Lesson Three
Last week we started digging in how to see as an artist, looking at angles. This week, we'll look at some additional skills to make that easier. We will figure out how to map around a drawing, how to oriente.
Let's go back to our simple viewfinder
Let's make an easy division of the space, something we can do in our heads, find the halfway points,
across the top and down the sides.
Some people like to mark these point right on their viewfinder to help them see the half way points. You can use this just like a map to find your line locations, go from your viewfinder, to your paper. Make little marks on your paper to make judging positions easier. It's helpful to mark in the quarter marks too, especially on bigger drawings. Now your viewfinder space has just been divided into a simple grid, a grid you can do on the fly. Most of the scissor is in the right side, but a part of the handle moves across the mid-line and exits out the top of the page just left of center. We have a way to map that now, instead of guessing. It exits half way between the center line and the quarter mark. We know the co-ordinates.
Project:Draw this little view finder of the scissor handle. Square off your page into a rectangle, do the half way marks to help orient positions of the rectangle. Mark the quarter marks, just because it's a good habit. Use an envelope approach if you'd like to come into the shape of the scissor handle. Make the block in and then smooth out your lines. Voila!
Project Now, Draw from your own viewfinder, find a very simple subject, help orient yourself with the halfway and quarter points.Try it with all the weird computer cords around your computer.....
They used to do this technique in the Renaissance era. Here's a woodcut of an artist using a grid to help see the foreshortening of the model. It's kind of elaborate....drawing from real life observations was a new concept back then.
You can actually buy a free standing tool that is a giant grid. However, it is fairly easy to do in your head with a little practice. We can imagine a grid laid over our subject. In an even simpler method, We can learn to see half and quarter marks on our subject. Here's a grid laid over a subject, we can start to imagine and think like this, to help orient ourselves around the drawing:
Where are the half way points? Is the bowl in the middle? Creating an imaginary grid mentally helps us measure up and down and side to side. The bowl is appox. 5 squares wide and 4 squares tall top to bottom. We're good on making an ellipse, and we can see the angles of the bottom part of the bowl. Try drawing this little bowl. Block in the general shape of the marbles, then go in for more definition.
As a side benefit of this concept, let's say you wanted to blow up a drawing into a big drawing or painting, like Chuck Close or Franz Kline or do a fresco on the Sistine Chapel. Artist use this exact technique for scaling up. How? Grid the drawing, grid the big paper, wall or canvas,and scale up. The proportions will be the same, no matter what size.
Project Take one of your own drawings or photographs and scale it up using this method. try it once so you understand how to do it.
Here's an actual working photo and drawing from turn of the century Art Nouveau Artist, Alphonse Mucha. His photo & finished magazine cover. Note his complex grid lines marked out over the photo.
By thinking about a grid system, it helps you think about measuring across the form, How wide is something compared to something else. Where is one side in relation to the other side, higher or lower? Bounce around your drawing with your eyes, compare this to that.
Artists like to pick something convenient to measure with. For example a marble in the bowl becomes a unit of measure for the rest of the drawing process.
How many marbles wide is the bowl? It's about 5 marbles wide.
The bowl become proportionally correct compared to the marble.
Project Pick a smaller unit within your view, and measure the bigger picture based on that unit.
Classic example would be the head compared to the rest of the body, typically 7 to 1 ratio on adults.
Just look and try this several times both horizontally and vertically until it seems easy to do.
The process of measuring with the Block-in stage.
The first thing is to look for some feature on the subject that can be used as a reference for all other measurements, a unit of measure.
Next, holding the pencil with the thumb and index finger and turning it both horizontally and vertically, or even a diagonal, line up the pencil tip with an edge and compare the distances.
How many units of measure is one thing compared to the next. This will work all around the drawing.
It is important to learn to draw correct proportions right from the start. A lot of drawing mistakes are made because people rush this process. You can always go back and double check your measurements. This is especially true in oil painting where shapes are constantly expanding. It is usually necessary to go back in and re-draw a painting at some point in the painting process.
To sum up the process:
Look for an obvious unit measure—a length or width of something obvious in the subject, in figure drawing, artists use the length of the subject's head, or a nose, or whatever seems convenient.
Begin by measuring the ratio of big masses and then break them down to smaller sections.
Keep the perspective constant by holding your arm straight out, closing one eye as you measure, and stand at the same spot. If you shift around, the distance or perspective, or the ratios will be off...... That's exactly what cubist did!!!!! They looked at things from different sides and distances. They shifted around, changing the point of view.
Note all the important “landmarks” that indicate the width, length, and end points of edges before starting to block-in the contour.
Measure twice; mark once like the carpenters' motto. Often, if shapes aren't measured correctly the first time, and you get the feeling that some proportions are off , just measure again at any point in the drawing process, this goes for painting too.
TIP: look at your drawing (or painting) with a mirror to see the image backwards, you will then know EXACTLY what is wrong with your drawing.
Project, Set up a simple still life and draw it two ways. Draw it straight ahead with correct measurement. Then draw it like Picasso, by changing your perspective, walking around to another view point, high or low, do a cubist drawing of your still life.
Here's a fun kids' project of a self portrait from the side and from a frontal view. Try it!
These drawings were done at home with this concept in mind, drawing from different points of view.
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Below are some example of figure drawings from the Arts Student League with construction lines in place. Take some time to study the drawings. You can see exactly how the artists were thinking, how they measured across the form, comparing side to side, big construction lines still in place. Note a vertical to measure angles from. Shadow shapes are starting to be indicated, once the main contour lines are established. The second drawing shows a complex shape simplified using our block-in method.
A heads up on shadows, they are thought of as shapes, just the same as contour shapes..... big flat shapes to begin with, one value.
Notice the nice squared off page.
Both these drawing have great line quality, you can see how the artists are constructing their drawings by establishing their envelopes, blocking in one side then the next, going in with confident lines once they know where everything is, mapped out and correct relative to the rest of the figure.
Negative Space. Sometimes it's useful not to draw your subject, instead draw the space around the subject. The blank part outside is called the negative space.
Art term figure/ground relationship....it means the subject and the space the subject is sitting in.
How would you begin to draw this plant? Looks complicated, but it's not......
If we draw the in between shapes, we can actually draw the plant. I've drawn in the negative space with photoshop lines in black.
Drawing negative space is fun! It's like a puzzle.
Take Home Project, Do a Negative Space drawing. Plants or Chairs are perfect subjects. Can you create an interesting texture in your negative spaces? To draw this stool, I would draw the inbetween spaces, the negative space.
This is the end of week, three, we have covered a lot of concepts for drawing. Next lesson we will talk about light and shadows. Be on the look out this week for shadows, start noticing them!
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