your office memos, grocery lists, to-do lists, and more!
In this lesson I will emphasize the drawing concept of “bonus detail.” I want to encourage you to use these drawing lessons as starting points for much more elaborate, detailed drawings that you create on your own. This scroll lesson is an advanced version of the rippling flag lesson after I’ve added bonus details to it.
1. Very lightly sketch two cylinders a
2. Using these two cylinders as forming
bit apart from each other.
spools for our scroll, connect the near edge
of the ribbon with curved lines. Curve these
lines even more than you think you need to.
This is using which two important drawing
laws? Placement and size!
3. Erase your extra lines, and spiral in the scroll 4. Draw all the peeking thickness lines tucked
following a foreshortened pattern much like
behind the near edges of the scroll. These tiny we did on the rose drawing, yes? You see,
detail thickness lines are the most important lines everything I teach you in this book is transfer-in the entire drawing. If you forget one of these, or able information.
if you don’t line each up carefully with the very edge of the foreshortened curve, your drawing will collapse. (However, I’m sure you will not have to worry about this fate, because you will never forget any of your tucked thickness lines, right?)
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5. Position your light source in the top right corner. Use a light guide line in direction SW to draw the cast shadow next to the left side of the scroll. Using curved contour lines, shade all the surfaces opposite the light position. You see how I’ve pulled the light position toward your eye, in front of the drawing. Notice how I’ve shaded a bit on the right side of the scroll as well. Experiment with your light position. In your practice drawings, try placing the light source directly overhead, over to the left, or perhaps even below the object. This is a really challenging exercise, but so rewarding. It will really help you nail down the concept of shading opposite the light source.
Lesson 18: Bonus Challenge
Okay, how wild do you want to get now? How much time do you have left in this drawing session? I can see you easily spending another couple of hours enjoying drawing scrolls. So, draw the scroll below. Combine all the applied drawing concepts of shading, contour, shadow, overlapping, size, placement . . . and you have a very three-dimensional scroll, really alive in that space with depth and volume.
LESSON 18: THE SCROLL
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Lesson 18: Bonus Challenge 2
Why stop now? It’s only three hours into this drawing session, so let’s push on ’til dawn! This is a fun scroll that I’ve been drawing since watching the old Robin Hood adventure cartoons, where the sheriff’s tough guys are hanging the scrolled “Wanted” posters all over town. I also see these cool scrolls on the covers of many children’s DVDs and any Renaissance type of fair or celebration. My favorite scroll was actually the rolled carpet character in Aladdin. I’ve spent hours drawing and studying that wonderful carpet.
Take a look at my sketchbook page on the left, and get inspired to draw your own fancy scroll!
Student examples
These student examples are so cool! I’d sure enjoy seeing yours! Why don’t you e-mail me some of your drawings (at www.markkistler.com)?
By Kimberly McMichael
By Michele Proos
By Suzanne Kozloski
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L E S S O N 1 9
PYRAMIDS
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I In this lesson, you will learn how to draw a three-dimensional pyramid. Why a pyramid, you ask? Because I’ve always wanted to go to Egypt to climb the ancient pyramids. Until that day, I always have my imagination and my sketchbook handy! And so do you! We will be drawing the pyramid by using the following drawing concepts: overlapping, horizon lines, shading, and shadows. This lesson will also help you practice smooth single-value shading. Because the sides of a pyramid are flat, they require one consistent tone for shading, unlike cylinders, flags, and other curved surfaces that require blended shading from dark to light. Now, let’s begin.
1. Draw a straight
2. Slant the sides of the pyramid
3. Thinking of your Drawing
vertical line.
down, keeping the angle of the
Direction Reference Cube, draw
slanted lines identical and keep-
the bottom of the pyramid in
ing the middle line longer.
directions NW and NE.
4. Anchor the pyramid to the sand
5. Now, add smooth one-tone, single-
with a horizon line. Position your
value shading to the side of the pyramid
light source, and draw a guide line in
opposite your light source.
direction SW for your cast shadow.
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6. You can stop here, and you have a great looking pyramid! You can add the texture of stone blocks, draw some crumbling edges and piles of stone debris, and you have an ancient site. I’m thinking more along the lines of adding doors. Strange? Clever?
Sketch in the position of the doors.
7. If the door is on the right, the thickness is on the right; if the door is on the left, the thickness is on the left. Draw the thickness on the right-side door on the right side of the door.
ë
í
8. Draw the thickness on the left-side door on the left side of the door.
9. Complete the shading on the sides opposite your light source. Remember, this is a flat surface that requires smooth single-tone shading, not blending. However, inside the curving door on the right side, I do blend the shading because you always blend shading from dark to light on curved surfaces and you shade with a single value surfaces that are flat and facing away from your light source position.
ì
î
LESSON 19: PYRAMIDS
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Lesson 19: Bonus Challenge
Depending on how much time you have, draw this wonderful scene of multiple pyramids.
Notice how I’ve drawn one pyramid below the horizon line and a bunch of pyramids far away in the distance, dropping behind the horizon line. A very important thing to notice in this drawing is how the law of overlapping trumps all of the eight other concepts. Look at how size is just not a factor in
this picture. Usually, in drawings we
have created so far, things drawn
larger will appear closer and things
drawn smaller will appear farther
away. However, in this drawing,
even though the enormous pyramid
dwarfs the smaller group, it still
looks farther away, deeper in the
picture. Why? Because the power
of overlapping. I’ve drawn all the smaller pyramids overlapping the giant daddy, thus creating the illusion that it is deeper in the scene.
If you are reading this, you have succumbed to the visually tasty dessert these pyramids offer to your eye. Repetition of pattern and design is enormously pleasing to the eye. Take a look at the pyramid variations below, drawn by students just like YOU!
Student examples
By Kimberly McMichael
By Michael Lane
By Michele Proos
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DAYS
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L E S S O N 2 0
VOLCANOES, CRATERS,
AND A CUP OF COFFEE
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W hat do volcanoes, craters, and coffee mugs have in common? This amazing lesson!
Let’s stretch our imaginations and apply the foreshortened circle to three completely different objects. With this lesson I want to heighten your awareness of just how many objects in the real world are foreshortened circles. As you draw these three foreshortened objects and the many foreshortened lessons in this book, you will begin to recognize foreshortened objects all around you. Recognizing foreshortening and other laws of drawing in the world around you will help you learn how to draw in 3-D.
As I glance around, I see foreshortened circles everywhere: a water bottle, a coffee mug, a quarter on the carpet next to my computer bag, the top of the fire extinguisher on the wall. Take a look around—how many foreshortened circles do you see? Let’s apply foreshortened circles from the real world to our drawing lesson, starting with a volcano.
The Volcano
1. Draw two guide dots. I still encourage you to use guide dots even though you are a time-tested pencil warrior deep into Lesson 20 of this book. I still use guide dots after more than thirty years of drawing!
2. Draw a curved foreshortened circle.
3. Slant the sides of the volcano, creating jagged bumpy edges and giving the volcano a feeling of terrain with just a few squiggles.
4. Position your light source, and use blended shading to create a shadow opposite your light source. Do you notice the extended nook and cranny shadow inside the crater?
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The Coffee Mug
1. Draw two guide dots, yes . . .
2. Draw another curved fore-
3. Remember how we created
again.
shortened circle, and complete
the lip of the lily blossom?
the cylinder.
Now, draw a slightly open
foreshortened lip at the top of
the cylinder.
4. Slightly taper the sides of the
coffee mug inward. This will add a
5. Draw a partial foreshortened circle
nice touch of character to your mug.
to create the inside thickness.
6. Draw a Drawing Direction Reference Cube
below this coffee mug. Using this cube as your
7. Following the lines you have
reference, begin drawing the handle of the cof-
drawn above, draw two more guide
fee mug with guide lines in direction SE.
lines in direction SE.
LESSON 20: VOLCANOES, CRATERS, AND A CUP OF COFFEE
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8. Complete the mug handle with vertical lines. Clean up your extra guide lines, and detail in the small overlapping lines. Often a successful 3-D drawing boils down to understanding and controlling these seemingly trivial details. We are going to draw a solid three-dimensional coffee mug that looks like it has substance, volume, and real existence.
9. Draw a cast shadow in a southwest
direction, and add a foreshortened plate.
Add blended shading.
10. Complete this refreshing cup
of java by adding an evaporating
foreshortened wisp of steam.
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Lesson 20: Bonus Challenge
Check your watch—how long did this lesson take you up to this point? If you are out of time for today, feel good about what you accomplished. You successfully completed the lesson. However, if you really want to feel that you’ve nailed this concept of applying foreshortened circles, then draw this next challenge!
Start with the curving horizon line, and begin sketching the near craters lower on the paper and larger to make them appear much closer to your eye. Draw the distant craters smaller and higher, making them appear farther away. Be sure to overlap the near craters over the far craters. Notice how my dark nook and cranny shadows help separate the craters.
Student examples
Now take a look at how Michele Proos
used the coffee mug lesson to draw
her real-life “still life.” Great job!
By Michele Proos
LESSON 20: VOLCANOES, CRATERS, AND A CUP OF COFFEE
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Student examples
Look at how these students practiced this lesson in their sketchbooks.
By Marnie Ross
By Tracy Powers
By Michael Lane
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L E S S O N 2 1
TREES
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Ever since I was ten years old, I’ve been obsessed with drawing trees. I’ve always been fascinated with the aboveground root canals of the giant fig trees, the gnarly knotholes and deep trunk wood grain on the great oaks, and the whispering, dangling leaves of the weeping willows. In this lesson I will introduce you to the joy of drawing a simple tree with a tapered trunk and overlapping textured clumps of leaves.
Trees surround us, shelter us, warm us, oxygenate us, and provide abundantly for our lives. From the table I’m sitting at and chair I’m sitting on, to the paper you are drawing on, trees are fundamental to our way of life. On my website (www.markkistler.com), I’ve posted several tree planting organizations that my kids and I are a part of. I encourage you to take a look at these (Google “tree planting organizations”) and consider joining one. With this lesson I hope to encourage you to go outside and plant a tree in your yard, your friend’s yard, your kid’s school, or your place of worship. But first let’s draw an inspiring tree!
1. Draw the trunk of the tree
tapering out at the bottom.
2. Curve the bottom with a
contour line. This will
serve as the guide line for
the tree’s root system.
3. Using the bottom
of the contour curve,
draw guide lines in
drawing directions
NE, SE, NW, and SW
as I have illustrated.
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4. Is this fascinating or what? Draw your tree’s root 5. Erase your extra guide lines. Draw the
system with long extending tapering tubes out from branches tapering smaller and splitting off
the trunk, following your drawing direction compass into smaller branches as I have illustrated
lines. Have you noticed that we use drawing direction here. Notice that I’ve drawn overlapping
lines for just about every object we draw in 3-D?
wrinkles where the branches split off to
identify the overlapping edge more clearly.
6. Sketch a circle to designate where the
7. Sketch two more circles behind your first
first cluster of leaves will go.
circle: the power of grouping. Essentially, a
group of three clumps will look visually more
appealing than a single clump.
LESSON 21: TREES
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Most of the time, an odd number of objects in a group will look more pleasing to the eye than an even number. I’m
looking out the window right now, and here are some examples of grouping I see from my point of view. The store across the street has a group of three windows to the right of the door and a group of three windows to the left of the door. There is a group of three tree tubs on either side of the store’s entrance.
Take a look online at famous historical Roman architecture, noticing how many columns are on either side of the entrances or windows. Look at the grouping of windows, arches, and sculptures in historical Renaissance architecture. Grouping is an
important art concept that I will dis-
cuss in greater detail in our upcoming
lessons.
8. As we did in the koala lesson, we
are going to draw the surface feel of
these leaf clusters. Start by drawing
small rows of scribbles as I have illus-
trated. As you build up more rows and
layers of these scribbles, you will cre-
ate the illusion that these spheres are
leaf clusters. Now, draw the textured
wood grain with repeated flowing lines
running down the trunk. Darken
underneath the branches with nook
and cranny shadows.
9. Continue to build up the visual
effect of leaves, filling in each of your
large leaf clump circles with small
scribbles. Complete the tree by adding
textured shading. Draw long vertical
lines to shade the tree trunk and
branches. Great work! Nice-looking
tree!
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Lesson 21: Bonus Challenge
In this bonus challenge, I will teach you how to capture nature’s beauty—using a clear clipboard.
Here is what you will need:
• A clear clipboard or any piece of clear solid plastic (I’ve even used a clear plastic plate to show this technique to friends).