Shape

This welcome to part two and the secrets to drawing in this video we’re going to take a look at the second element of art shape and how it pertains to drawing. Before we do this let’s define shape in terms of art. Shape is an enclosed contour. In the first video we learn that contour lines are outlines. If we take that line and close it we’ve created a shape. While there’s an infinite number of shapes all shapes will fall into one of two categories. The first type of shapes are called geometric shapes geometric shapes or shapes that usually have names associated with them geometric shapes are also typically man made and oftentimes they have mathematical formulas associated with them geometric shapes includes shapes like a square a rectangle a circle a triangle a star and so on. The second type of shapes are called organic shapes organic shapes usually don’t have names associated with them. These types of shapes are typically found in nature organic shapes are also called free form shapes . Here are a few examples of organic shapes. Now that we’ve defined the two types of shapes. What can we do with them when it comes to drawing. Well by putting geometric in organic shapes together we can draw anything. All we have to do is recognize those shapes and draw them in the correct position. And again we can draw anything that we want for this demonstration. I’m going to use this photograph of a coffee mug if you’d like to follow along with this. You can download this image below. First I’m going to isolate the first obvious shape I see. And in this case it’s an oval more technically called an ellipse. So I’ll begin my drawing by looking at this ellipse and trying to copy it on my paper again. I’m only concentrating on this shape. Next I’ll break the coffee mug down into three more shapes. Underneath the ellipse I’ll try to simulate those shapes on my paper again. I’m only concentrating on drawing these shapes taking the drawing a piece at the top. I’m not allowing my mind to think hey you’re drawing a coffee mug instead I’m concentrating on each segment each shape that makes up the coffee mug and only concentrating on those shapes once I’ve got the body of the coffee mug to find it’s time to move onto the handle. Now the handle is a bit more complex. I’m still going to try to simplify it into shapes that are easy to draw these shapes are going to be basically geometric shapes rectangles. Parallelograms so now because the handle of the coffee mug is three dimensional I’m going to put these shapes together in a way that might resemble cubes. This will help me better understand the form of the object so that when I go back and add shadowing I can create this illusion the handle of the coffee mug does curve but when I’m breaking it down into simple shapes I’m not trying to create that curve yet. Instead I’m breaking the curve down into segments. This will help me get the form more accurately on my paper when I go back and do my contour lines then I can start to put the curves in . Now that I’ve got the basic structure of my object defined by putting together shapes I can go back and add my contour lines. This time however I can be more confident with those contour lines because I know that the shape structure that I’ve built underneath is accurate. I can also begin to indicate some shadowing using cross contour lines over the contours of the coffee mug. By doing this on the creating the illusion of shadow as well as the illusion of form I also can enhance the line quality to enhance the overall drawing as well . Now let’s take a look at something else. Let’s take a look at something that many people think is really hard to draw. And that’s a hand in this demonstration I’m going to break down a hand into very simple shapes. If you look at the back of your hand you’ll notice that the first shape we see is just a simple square . The next shape we see is a triangle. These are too easy to draw geometric shapes. Then from there we can break the segments down into fingers into cylinders. You can draw them either by drawing rectangles or drawing rectangles with curved ends that will look like cylinders. Remember don’t think about drawing a hand. Instead think about the individual shapes that make up the hand and concentrate only on each individual shape. Don’t forget to look at what you’re drawing either. Remember drawing is at least 50 percent observation. In this case you are looking at the object that you’re trying to draw. And you’re looking at the shapes that might exist there. You’re taking that information and putting it on your paper. If we take the hand shape at a time drawing the structure for the hand is very simple your thumb will only be made up of two of the cylinders. Unlike the other fingers which are made up of three. Now that we’ve got our structure defined we can go back and at our contour lines this time again with a lot of confidence because we know that the structure we’ve built with shapes is accurate . So here again we’ve taken a subject matter that most people believe is very difficult to draw. And we simplified it into shapes. I hope that you can see that breaking objects and shapes will make drawing actually very easy and you can draw anything that you want to. So let’s take a look at what we learned in this video. First in terms of art shape is an enclosed contour although there’s an infinite number of shapes all shapes fall into one of two categories geometric shapes or shapes that usually have names and geometric shapes are typically man made organic shapes usually don’t have names. These types of shapes are typically found in nature. The most important lesson is that by putting geometric and organic shapes together we truly can draw anything that we want to. We have to look at the object and find those shapes and then put those shapes together. This is the end of the shape video in the next video we’re going to take a look at its cousin the element form