-start-drawing-using-simple-shapes

Posted by: kennedyweds2000.blogspot.com

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