Drawing is a fundamental skill for artists, emphasis on "skill." That means there are basic drawing rules and approaches that work, including these six tips on how to draw anything accurately.
Delmonico Building by Charles Sheeler, 1926, lithograph drawing. Adapted from an article by M. Stephen Doherty. |
1. Start by drawing shapes, not identifiable objects.
You'll hear this advice over and over again in art classes and
workshops. To understand what it really means, think about the way
children draw faces. They know that a face has two eyes, two ears, a
centered nose, and two lips. No matter how the person facing them is
posed, children will insist on including all the features, even if they
can only see one eye, one ear, and a protruding nose. They draw what
they know, not what they see. To some extent, adults do exactly the same
thing.
2. Consider the negative shapes as much as you do the positive shapes.
Students often find it difficult to determine how to draw an arm that
extends away from a model's body or the distance between two objects
sitting on a table. The way to do that is to imagine that the "negative
space," or the open space between the model's body and her arm, is a
solid object with a height, width, and length. The same technique can be
used when trying to determine how far one building is from another or
how high a head is above a model's shoulders. It helps to deal with the
negative space in the same way you deal with the positive shapes.
3. Visualize and draw the lines you can't see in order to draw the visible lines accurately.
Sometimes the best way to draw something that is partially
concealed from your view is to continue the lines as if you could
actually see it. For example, if you want to determine the
curvature of a bowl filled with fruit, draw the complete circular
top as if the bowl were empty, and then erase the sections that are
obstructed. And if you want to know how far a leg extends beyond a
person's waistline, drop an imaginary plumb line from the waist to the
floor, and then evaluate the shape of the triangle formed by the
leg, floor, and plumb line.
4. Draw connected shapes, not disconnected shapes. It's
very difficult to calculate how far a person's head is from the
bottom of his or her feet, the distance from one ear to the other,
or the distance from a far tree to one in the foreground unless
you draw all the shapes in between. That is, after guessing at the
total height of a standing figure and establishing a scale for the
drawing so that it fits on the sheet of paper, work your way down
from the head to the shoulders, from there to the waist, on to the
knees, etc, so that you can judge each shape in relationship to the
others.
Boxer by Charles Demuth, drawing. | ||
5. Draw light guidelines between shapes to better judge the distances between them.
Artist Robert Liberace recommends to start by making very light,
straight lines between all the component parts of the figure or
still life objects to guide your hand as you begin to refine a
drawing. Then gradually add more lines using Conté crayons,
graphite, charcoal, or colored pencils to darken the edges of the
shapes and the shadow patterns in between.
6. Start by drawing the lightest values and build to the darkest.
Most artists find that it makes sense to gradually build from the
lightest areas of their drawings to the darkest so they have an
opportunity to make adjustments along the way without damaging the
surface of the paper or creating ugly smudges where they have erased
inaccurate lines.
For more drawing ideas and tips, think about adding one of Daniel Greene's DVDs, including Portrait Drawing,
to your art-resource library. You'll discover this artist's unique
methods on viewing your subject and creating drawings that resonate with
the portrait drawings done by the Old Masters and Impressionists alike.
Enjoy!
Source:Artist daily
No comments:
Post a Comment