DrawingFor

Beginners

The Ultimate Crash Course to Learning the Basics of How to Draw In No Time

By Amy Taggart

Copyright 2014

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced -mechanically,electronically, or by any other means, including photocopying- without the permissionof the publisher. Disclaimer The information provided in this book is designed to provide helpful information on thesubjects discussed. The author's books are only meant to provide the reader with thebasics knowledge of the topic in question, without any warranties regarding whether thereader will, or will not, be able to incorporate and apply all the information provided.Although the writer will make his best effort share her insights, the topic in question is acomplex one, and each person needs a different timeframe to fully incorporate newinformation. Neither this book, nor any of the author's books constitute a promise that thereader will learn anything within a certain timeframe.

Table of Contents Introduction: Are You Ready for an Amazing Journey? Look Around You - This is Where It All Begins... Chapter 1: Let's Get Started (Picking Materials And a Proper Place) Chapter 2: Warming Up Like a Real Artist Chapter 3: Basic Lines (Straight, Curvy, Thickness) Chapter 4: Tone (Don't Skip the Exercises!) Chapter 5: Understanding Forms Chapter 6: Light & Shadows Chapter 7: Proportion & Scale (Measuring, Drawing Faces, Distorting) Chapter 8: Perspective - What It Is, And How to Use It Chapter 9: Texture and Surface (Hard, Soft, Rough) Chapter 10: Composition (Rules, Spacing & Lines) Chapter 11: Drawing Figures Chapter 12: The Art of Caricature Chapter 13: Short Reference on Materials and Grades Chapter 14: Extra Drawing Tutorial Techniques Conclusion: Summing It Up - Where To Go From Here

ManteshwerTypewritten TextAhashare.com

Dedicated to those who love going beyond their own frontiers.

Keep on pushing,

Amy Taggart

IntroductionAre You Ready for an Amazing

Journey? Drawing is an incredibly instant, creative and expressive way to make an artwork. Itcan be big and bold, or small and secretive, and people have being doing it ever sincehumans lived in caves and began to draw animals and people on the walls. It is alsodiverse; you can draw everything from photorealistic portraits to graphic novels, fromdoodled cartoons to huge architectural studies of buildings and cathedrals. Whateverstyle you like, from abstract drawings to Manga cartoons, there are a set of fundamentalprinciples that if you take the time to learn them, will vastly improve your ability andtalent, and you will be able to create the artworks that you have always wanted tomake. This eBook plots out these starting principles, and teaches you what they are,how they work and the ways to learn them. Exercises are interspaced throughout thetext, along as some additional ones at the end, to help this learning process. If at timesyou feel out of your comfort zone as you work through them, then that is no bad thing. Feel free to follow the exercises and chapters in the order that suits you. They areorganized in a way that allows for this, but at the same time, regardless of experience, itis never a bad idea to brush up on old skills. On the next page is a drawing I completedwhilst working in the Australian outback for six months. It is made up of six sheets ofA3 paper that I carried around with me as I worked. It combines every single principlethat we will work through in the eBook, and is a good example of how each exerciseand tip can be useful when they come together in an artwork. Are you ready to start drawing? Let's get started! Amy Taggart

Look Around YouThis is Where It All Begins...

One of the most important things about drawing is to look at what you are drawing. Although this seems like an obvious point to make, it is a vital one. Many people, whenconfronted with an object, say a car, will draw an image of that object based on howthey think it looks, rather than what they actually see in front of them. The first thought isto make sure that the drawing has four wheels, a body, headlights, windows and asteering wheel. These parts are undeniably physical aspects of a car, but they willalways look slightly differently to how we expect to see them in our heads. Forexample, despite knowing that when we look at a car it has four wheels, we may only beable to see two or three of them depending on where we stand. Again, every car has ametal or plastic body and headlights, but it is the curves and lines of these that make itdistinctive and give it character, just like a good drawing. How the car is lit affectshow the windows look, does the sunlight reflect the scene around the car, or can youlook through them into the interior and see the steering wheel? These are the details thatmake the difference in a drawing, and really add to the quality and integrity of yoursubject.

At first this could seem complicated and a lot to think about, but dont worry, there is aneasy way to make sure you notice the details and bring out the real characteristics ofwhat you want to draw. This can be summed up into a fairly simple rule: spend roughlytwice as much time looking at your subject as actually drawing it. This may seem oddbut it works. The rule is also as literal as it sounds. There are a few fun drawing exercises that wewill complete during the course of this book that will really help you to understand andrealize how this rule will seriously improve your drawings skills. It is directly linkedwith the practice of drawing from life, simply meaning to draw what you see aroundyou. For example, if you wanted to draw a portrait of your cat or pet, then you could sitdown with a sketchbook and draw them while they were asleep on the floor or lying inthe sun in the garden. If you decided to use a photo as your inspiration then you

wouldnt be drawing from life. There is absolutely nothing wrong with working fromphotographs, it is essential for drawing certain subjects, but the point is that drawingfrom life will give your artworks an edge of realism and knowledge of your subject thatis impossible to fake.

The great part of drawing from life is that it is so easy to practice. The potential forchoosing something that you would like to draw is limitless. Take a second to lookaround yourself now, maybe you are relaxing at home, or reading on a train or even abeach if you are lucky. Look at the view or something you are wearing, or a piece ofjewelry that you are particularly fond of; everything is a possible subject for you. Everything at all without exception, it is important to draw exactly what you want todraw yourself.

Copying Where drawing from life develops the realism and integrity of your work, and trainsyour artistic eye at the same time, copying others allows you to learn to draw indifferent styles. It is a technique that has been used for centuries by artists in order to practice and honetheir skills. If there is a particular style that you are especially keen to learn, then Irecommend making copies of the work that you admire. It teaches you how fine artists,designers, cartoonists, architects and graffiti, manga and graphic novel artists all tacklethe visual intricacies of their particular craft. Through copying you will learn certaintechniques, and then you can change and adapt these into your own unique drawings andartworks. There is also no reason why you cannot transfer skills that you learn from onestyle into another. For example, learning traditional figure drawing will increase yourknowledge, skill and talent at understanding and representing the human form. You willbe able to realize how joints and muscles move and react, how to show stress, strengthand suppleness, and these are skills that will considerable improve the drawings thatyou would produce for, say, the characters of a graphic novel. At the core of all this are traditional drawing skills. If you wish to make great drawingsthen take the time to learn and practice these skills. Even if you would prefer to alwayswork in a certain stylized way, if you learn these fundamentals then the standard of yourwork, whatever the genre, will improve.

Goals and Targets Learning to draw can often be helped along its way by having a few goals and targets inmind. These will vary tremendously from person to person, but they are undoubtedlyuseful motivations. Im sure you already have some idea of what you would like toachieve. Maybe it is to draw a self-portrait, or a drawing of someone in your family, ora certain landscape. It could be to learn to draw in a particular style, produce realisticcartoons and Caricatures but whatever your motivation and aims, there is no reason whyyou cannot achieve them with patience, practice, time and work.

Drawing Exercises These exercises build upon and augment one another. They cover the fundamentalaspects of drawing, and as you complete each tutorial you will gain artistic skills,knowledge and techniques that all interlink. Practicing the skills that you learn in theLine Tutorial for example will also help with figure drawing. They are designed to belinear, and to follow a natural progression that you will develop along. If you want tomix it up and change them around then you are more than welcome. They have beenarranged in a way that allows these skills and important artistic facts and drawingtechniques to build up with both a structured and organic feel. It is worth dating your work. Writing the date will allow you to easily keep track ofyour progression. It is a rewarding and healthy experience to look back through yourolder work, with a smile on your face, and see how much your style and ability haschanged and grown. But more about this late, first you need to start making somedrawings! On another technical note, as you will be looking at your computer screen while youwork and follow tutorials, it is worth switching your screensaver off, so that you donthave to worry about it later.

Chapter 1Let's Get Started (Picking Materials

And a Proper Place) So you are all ready to begin, well, what are the bare essentials that you need to learn todraw? These are the few essentials that you must have in order to start. It is vital thatyou have something to draw with, something to draw on, a suitable place to draw andsomething to draw. At this initial stage, dont worry too much about feeling like youhave to buy some really expensive paper and graphite pencils from an art store just soyou can learn the basics. Start with what is accessible around you, and acquirewhatever you need along the way.

Pencil/Pen For the first few exercises, any type of pencil or pen be it a biro, an ink pen or a simplepencil will suffice. Of course if you do already have access to quality materials then byall means use them, but it is important to state that that they arent essentials yet!

Sketchbook A sketchbook is a must have! Not only does it keep all your drawings and exercisestogether in one place, it also creates a chronology in the order of your drawings. This isan excellent way to track your progress and development, and this idea of understandingand learning about how you will evolve artistically is a very useful and creativemindset to adopt right from the start.

A Working Space You must have a smooth, strong surface to work on. This really can be anything from akitchen table to a state of the art drawing board. It could be a sanded plank of woodresting on concrete blocks or a beautiful and ornate oak desk. Use whatever you haveavailable to you, and enjoy it for what it is. Secondly, a decent light source is essential. This is exceptionally important; if you cansituate yourself next to a window then this is ideal, as natural light is the best option. Ifyou are able to, re-arrange slightly so that your work surface will catch the sunlight. Ifnot, or you are going to draw once the sun has set, a lamp is a great aid. It is reallyworth buying a decent quality angle poise lamp so that you can change the position ofyour light source to suit your drawing needs. This will also protect your eyes, asstraining your vision in a room that is too dark is not a sensible idea, and one that caneasily be avoided.

Atmosphere When you have set up your well lit drawing space, with your materials laid out and youfeel ready to begin, take a short moment to think about this as your studio. Drawing canbe an incredibly rewarding, challenging and personal experience, so make theatmosphere of your artistic time enjoyable and suited to your personal tastes. If youwould prefer to work with music playing, then do, it is your time and your studio, somake it how you want it to be. Humans are creatures of habit, if we enjoy activities thengenerally we are much more likely to repeat them until we incorporate them into ourlifestyle and they become familiar to us. This is exactly the same with drawing.

Subject Of course you need something to draw. Throughout the course of the tutorials you willdraw many different objects, textures, figures, buildings and characters to allow you tolearn different skills and techniques. This will be done in a variety of styles and waysbut it is also a good idea to place a few objects around you that, for your own reasons,you like. These will be things that you can return to if you wanted to practice atechnique, or repeat a part of a tutorial. Also by drawing the same object again andagain, you will really start to learn about it by looking closely and noticing itspeculiarities. Over time you will start to see more, new dints in its surface or thedifferent types of textures on its surface for example. By drawing it repeatedly over thecourse of the tutorials, you will also be able to follow your own progression as youimprove. The only limitation to what these objects can be is your imagination, it couldbe an old skateboard wheel, a favorite plant, a camera or even your own phone, the onlycriteria is that you personally enjoy the way it looks and you have some kind ofconnection with it.

Equipment List This is a basic list of what you will need:

EraserPencilPensRulerInkBrushesCharcoal sticksSketchbook (A4 or A3 size will give you space to draw freely and use moreexpressive lines)

Chapter 2Warming Up Like a Real Artist

As with any other activity, warming up is a vital part of learning to draw. It makes yourhand loosen up and become free and expressive, as well as helping to get your brain andthoughts into the right gear. This can be done in a few quick, easy and fun exercises anddoesnt take longer than five or ten minutes to complete. Warming up also helps you to get over that feeling of being confronted with a clear andcrisp white page of your sketchbook and worrying about where and how to make thefirst mark. This can often feel daunting, especially when you are starting to learn todraw, so warming up in this way can help to make that little, but important, first step. The basic concept is to entirely cover a page with quick and free lines, shapes anddoodles. Work until the page is full, and dont worry about making anything precise orcareful, it doesnt matter what the actual image looks like, whats more important is thatyour hand and eye work together, and prepare themselves for the lesson in hand. 1. Firstly open a new, clean, page of your sketchbook. 2. Pick any point on the paper and draw ten circles 3. Now move to another section and draw ten triangles (dont use a ruler) 4. Move your hand again and draw ten squares 5. Repeat with spirals 6. Continue this process until the entire page is full

Once you start to gain more confidence with the warming up procedure, feel free tochange and mix up the order, number and actual shape of the images that you draw. Theessential element is to make sure that the page is filled up, and that you make expressivemarks. Once you feel comfortable doing this, start to include some of the following:

Dashes

Zig zags

Cross Hatches

Hearts

Ellipses

Change pencil/pen halfway through

Change color halfway through

Chapter 3Basic Lines (Straight, Curvy, Thickness) The simplest place to start when learning to draw is to begin with learning a little aboutthe drawn line. Every child knows that when you press a pencil to a piece of paper andmove it around, you will draw a line. Not that many people known that the amount ofpressure you use, the way you hold the pencil and the speed of the stroke all have amajor impact on how that line actually looks, and the impression it makes on anartwork. For this next exercise, open your sketchbook to a fresh page and practice drawing lines. It is best to use a pencil for this exercise. ~ Firstly, start with ten long straight strokes that stretch the entire length of the page. Asyou move the pencil, alter the pressure that you apply with your hand. You will seehow the harder you push down, the darker and more pronounced that part of the line willbe. Where you ease off and let the pencil glide softly over the surface, the mark willlook softer and lighter. ~ Now draw ten curvy, messy lines using the same principle, change how muchpressure you place on the pencil each time and see how the aesthetic changes.

Although it may feel as though we are just doodling here, this is the beginning oflearning a significantly important lesson about how to put emotion, life and energy intoyour artworks. When anyone looks at a drawing, the way that the lines themselves aredrawn tells the viewer something about both the artist, and the subject. Before we gointo more detail, try the next part of the tutorial: ~ Take your pencil and draw 20 short aggressive lines. Group them close together andmake them scratchy by pushing down hard and flicking the pencil quickly over thepaper. ~ Now next to this, in a blank space on the page, draw 20 longer wavy lines, let yourhand be calm and gentle and take your time. Think of them like waves on a tranquil sea.

Compare the two. How do they differ? ~ For the final exercise in this tutorial, take another page and divide it in two bydrawing a line down the middle. On the left hand side, fill the section with aggressive,quick marks in a similar way to how you completed the warm up. When this is finished,fill the right hand side with the tranquil, wavy and soft lines that you practicedpreviously. When this is done, you will be able to see a clear contrast between the two.

The purpose of this mark making is not to depict an object; instead, we are drawing toexperiment with how the thickness, shade and way that a line is drawn can have anemotional effect and send a certain message. To put this in context, if we decided thatwe wanted to draw a weeping willow tree on a peaceful summer's day, then thedrooping branches would be better represented by soft flowing lines of pencil. On theother hand, if we were drawing a large fight scene between two mortal enemies in agraphic novel, then aggressive, punchy lines would be much more fitting to describe thebattling characters. In the next few tutorials, we will move onto how to create the formsof objects and characters.

Chapter 4Tone (Don't Skip the Exercises!)

In art, tone means how light or dark an area is. It refers to a spectrum with white at oneend, black at the other and varying shades of grey in between. Tone is directly linked tolight. If sunlight shines directly onto a crumpled white t-shirt for example, the parts thatthe light catches will be the brightest, and the recesses of the folds, where the shadowsare formed, will be the darkest. Light and shade will be discussed in greater depth in afuture tutorial, so for now, we will concentrate on learning some great techniques forcreating tone on your drawings. Tonal change describes the movement from light to dark across a surface. For example,diffused sunlight shining through a window onto a dining room table may leave one endlighter than the other. If you wanted to draw this scene, Instead of a strong contrastbetween the light and dark areas, a gradual change of tone across the surface of the tablewould need to be created, this is called tonal change. There are a few easy to learntechniques that can create this effect. It is also worth mentioning that in the US, tone issometimes referred to as value.

Exercise ~ Pencil tone ~ For the first exercise, you will need a pencil and your sketchbook. Begin bydrawing a rectangle roughly 2cm high by 6cm long, it doesnt have to be precise. ~ Now start at the left hand side and shade the first cm row as dark as you can, pressthe pencil firmly onto the paper and keep your lines all moving in the same direction. ~ Imagine this rectangle as a spectrum of tone. Darkness is now represented on the lefthand side; light is on the right. You need to gradually shade from the left across to theright and ease the pressure from your hand as you move, making your strokes softer andlighter as they move towards the light. You will finish with black on the left, white onthe right, and shades of grey in between. You have now created a visual tonal change. Try this technique with different shapesand different grades of pencils, the softness of 2, 3 or 4B grade pencils will give you agood effect. You may notice how it is easier to achieve a smoother surface and tonalchange with these pencils. We will develop this in the next exercise. ~ Draw another rectangle of similar proportions to the last. Repeat the same process,however, this time try to achieve a tonal change where the pencil marks areuntraceable. This may take more time because you have to build up the tone gradually,dont be afraid to work on one particular area for longer than another, or to drawseveral layers until you are satisfied with the result.

Crosshatching This is an effective shading method for achieving tonal change quickly, in a sketchy andstylized way. Crosshatching is often used in graphic novels and is a great technique touse when sketching. The basic principle is that you shade with diagonal lines, again alldrawn together in the same direction, and that the closer they are together, the darkerthat area will be. Parts with widely spaced lines will seem much lighter in yourdrawings. This is the first part, next you draw another set of diagonal lines that point ina different direction, so that the lines cross over one another. Where there are morecrossed lines, that area will be tonally darker. This can be seen in the image below.

Exercise ~ Crosshatching ~ Draw out another rectangle similar to the previous ones and start to fill it with quickdiagonal lines. Closely group them together on the left hand side then gradually spacethem out as you move towards the right. ~ Again, starting at the left, draw another series of diagonal lines that cross the firstones at a different angle. Practice this on other parts of the page, shade areas and experiment with the length andproximity of the lines.

Ink Washes The final method of achieving a tonal change is to use an ink wash. Like otherconcentrated liquids, the more water you mix with ink, the lighter it will become. Ink isa great artistic material to use for creating tonal change and shade because it can bemanipulated and changed as you apply it to your drawing. By adding more water towet ink on your page, you can spread it out and lighten the tone. For these exercises,place a sheet of newspaper behind the page that you will be working on in order to stopany excess ink soaking through into the next few pages of your sketchbook.

Ink wash exercise ~ Draw 2 different shapes, a large triangle and a circle in your sketchbook and makethem big enough to almost cover the entire page. You will also need a pot of artistsink, a medium sized paintbrush and a small pot containing some water. An old mug isideal, but you can just as easily use an old yoghurt pot or small container. Black Indianink is best for this exercise. ~ Begin by applying ink with your brush to one side of the interior of the shape. Paintthis directly from the inkpot and be generous about how much you use. While the ink istill wet, and with a damp brush, spread the ink across to the right until the shape is fullycovered. Try to create a steady gradient between the light and the dark. ~ With your other shape, wet the surface first, before you apply the ink. You will findthat the ink will run and swirl across the page but work quickly and see if you canachieve a similar tonal change across the surface of the shape. With these exercises youdont have to worry about perfection, concentrate mainly on trying to create thetransition of dark to light. Try and repeat these exercises in ways that suit you. Experiment and play. Take thedifferent materials and see what happens when you work with them in new ways. Tip: Experimentation is a vital part of learning to draw. It is also an excellent way to learnabout the particular qualities and characteristics of these tools so that you gain a strongsense of control over how to use them. Play and experimentation also creates artisticconfidence and this will, in turn, come across in your drawings. Tone is an incredibly important aspect of drawing. It is present in almost all kinds ofartwork. When you have grasped the fundamentals, keep practicing and before long youwill be creating amazing drawings of anything you like, from detailed portraits tointricately shaded tattoo designs and everything in between.

Chapter 5Understanding Form

The form is the shape of an object in three-dimensional space. When sketching, peopleoften have a tendency to flatten the subject when they draw it on the paper.Understanding form will give your drawings volume and body, and will make it mucheasier to learn to draw excellent buildings and street scenes, as well as figures andobjects. It will also give you a solid base to learn the techniques of perspectivedrawing that will be taught in the future tutorial. Basically, in drawing, to give something form means to make it look three-dimensional. This starts with the way that you draw it, the lines, and then is finished by the way that itis shaded, the tone. Let's start with an example, taking the simple shape of a square; wewill make it three-dimensional by turning it into a cube. You will need a ruler and arubber for this exercise, if you have squared paper, that will also make the task easier,but it is not essential. ~ First draw four lines to make a square, use a ruler and make each side 4 cm long. ~ Find the middle point of the square and mark it. ~ Use this point as the bottom right hand corner of a second square that will overoverlap the first when you draw it. A tip for drawing this second shape is to imaginethat the first square has simply been moved 2cm to the left and 2cm upwards.

~ Now join, with the ruler and your pencil, each corner of the first square to thecorresponding corner of the second. Use the shape below as guidance.

You now have a cube. Take a moment and l ook at what you have drawn. This image isalso an optical illusion. If you concentrate your eyes on each different square in turn,you will see how it pops in and out of being at the front or the back of the cube. ~ On the same page, repeat the same steps and draw another cube in a clear area of thepaper. This time, however, only draw three lines to connect the squares together. ~ Erase the other lines until your drawing looks like the image below.

You now have a cube, and it is time to use what we learnt in the last tutorial and applytone in order to turn the line drawing into a three-dimensional form. ~ You can see how only three sides of the cube are visible. Take your pencil and shadethe left hand side of the cube. Press down so that a darker tone is achieved andremember to keep all your pencil marks flowing in the same direction to achieve asmooth even finish. When this is completed, move to the side nearest to you and againshade the square. This time, dont apply as much pressure to the pencil and apply alighter tone. If you want, you can also shade a small shadow on the left hand side togive the impression that the cube is resting on the ground. You have now successfullymanaged to give an object three-dimensional form. ~ You can now continue to fill up the page with different forms. Make some larger orsmaller than others and try new shapes. You can also elongate the forms by placing thesecond shape further away from the first before you join them up with the connectinglines to make them three-dimensional. Whatever the shape, the principle remains thesame.

Ant Exercise There is another excellent drawing exercise to try out at this point that links drawingfrom life with learning to understand the form of an object. It involves thinking like anant and making a drawing using only one continuous line. The exercise forces you toreally look closely at what you are drawing, and although you may find the end resultinteresting, the exercise itself will benefit your skills greatly in the long run. You canuse either a pencil or a pen for this, but I would recommend a ballpoint ink pen, as thiswill give the most consistent line quality for your drawing. You also need a way oftiming 5 minutes, so a clock or a phone stopwatch is necessary as well. ~ Find an object that has both an interior and exterior, like a cup, or an open tin or evensomething much more complicated if you are feeling adventurous. This will be yoursubject. ~ Place your subject on your desk or somewhere close, where you can see it easily, inthe interests of clarity, I will say that it is a cup. ~ Now rest your pen on the paper. For the next five minutes you will draw a continuousline that traces the path of an imaginary ant crawling all over the cup in front of you. You have to imagine the path that would be left as the insect crawled around the back,over the rim, inside and all around the entire outside surface of the cup and its handle. Trace this line with your pen the entire time and never let it leave the paper. Imaginethat the ant has stood in paint, and as it walks its feet will leave little painted footprints,your drawn line are these footprints. There is one more thing ~ You must never look at the paper and you cannot take your eyes off the cup! After five minutes is up, your drawing is finished and you may take your pen off thepaper and look at what you have created. This sketch may look abstract, but incompleting the exercise, you are teaching your brain to think more clearly about form. Ifyou have the time and enjoy the challenge, it is worth repeating this exercise but changethe parameters to suit yourself and to keep it fun. Try setting a different time limit, ordrawing for the duration of a song for example. The more you experiment with thisexercise and practice it, the more your creative abilities and drawing skills will evolveand you will reap the rewards later on.

The main point of these exercises is to start to think about the subject of your drawing asa three dimensional object in three-dimensional space. The more you practice both theway you think and draw forms, the more lifelike, realistic, and better they will become. This is also true for many different styles of drawing, and these basic shapes andtechniques are important foundation building blocks for the great drawings that you willcreate in the future.

Chapter 6Light & Shadows

We have learnt how to draw line, tone and form. It is now time to develop these skillsby introducing light to the mix, and we will watch how it affects surfaces and changesthe way that people, buildings and objects are seen. We will learn through step-by-stepinstructions how to add light and shadow to your drawings, and by the end of thistutorial, you will also be able to draw a realistic human eye. Light allows us to see the things that we want to draw to be seen. Seems an obviousstatement, but light also determines how they are seen. The way that a subject is lit uphas a huge effect on how we draw it. The light and shadows of an image can change theentire mood of a drawing. It is important to remember that the direction of the light willdictate the position of the shadows. Where the light directly hits the object, the surfacewill, of course, be brighter. It is important to look at how the shadows are created andwhat they look like, because it is often not what you would expect.

Understanding Shadows Exercise Clear a space on you working area and choose a round object such as a golf ball or aping-pong ball. If you dont have either of these to hand, any kind of sphere will do,even a piece of fruit. Make sure you also have a light that can be moved around easilyand held in a variety of places. If you dont have an angle poise lamp then a torch willwork, or even download a flashlight app onto your mobile phone and use that. ~ Place your object on the table in front of you and shine the light from the right handside. Observe closely where the shadows are cast. Now move the light closer and seehow the shadows change. Move the light further away and watch the length, directionand tone of the shadows change once again. ~ Angle or hold the light source over the top of the object. Pay attention to the shade,except this time, imagine how you would draw the object and the shadow in yoursketchbook, as this will be the next part of the exercise. ~ Once you have found a position for the light source that creates a scene that you wouldlike to draw, turn to a new page and start by drawing the outline of your object with a Bor a 2B pencil. Remember to spend a few minutes studying it first, and that while youdraw, keep looking back in order to keep your proportions in check. ~ Now this is done, take what you learnt from the previous section about tonal changeand start to shade your object. Make the darkest parts of the scene the darkest parts ofyour drawing, look at where and how the light hits the object and make sure that theseare the lightest areas. Take your time. There is no need to rush and your sketch willbenefit from layers that have been slowly worked up over time. Tip: As you are drawing a spherical object, try curving your pencil lines slightly as youshade as this will help to give even more of an impression of roundness. As you learntearlier on, if you make your pencil marks softly, that atmosphere will be felt in theoverall feel of the drawing. The same is true of aggressive, fast lines creating theassociated mood in the finished artwork. This same principle applies here; curvingyour lines will repeat the curved surface of the sphere, the way you draw alwaysmatches what you draw. This is a subtle tip, but exceptionally useful.

Negative drawing Exercise

With the previous drawing exercise we built up an image using dark tones to representshadows, we added shade to a white page to create a sketch. Negative drawing worksin the opposite way. With this technique you begin with a dark background and use aneraser to create white areas, lines and highlights where the natural color of the papershows through. Instead of drawing the shadow, you draw the light. ~ Use the same set up as before with your light and object. You will need to redraw itsoutline, in the same way as before, except this time, shade the entire object reasonablydarkly with your pencil. ~ Now shade the background a slightly lighter tone, so that you can sense a faintdifference between it and the object. To be able to create negative drawings well, you have to think about the light and how itmakes the object look. This sounds complicated but it isnt. All it means is that youneed to look at what is happening in front of your eyes, and work from life. When you are using an eraser to create a negative drawing, the way that you makemarks, and the amount of pressure you apply will of course affect the look of thedrawing. The principle is the same as the techniques that you use to achieve differenttypes of lines when drawing with a pencil, such as curved lines help to show the curveof a sphere. ~ Work into your shaded background and pick out the areas of light on your object. Look closely at how the light is sometimes spread evenly across the surface andsometimes it will reflect sharply on a focused point. If you use the corner of the eraser,you will be able to create clean precise lines that resemble this effect of the light. If youerase too much from an area, simply grab your pencil and start to shade again.

When your drawing is finished, compare both the tonal and the negative drawing of yourobject. Look at the differences and the similarities in the effects that these techniquescreate.

Tip: Getting Stuck. Sometimes a drawing will go wrong, or for some reason, no matterwhat you seem to do, it will not work out the way you were hoping for or expecting. During these frustrating moments, dont be disheartened. This is a perfectly natural partof learning to draw. Often, if you can meet these difficulties in the creative processhead on and work through them, then the quality of the final piece will often be vastlyimproved. If you are experiencing difficulties, then take a break and study what you aredrawing in a different way. It often helps to put the drawing that is giving you problemsto one side and try one of the drawing exercises that you have learn. The ant drawingexercise, for example, is less about creating a finished drawing, and more aboutstudying what you are drawing in depth and detail. Taking a fresh look at a problemand tackling it in a different way can be the right way to shake you out of a rut and itmakes any mistakes in a drawing easier to identify and remedy.

Chapter 7Proportion & Scale (Measuring,

Drawing Faces, Distorting) Proportion in art. Proportion and scale refer to the relationships of size between different parts of adrawing in relation to the whole. All objects, people, buildings and environments have their own set of proportions basedon the ways that we measure height, width, depth, weight and volume. If the correctratios of these proportions can be taken from the natural world and re-applied in thedrawings that we make, then they will appear natural and realistic. For example, if youwere sitting outside on a summers day and drawing a tree, and you discovered that itswidth was half of its height, then this same ratio could be applied to the measurementsof your drawing and it would create a natural accuracy. If you chose to make the widthof the tree on the paper 10cm, then its height would be 20cm. This seems complicatedbut dont worry, once you start practicing looking and thinking about proportion, then itwill all slot into place. An incredibly important fact to remember is that perspective affects proportion. Youwill already know that objects closer to us seem bigger than objects far away. Forexample, a figure in a landscape will appear larger if that person is close to you, whilethe same figure standing on a rocky mountaintop 500 meters away would seem muchsmaller.

Proportional rules of the human body There are proportional rules related to the human body, probably the most famousexample would be from Leonardo Da Vincis concept of the Vitruviun Man. You cansee this image below but Im sure that you will recognize it. This ubiquitous drawinghas appeared in everything from cartoon t-shirts in markets all over the world, throughto making an appearance in the popular TV series the Simpsons and the film adaption ofDan Browns novel the Da Vinci Code.

One of the fundamental ideas about human proportion that the Vitruviun Man reveals isthat if you measure your own arm span, from fingertip to fingertip, then it will be thesame measurement as your height. Try this yourself and see if it is true for you. Anotherrule is that the gap between your eyes is generally the same distance as one of your eyeson its own. These rules, along with others like them, are useful to understand and beaware of. As rough guidelines, they will help you when you sketch proportions. However, you cannot simply rely on them to create accuracy and faithfulness to theimage of what you draw because everything is always altered by perspective. This is why it is always necessary to look at and study what you are drawing, ratherthan to merely rely on these kinds of artistic laws to ensure quality in your work. Another objective anatomical guideline for drawing the human body is that on a standingfigure viewed from the front, the distance of the head, from the chin to the top of theskull, will fit roughly eight times into the height of that figure. Again, this is a usefulpiece of information, but this ratio only applies when the effects of perspective are notin effect. If you were to draw this figure lying down or sitting on a chair then the effectsof perspective would change this rule. This is the same principle as the previouslymentioned figure that was standing on a distant mountaintop. He seems smaller incomparison to a similar person standing much closer, even when we know that they are

the same height, so when certain parts of a body are further away, they will appear to besmaller, and parts that are closer will be bigger. This is especially true for figures thatare lying down, as the perspective that is created by where you choose to sit or standwhile drawing will significantly alter the proportions of a human body.

Measuring So how do you ensure the correct proportions in your drawings, and how do youaccount for the effects of perspective on proportion? The answer to this question is tomeasure. Measuring goes hand in hand with looking when you draw, and the better youget at one, the more it will improve your skills regarding the other. The basic principleis that when you draw, you are transforming an image of a three-dimensionalenvironment, containing your subject, onto a flat two-dimensional piece of paper. Tomake sure that the image you draw retains the same proportions as the scene in front ofyou, you need to draw imaginary horizontal and vertical lines over the scene to seewhich objects and parts align, and then draw them in these positions. Think of these pencil lines as a type of information gathering, a way for you to mentallymap what you are about to draw. The best way to do this is to take a pencil, longerpaintbrush or a stick, hold it at arms length and shut one eye. Line up your measuringtool with various different points on the subject. You will be able to realize which partsare parallel and at what points they cross each other. To build up to this stage, it isimportant to initially understand the technique well on a basic level. For the firstsimple exercise you will need to find a frontal image of a face that you would like touse. This could be a photo that you have taken, an image from the Internet or even a facecut out of a magazine. Make sure that your choice is not a sentimental, irreplaceablephoto because you will be drawing over the top of it. Also, try to find a face that islooking directly at you, one that isnt distorted by perspective or taken at an odd angle.

Measuring exercise We will learn the basic principles of using this technique to map out proportions and thepositioning of the elements of a drawing by firstly drawing out these lines, so that youcan start to understand their purpose and how they work. A good way of thinking aboutthem is to imagine the lines as a kind of scaffolding that builds up the basic structure ofyour drawing. ~ Take your photo and have a good look at the face. Think about which elements of theface are similar sizes, where they are in relation to the overall face, and what parts arein line with others. ~ Take your pencil and ruler and start by drawing a horizontal line that starts at the topof the left ear lobe and finishes at the top of the right. Now do the same between thelowest points of the two ear lobes. ~ Draw a vertical line right up the middle of the head that splits the nose, lips and chinin two. Next, another horizontal line is needed underneath the bottom of the lower lip. ~ Now take a look at what you have drawn. Of course every human face is different,and so in the case of the following observations, treat them as guidelines instead ofabsolutes. Remember also that these proportions are relevant with a front on facialportrait; they will differ slightly when the head is tilted, twisted or looking in anotherdirection.

- The line that stretches between the points at the bottom of the earlobes alsomarks the bottom of the nose.

- The line that stretches between the points at the top of the earlobes is slightlyhigher than the eyes.

- The bottom of the mouth, marked by your line, sits half way between thelowest point of the nose and the chin. The corners of the mouth normally line upvertically with the irises of the eyes.

- The eyes are positioned half way down the persons face. In this example,the width of a single eye will be 1/5th of the width of the head. Test this on yourown photograph. Measure the length of one eye in relation to the width of thehead and also test the spacing and placing. Can you place the width of an eye

between the eyes of the person in your photograph? Test also whether you canplace the width of an eye between the edge point of their eye and the edge of theface.

- A final observation to make is to notice the hairline. Many people, when theydraw faces, make the mistake of situating the hairline on top of the head. Thisinevitably stretches the forehead and pulls the face out of proportion. Of courseif your subject is actually going bald and their hairline is receding, then draw itaccordingly!

You have now broken down the visual structure of a human face. As I said earlier, thinkof these lines as a type of scaffolding that can help you build the correctly proportionedstructure of a face. As you practice this technique over time, you will develop theconfidence and skill to move away from marking the lines physically towards using youreye to look for the junctions between various lines that mark the points between objectsand their proportions in your drawings. In the next exercise we will now apply these lines again, except this time, you will usethem to build up a structure of the face, then draw the photo that you have chosen.

Drawing a face exercise

~ Firstly draw the shape of the head. Heads are not circular, nor are they perfectovals. The best way is to think of the shape as being like an egg. Tapered at the chinand more rounded over the top of the skull. This shape will vary tremendouslydepending on whom it is that you are drawing. ~ Now that you have the rough shape, start to define the jaw-line. If you are drawing aman then it is likely he will have a stronger, more pronounced jaw-line. A softer line isnormally the case when you are drawing women. Again, this rule is not an absolute, solook at the person that you are drawing and decide for yourself. Draw what you see, notwhat you think that you see. Tip: (Jaw-lines) If you are drawing figures or designing characters in the future, thejaw-line is an important part of the human anatomy to get right if you want to conveycertain male or female characteristics. This is especially true in caricature drawing,where the exaggeration of these features can create a dramatic effect.

~ The next step is to position the eyes. Take a look at your photograph again and studythe eyes of your subject to remind yourself of how they look. Draw a faint linehorizontally across the centre point between the top of the head and the bottom of thechin. This is axis that the eyes will be located upon. It is important to measure the eyesof your subject. The width of the eyes being 1/5th of the width of the head is only a ruleof thumb, and so it is always worth measuring to check the actual proportions of theperson that you are drawing. If one eye is indeed 1/5th of the width of the head, thenimagine that distance divided into five sections. The middle section contains the browof the nose and beyond this, to either side, are the eyes. The outer sections are thedistance between the edge of the eye and the edge of the face. Draw the eyes in place,sketch them in lightly and concentrate on their shape and form, dont worry at this stageabout tone and shading. It is worth gently marking in the bridge of nose, as this willhelp to give definition and shape to this area of the face and will help you to see if theeyes look correct. ~ Now it is time to draw the ears. As a loose rule, they will extend downwards tosomewhere around halfway between a little above the tops of the eyes and the bottom ofthe chin. Careful observation is essential here. As with any observational drawing,remember to spend twice as much time looking as drawing. ~ As the ears have now been drawn in, you can easily work out the proportion andpositioning of the nose. Place it on the central line and the horizontal line that joins upthe bottom tips of the ear lobes. You can begin to see why these visual lines are useful. Now we know that the lowest point of the nose is aligned with the shape of the two earsin this way, it means that once we have the proportions of the ears, we can work out theproportions of the nose. ~ The next stage is the mouth. As you discovered earlier when you marked in the lineson your photograph, the bottom of the lips sit pretty much halfway between thehorizontal single line that marks the bottom of the ear lobes and the nose. You alsoknow from studying the face in your photograph that the mouth is usually as wide as theirises of the eyes. Of course this varies, so look carefully at the face that you aredrawing. If you want to be as accurate as possible, which I recommend, then draw twovertical lines with your ruler on the photograph that start from the furthest corners of themouth and move upwards over the face. This will determine the point at which thesepoints cross and intersect with the eyes. You can now draw the mouth into yourartwork. If for some reason the mouth seems too big or small, then return to the measurements and

positioning of the eyes. If they are incorrect, then it will throw the mouth out ofproportion as well. ~ The next step is to draw the eyebrows. These give a face character, and areincredibly diverse, so study the face you are drawing and pay particular attention to theshape, direction and thickness of the hair. Eyebrows that are lovingly shaped andplucked to perfection will be much different from unkempt, bushy old brows, and theyshould be drawn accordingly! A good rule here is so start by drawing out the shape ofthe eyebrow. Think about the form of a human head, you know that the brow ridgeabove our eyes sticks out further, and that this is where they are positioned, so thinkabout them as a form that is on a raised or curved surface. Use the line method ofmeasuring that we are currently studying to draw marks on your photograph with yourruler to locate the exact positioning. The next rule is to draw your pencil marks in thesame direction as the hairs of the eyebrows. You have to look closely to observe thisdetail but it is worth the effort, as this kind of added consideration can add a lot ofcharacter to your artworks. If the hairs are long and wispy, then make the strokes ofyour pencil match that. If they are short and controlled, again, mirror that with your ownpencil marks. A difficulty that may arise here is if you are sketching someone withdrawn on or tattooed eyebrows. Since that means that they have shaved off the hair inorder to do so, it will be impossible for you to match the texture of the hairs that makeup the eyebrow. No worries, all you have to do is draw them into your drawing, if theycan draw on their eyebrows onto skin, then so can you with a pencil on paper!

~ The penultimate stage is the hair. You have already spent time looking at exactlywhere the hairline is located on your subjects face; now you will sketch it into thedrawing. Begin with a soft pencil, a B or 2B so that you can roughly sketch out theoverall impression of the hair first, before focusing on tone, line quality and realism. If

you begin at one point and spend ages shading and completing each individual strandbefore you move onto the next area, then you may find that the overall proportions are atrisk of being pulled out of shape if you make a mistake. You will know if this happensbecause the drawing will seem visually incorrect and feel wrong. There is also apsychological reason for drawing in this way. If you have spent a long time working ona certain area of the hair, or any part of the drawing for that matter, and it seemsfinished, then your brain will be much more subconsciously adverse to re-adjustingthat part, even if it is incorrect compared to the rest of the proportions of the drawing. In other words, if you have invested a lot of time, you will try to convince yourself thatthat part of the drawing is correct and in proportion, even if it is not. This is why it is agood idea to roughly sketch out a drawing first and ensure that the proportions arecorrect, and that you are happy with the layout, before you start to work on the nextstages of tone, texture and lighting. ~ The final stage is detail. Look for any features that are unique to that individual anddraw them into your artwork. This can be anything from freckles, scars, tattoos, or anyother quirks that you have noticed about their face as you have been studying it. When you have completed this stage, compare your drawing with the photograph. If youdrew the same structural lines on your own drawing, would they line up in the same wayas the lines on the photograph? How closely do you feel the features and proportions ofthe drawing match those of the photograph. Also, congratulations, you have now learnthow to draw the correct proportions for a human face! This exercise is designed to make you start thinking about using these structural lines asa technique to help you draw. It is also to start you measuring proportion while youwork, and to be able to use this technique to identify what may be wrong about a sketchor artwork that you make. These take time to develop, but even if you are sitting at yourdesk and you notice outside that a telegraph pole is parallel to a phone box next to it; orthat a tree against a building in the distance comes up to exactly the height of the thirdfloor for example, then these ideas are starting to internalize themselves. Doing thiswill improve your artistic eye, and you can perform these quick and easy little exerciseswherever you go. Look at objects, people, places and buildings and draw these imaginary structural linesin your head. Here are a few ideas to start you off:

- On Skype, study the facial proportions of your friends and family while youtalk.- Watch people on the street and study their physical proportions.

- How many times could the height of a pedestrian walking by fit into the heightof the nearby coffee shop or building?

All these little games can be completed inside the privacy of your own head, and areoften entertaining; especially when observing people is involved. Invent your own andsee what you can come up with. Although light-hearted, the exercises will improveyour drawing and looking skills, two incredibly important aspects of creating decentartworks.

Deliberately distorting Proportion As with everything, practice makes perfect, and this certainly applies to proportionalrules and skills. Once you begin to master these concepts and techniques, and knowwhen to apply them and when not, you will also be able to break them for stylisticeffect. This can be seen in the work of many artists, cartoonists, designers and otherprofessionals that draw, from Pablo Picasso to Ralph Steadman. This type of distortioncan especially be seen in caricatures, which you will learn how to draw later on in thebook. In any of these different areas, genres and styles of art, your ability to alterproportions on purpose will be significantly improved by the ability to draw inproportion first. In other words, you need to know the rules before you break them. Once you have been drawing for a while, in whatever style you choose, you will besurprised at just how helpful it is to know these rules and be able to apply them or alterthem to suit your own artistic needs. The technical base will give your artwork quality,and that applies whether you are drawing fashion illustrations, photorealist portraits,designing your own graphic novel or any other artistic drawing style.

Chapter 8Perspective - What It Is, And How to

Use It Drawing perspective effectively is one of the most useful artistic techniques that youwill develop. They teach you how to place people, cars, plants, trees, billboards, bikesand anything else you can imagine into rooms, streets, cities, landscapes andenvironments with accuracy and precision. Perspective affects all things, so consequently in one form or another, it is alwayspresent to some extent within any drawing of three-dimensional space. This is of courseif the rules are stuck to. Perspective is fun to play around with; the level of a horizon or the proximity of aperson or an object can have a huge effect on the mood, feel and style of a drawing. Asyou practice and become more familiar with the perspective rules that govern the waythat objects, people and buildings perform in three-dimensional space, you will also beable to start to bend, twist, exaggerate and ignore them to suit your own needs, but weare getting ahead of ourselves. Firstly we need the basics. If you stand on a road that travels away into the distant horizon, you will notice that thefurther away it gets, the closer the two sides of the road seem to be. If you look farenough, you will notice that the two sides eventually join in one place. This is called avanishing point. In the next exercise you will learn how to draw this effect, and learnabout how distance and the vanishing points affect objects. You will need a ruler aswell as your sketchbook and a pencil or pen.

Vanishing Point exercise

~ Start the exercise by drawing a horizon on your page. Choose a particular point onthis line to be your vanishing point. Draw a dot in that place. ~ Next draw three squares in various places around the page. They can be above orbelow the horizon, and you can make them different sizes if you wish. These shapeswill become cuboids, and you will see how perspective alters the way that they appear. Draw a line from each corner point of each square to the vanishing point on the horizon. When this is complete, take a look at the drawing and you will see the effect thatperspective can have on an object. Perspective causes lines that are normally parallel to one another to intersect at avanishing point. In this example, you know that the shapes that you drew were cuboids,and that cuboids have evenly spaced parallel edges, however you can see how the effectof perspective distorts this form.

Vanishing points and figures exercise This exercise follows the same perspective principles, except instead of three cuboids;we will use a person instead. This will give you an impression of how this rule canmake someone appear far away or close to the forefront of your drawing. It is a usefultechnique to learn because it allows you to create depth in an image where two or morefigures are involved. This is useful for crowd scenes such as a rock concert or acrowded beach.

~ On a new page in your sketchbook, sketch a figure whose height is roughly the sameas half the height of your paper. Place this person on the far right hand side and pick apoint, around head height, on the far left hand side to be the vanishing point. ~ Using your ruler, trace a line that runs from the top of the head to the vanishing point. Now draw a second line from the bottom of their feet to the same point. You now havetwo perspective lines that determine the position of the top of the head, and the bottomof the feet of your figure, all the way back to the vanishing point. ~ Pick another point within the perspective lines and draw the figure again furtherbackwards towards the vanishing point. If you need more guidelines as to proportionand scale, simply pick the part of the body that you want to draw on the original figureand trace a line with your ruler from that point back to the vanishing point. Say forexample, you needed to know where the hand was situated, you would find that point onthe first figure, then link it with the vanishing point. This line would intersect with the

second figure that is further away. The exact place where the line crosses the secondfigures body is where you would draw the hand.

Corridor perspective exercise In this exercise you will use what you have learnt to practice drawing objects inaccordance with these perspective rules. Below is an image of a long corridor with thevanishing point at the end. There is a window on the left hand side, your job is toredraw this scene and add a window on the right hand wall.

~ Firstly draw out a large rectangle that fills the majority of the page in yoursketchbook. Imagine where the middle point of this shape would be then move slightlyup and to the right of this dot and mark your vanishing point. The dimensions do notneed to be exactly the same as the image above; it is only essential that your image willbe made up of all the same parts. So draw four lines that start at each corner of therectangle and end at the vanishing point. ~ Nest you will need to draw in the first window on the left hand wall. We are goingto do this by firstly drawing in some light structural perspective lines then draw thewindow into place. This allows you to see if you are happy with how the windowlooks and where it is placed, as well as ensuring that the angles of the edges fit with theperspective rules of the corridor. ~ Start by picking the point for the nearest bottom corner and using a pencil that gives alight tonal line, a 2H for example, and trace a line using your ruler from here back to thevanishing point. Remember, you want the line to be light and barely visible so dontapply much pressure when you are drawing it. ~ Draw another structural line, this time make it vertical and begin at the same nearest

bottom corner. Make this line further than you think that edge of the window will be andextend it all the way up to meet the perspective line that flows from the top left handcorner of the rectangle to the vanishing point. ~ Now put a dot where you want the other bottom corner of the window to be. Drawanother vertical line from this point upwards until it intersects with the sameperspective line as before. When you are drawing this window in this way, it helps tothink of it as a trapezium rather than a rectangle. You learnt earlier how perspectivevanishing points affect forms and objects that we know in our heads look a certain way,such as the cuboids. This is the same for drawing this window; the perspective altersthe way that its shape is seen. These are both examples situations where you must drawwhat you see, rather than what you think you see, because if you do, then the drawingwill not turn out well. Unlearning what we know about the way that we see andperceive the world around us is a difficult process to work through, but all of thedrawing exercises in this book incorporate this element of drawing to some degree. Each one, in its own way, is designed to do much more than simply leave you with anew drawing in your sketchbook when you have finished that particular exercise. Thisexercise teaches you to draw a shape that you know by its empirical measurements is arectangle, but in this case, with the influence of perspective, it will now be seen as atrapezium. ~ You have three sizes of the window structurally marked out now so it is time tocomplete the frame. A good tip for judging its size is to take your ruler, and keeping theedge on the vanishing point, adjust the edge to a height that is not too big or small andseems to fit proportionally with the rest of the corridor. When you are happy, draw inthis top line of the window and join up the top and bottom edges by tracing along thestructural vertical lines you drew earlier. You will now have a completed window. The tricky part is to replicate the same form on the opposite wall. ~ Return to the beginning of the tutorial if you need to and follow the same steps, exceptswitch them over for the right hand side. Remember to draw in your structuralguidelines, this will allow you to see whether the overall drawing and the lines arecorrect before you mark the lines in properly. At the end of the tutorial, it is up to youwhether you decide to leave these guidelines showing or not. I personally would, as Ibelieve they will reinforce the lessons that you have learnt in regards to perspectiveevery time you return to the sketchbook. If you would prefer not to, and you feel that acleaner, more succinct drawing will better help your progression, then simply erasethem.

Double-Point Perspective

Once you feel like you have grasped the concepts of single-point perspective, it is timeto move onto double-point. Initially, the introduction of another vanishing point canseem complicated, but in reality, when you break it down, its not too hard to learn andbecome proficient with. If you think back to when you drew the cuboids with a singlepoint perspective, you will remember that the square shapes you drew first became thefront facing sides of the cuboids, and the sides were drawn in afterwards according tothe perspective rules. Two-point perspective is needed when your object can be seen atan angle, for example a building of the corner of a street. With this technique, thevertical lines remain vertical in the same way that you drew when you used a singlevanishing point in your work. The difference is that each surface of an object is affectedby both vanishing points, and so they are changed from being rectangular. Again thissounds more complicated than it actually is, and this next exercise will help to clarifyand explain these points in your mind. You will need your sketchbook, a ruler and apencil.

Double-Point Perspective Exercise We will again use cuboids. ~ In the same way as the first perspective exercise, draw a horizon on your page. Placea dot on the far right, and a dot on the far left, at a two or three cm indentation from theedges of the paper. These dots are your two vanishing points. ~ When we drew the squares earlier, they were faces of the cuboids and the singlevanishing point perspective only affected the lines that travelled back towards thehorizon. As two-point perspective distorts all the sides of the cuboids, we must start bysimply drawing a line to represent the edge that is nearest to us in the picture. The linewill also be the height of that form, so think about the scale of the shape when you drawthis first part. You will be creating two cuboids, one above the horizon and one below,so mark in these two first lines and make them different lengths. ~ We will concentrate on the lower form first. Take your ruler and draw lines betweeneach end of the line and the vanishing point on the right. You will have a triangularlooking shape. Now, from the same places at each end of the same line, draw two morelines back to the other vanishing point. ~ You now need to decide how wide and long you would like the form to be. Holdyour ruler vertically against the paper and move it to the right of the front edge of theform. Find the place where you are happy and mark this vertical line over theperspective lines that run towards the vanishing point on the right. This line will startand finish at the exact points where it intersects with the perspective lines. ~ You now have one side ready. Repeat this process exactly, only this time, move theruler to the left and draw the left facing side. ~ It is now time to complete the first form by drawing the topside. To do this you willneed to line up your ruler with the point where the vertical line on the right meets the topperspective line, then angle your ruler so that the other end is in line with theperspective point on the left hand side and faintly draw this line. ~ Repeat for the other side and mirror the process. Start with the left hand line thistime and draw your perspective line across to the right hand side vanishing point. ~ You will be able to see that these two lines intersect and create the top of the form.

Draw this in and you will have your first of the two cuboids completed. ~ To draw the other form, simply follow the instructions of the exercise again. In thissecond example you will be looking up at the form and will be able to see the bottomside rather than the top face. The rules apply in exactly the same way.

The Horizon At this point is it important to have a think about the position of each shape in relation tothe horizon. When you look at the form below the horizon line it looks like it is locatedon the ground, while the one above the horizon seems to be floating up in the air. Thisis a good lesson to think about when you are drawing because it shows how an objectsrelationship to the horizon line affects how it is seen. So long as long as you positionyour object with its base beneath the horizon, it will appear to be rooted to the ground,regardless of how high it stands. The opposite is true for an object that is placed abovethe horizon and has perspective rules applied to the way that it is drawn. The position of the horizon itself has a huge impact on the way that viewers willunderstand the scene that you have drawn. For example, if you have a figure on a pageand you draw the horizon right at the top, it will create the illusion of a vast expansivespace, as if the figure had a huge empty desert or space in front of them. If you kept theexact same proportions, and instead redrew the horizon at the bottom of the page, justabove their ankles so that they still seemed rooted on the ground, then the person wouldlook as though they were on the edge of a building or a cliff, with a drop in front ofthem. The position of the horizon changes the amount of distance and background in adrawing.

Creating distance using the horizon lineexercise We will now explore this idea in a playful way and this will teach you how to createdistance in your artworks. Turn to a clean page in your sketchbook; you will only needa ruler and a pen or a pencil for this exercise.

Horizon distance exercise ~ Firstly divide the page into four rectangles by drawing a vertical and a horizontal lineto make a cross. ~ In the top left hand rectangle, sketch a standing figure. Make the person fairly largebut dont worry about any detail or too much precision. All that you need for thepurpose of this exercise is the impression of a human. Once you have completed yourfigure, replicate it in the same place with the same proportions in the top rightrectangle. Draw the figure as similarly as possible but it does not have to be an exactcopy. The main point of the exercise is to learn about creating distance and space inyour drawings, learning how to draw figures properly comes later on. ~ Now take your ruler and return to the top right. Draw a horizon line towards the topof the rectangle and leave a gap of a few centimeters to show the sky. Add a smallamount of tonal shading around the feet to make the figure look as if they are actuallystanding in the landscape. ~ Turn your attention to the second figure that you drew. This time, draw the horizonmuch closer, at around knee height to your figure. Add the tonal shading again and thencompare the two scenes. You can see how distance and space has been created in the scene on the left hand side,and how by simply bringing the horizon closer to the front of the landscape, a drasticeffect can be achieved. ~ For the bottom two rectangles, you will need to draw your figure again, however thistime, change their scale. Sketch them miniscule or huge and experiment with where youplace the horizon in each drawing.

Experimenting and sketching is a great way to internalize these basic perspective rulesonce you have completed the exercises. Testing the way that certain objects appear indifferent environments with alternatively placed vanishing points and horizons willundoubtedly develop your drawing skills.

Chapter 9Texture and Surface (Hard, Soft, Rough) Learning to draw the texture and surface of an object realistically can really bring yourartworks to life. Generally there are three types of categories used to classify thedifferent surfaces that you will draw; these are hard, soft and rough. Hard surfaces - These smooth and sleek surfaces such as metal or glass are highlyreflective. Light bounces off the surface at odd angles and this creates sharp highlightswith strong, clean edges and clear tonal contrasts between light and dark. Soft surfaces - This category includes materials like fabrics and plant leaves, surfacesthat absorb the light and have smooth tonal transitions between the shadows andhighlights. Rough surfaces -Tree bark is an excellent example of a rough surface. As thesesurfaces are jagged, worn or heavily textured, the light hits less of the overall surface. There will often be an uneven distribution because the surface itself is not regular anduniform, and so there will be softer variations in tone. However, if the surface isheavily textures, as in the example of tree bark, then there may be crevices and ridgesthat will create strong contrasts between light and dark. As you can see, the way that light reacts with a surface has a huge effect on how wedraw it. Light and texture are inextricably involved with each other, and you must thinkabout this when you draw. Before we start drawing, there are a few tips that makedrawing larger areas of texture much easier and more efficient. These are also goodrules for general drawing practice, so they can be applied whenever you are practicing.

Tips Start drawing the most detailed focal point of the surface first. This will enable you tosketch other areas in slightly less detail if you want to create tension and contrast inyour work. If you are right handed, work from left to right to avoid accidental smudging. Reversethis principle if you draw with your left. Dont be scared of the dark! Avoiding making drawings too light by starting with thedark areas and working tonally towards the light. This will allow you to use the wholetonal spectrum from black to white, and will also add richness and depth to your work. Use the paper as a highlight. This is a technique taken from negative drawing that isespecially useful here. Instead of drawing the parts of the surface where the tone isbrightest, dont make any marks on these areas and simply let the white of the papershow through. You can also create highlights by erasing. When you have finisheddrawing the overall tone of your subject, use your eraser to clear the areas of light byonce again letting the white of the paper show through.

Hard surfaces When you are drawing hard, reflective surfaces, high contrasts and sharp highlights arekey to achieving lifelike representations. Think of a surface as a series of differenttones, rather than an object with borders that needs to be filled up with pencil marks. Start at the darkest areas and gradually work your way up to the highlights.

When you draw reflective surfaces, you will also draw the surroundings that arereflected in the surface. For example, if you wanted to draw a mirror, you would drawwhatever would be reflected in its surface. This can make these kinds of surfacesdifficult to depict, but they are a fun challenge and a rewarding experience when drawnsuccessfully. It is especially important to spend a lot of time looking at these kinds ofsurfaces and study in detail the way that the light looks as it reacts with the faade ofyour subject.

Hard surface exercise For this exercise you will need your sketchbook, an eraser and a selection of differentpencils of various grades. Choose a shiny, reflective object to draw. Try to findsomething that has a large surface area rather than a lot of complicated detail. ~ To gain more understanding of the way that the light and reflections look, try placingyour object in a few different places with varying light levels and study the changes thatyou see. The sharpest contrasts tend to happen in the brightest lights. ~ Return to your working space, place your object nearby and start to draw. Sketch outthe rough form first, but keep this light and use a B or 2B pencil to apply pressure assoftly as possible. ~ Start on the darkest areas and gradually build up the tones. Dont worry about goingover the same area many times as this will give you an even, rich tone that will add tothe overall quality of the finished artwork. Also mark out the highlights, the areaswhere the light is brightest, and allow the paper to show through in these parts. ~ If you accidently cover over areas that you realize should be highlights while youdraw, then use your eraser to create them once again.

Soft Surfaces The tonal difference is normally a lot less pronounced in soft surfaces, and there isusually more texture than the hard reflective surfaces have. The best way to draw themis to build up the tone gradually. Use soft pencils as the transitions from dark to lightare often slow and subtle, but with materials such as cloth, there are normally still deeprecesses that will contain dark shadows. Soft surfaces exercise You will need to select a type of cloth or material for this exercise. Anything from a t-shirt to a tablecloth will work. If you can find something textured, with a visible threador linear pattern then that would be ideal. ~ Arrange your material in front of you. Make sure that it falls in drapes, rather thanbeing scrunched up into a confusing mess. Now turn to a clean page in your sketchbookand start to sketch out the rough form of the folds and the raised areas. Think about howcertain parts of its surface have been stretched taut, while others are loose and baggy,and how these different characteristics can be represented in your drawing. ~ Pay attention to how the thread and pattern of the cloth appears to change in placeswhere the material is crumpled or stretched, you can use these patterns as guidelines tohelp you draw. Follow the lines of the pattern and add them to your drawing. They willhelp you to think about the three-dimensional form of the material in front of you, whichis turn should help to increase the realism of the drawing. Remember the way that youshaded the circle to turn it into a sphere earlier in the book when you were learningabout tone? You used curved lines to shade areas of the drawing, lines that also gavethe viewer more information about the surface and form of what you were drawing. Theconcept is the same here, only slightly trickier, but you will be able to manage. Imaginethe linear pattern shows the lines that you have to draw and work from there. ~ Build up the tonal differences by working from dark to light, and take your time withthis first sketch. You dont have to shade every bit of the drawing equally. In fact,starting with the most complicated section will enable you to leave other areas of thedrawing with deliberately less detail, creating in your work a strong contrast betweenthese different areas.

Rough surfaces Rough textures are often easier to draw because they are more detailed than smooth, softor reflective surfaces. Materials such as tree bark or rusted metal often have course anduneven facades, which creates heavy textures and irregular areas of light and shade. With a soft surface, for example, the light is generally spread much more evenly acrossthe material. When the same light source reacts with a rough texture there will often bemany places that it cannot penetrate, such as the recesses in the bark, so there willnormally be many darker areas as well. Rough textures can also maintain their grainand detail throughout the material that they are made from. For example, if you look at aplank of wood, you can see the patterns of the grain on the surface and at the ends andsides where it has been cut. When you are drawing, adding detail like this gives theviewer more information about what they are seeing because they can look at the textureof the plank from more than one angle. Including a way of showing a cross section of arough texture in your artworks can reveal the depth and other hidden qualities of thematerial, giving more depth and information to the overall artwork.

Rough surfaces exercise: drawing a block of wood For this exercise, we are going to use the edge of a contour to reveal the inner texture ofa piece of wood. A fine point ink pen is the best drawing tool for the exercise, and you

will also need a pencil and your sketchbook. As always, remember to complete thewarm up exercises to relax your hand and eye before you begin. You will also need tofind a piece of wood if you can. The aim of the exercise is to represent the surface anda cross-section of a rough texture, in this case, wood. In order to be able to do this, youneed to be able to see the wood from these two angles.

~ Start by sketching out the form of the wood and keep in mind perspective andproportion. You dont need to use a ruler as developing your freehand skills isimportant. Try to think about the rules that you have learnt and keep them in mind whenyou work. ~ The first step is to draw the grain of the surface of the wood in pencil. Closeobservation is the key to this. Keep looking at the texture and build up your pencil linesin the direction of the grain, just as if you were sanding the wood. When you aredrawing in the areas of more intricate detail, such as knots, keep in mind how someareas of grain will be closer and more tightly knit, whilst others can be further apart. When you have blocked in the entire surface, it is time to move onto the cross section. ~ This part is trickier, but if you get stuck, simply put down your pencil and study theobject in front of you. All the information you need is contained there in front of you. When you look at the cross section of a piece of wood, you will see how the grains on

the surface become rings of the interior. We all understand how tree rings look andgrow, but try to ignore what you already feel you know and trace the lines of the ringsonto your drawing carefully and accurately, in the way that they are in front of you. Match the grain lines that you drew to mark the surface of the wood with the tree ringsin the cross section. Take a moment to follow these parts on your object in front of youand then replicate that in your sketch. Work with your pencil to achieve a sense oftexture where the lines are flowing in roughly the same direction because this will addto the sense and feel of the form of the wood, and it will improve the standard of yourdrawing.

~ Finish the pencil sketching stage of the drawing by applying the same principles tothe side of the plank of wood if you can see it. Remember to only draw what you cansee, not what you think you can see. ~ The next stage is to trace over the pencil lines with your fine point ink pen. You cannow be more specific and detailed than you were when you used the pencil. The finetip of the pen will pick out the intricacies of the wooden texture effectively, and buildon top of the general impression of the wood that you created initially. Use the pen forthe sides and the cross section as well. Dont rely wholly on your pencil sketch, makesure that you are constantly looking back at the wood in front of you to check the waythat the pattern, detail, and texture actually is. Now that you have seen into a rough texture by drawing its cross section, it is time topractice with other materials, this time stone.

Drawing stone exercise Find a rough stone, any kind will do so long as it has a jagged or heavily texturedsurface. In this exercise we will work expressively and quickly to create sketches thatconcentrate on using fast marks to capture the look, feel and texture of the stone. Youcan work in whatever medium you wish, pencil, graphite stick, pen, ink, charcoal oranything else that you wish. Feel free to mix different artistic tools together in thesesketches as well.

~ Open your sketchbook and start to draw the stone in front of you. We will bedrawing three different versions of the same object on this page but dont worry if theyoverlap one another; in fact, I would highly encourage you to make them do so. Workquickly in expressive marks and gestures. Scribble hard where the texture isparticularly rough and shade with thick crude strokes. Charcoal is an excellent materialfor this kind of work and I would highly recommend using it because you can smudgeand smear it with your finger to indicate shade and shadow. Spend no longer than tenminutes maximum on this first drawing. ~ Before you start the next sketch, pick the stone up in your hands and spend a minutethinking about how the texture feels, how heavy it is and its overall shape. Now place itin a different position and start to draw again in the same way, switch to a differentpencil, pen, piece of charcoal or a graphite stick and use repeated marks this time to

represent the texture. Dont start with an initial outline, instead begin with an area ofheavy texture and character and as you work, spread out your marks as you create thedifferent areas of texture until the entire stone has been sketched on the page. Again usesmudged charcoal or black ink to add tonal change to the drawing. The time limit forthis second drawing is ten minutes maximum. ~ Now that you have completed two quick sketches, it is time to add some additionalpressure to the exercise. For the final drawing, you will only have two minutes tocomplete the sketch. Move the stone again so that the sharpest edge or the most gnarledor split part of the stone is visible. Sketch out a rough form first, so that you have theshape of the stone on your paper, then start your two minutes and concentrate solely onthis area of rough texture. Dont worry about rubbing anything out or being precise, bebold and forget about being anxious of making mistakes or creating a drawing thatdoesnt look realistic. The aim of the exercise is to expressively represent rough textureand everything else is secondary. Repetition and variation in texture Texture is often well represented through repetitive marks that mirror the surface of thesubject of your drawing. For example, a tennis ball is covered in tiny fibers that looklike hair, so when you are sketching, the best way to draw this texture is to drawhundreds of tiny marks that will give an overall impression of the tennis ball. The sameprinciple also applies to depicting the surface of a golf ball. In this example, thesurface is made up of many small circular craters that help the ball to fly. To draw thetexture of this surface, we can use small repetitive circular marks to mirror the overallspherical form of the ball.

The other advantage of this technique is that whilst you are drawing the texture, you cansimultaneously shade the object. If you think back to learning about tone, you willremember the way that as pencil marks are built up and sketched closer together, thedarker that part of the image will appear. Using textural marks, such as the tiny fibersfor the tennis ball and the circles for the golf ball, in the same way can also create thesame tonal effects. Whatever shape or textural mark you choose to use, if you repeatthem many times in close proximity to each other, then that part of the drawing willseem to be have been shaded more, and will appear darker. If you need or want towork quickly, this is a handy tip because it can save you time by representing textureand tone at the same time. There is also no reason why you cannot shade on top of thearea of the textural marks if you want to achieve a richer, dee