1. Draw a cube very, very lightly.
2. Draw a guide dot in the
3. Draw a very light vertical line
middle of the bottom line of
up from this guide dot. This will
the cube, on the right side.
be our guide to creating the
roof of the house.
4. Connect the front slopes of the roof. Notice 5. Using the lines you have already drawn as a
how the near slope is longer than the far side.
guide, draw the top of the roof, being very
This is a perfect example of how size and place-careful not to angle this line too high (example ment create depth. The near part of the roof is 5b below). This is a problem many students
longer to make it appear larger and to create the initially have with this lesson. To avoid this, illusion that it is closer to your eye.
consciously and specifically refer back to your first lines drawn in direction northwest.
4
5
5b
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6. Draw the far side of the roof by matching
the slant of the front edge. When I draw
houses, I have found that slanting the far
edge of the roof a little less than the near
edge helps the illusion.
This is just a peek at the visual illusion of
two-point perspective. We’ll do more with
the law of perspective in later chapters. I just wanted to whet your appetite for new, challenging drawing lessons!
Look at how fascinating it is to see the
house lined up with drawing compass direc-
tions NW and NE and to see how they merge
into a disappearing vanishing point on either side of the object. In fact, you have already been effectively using this advanced two-point-perspective science in your three-dimensional drawings without even knowing it!
Now, take a moment to think about this: You have already been effectively using this advanced two-point-perspective science in your three-dimensional drawings without even knowing it! Surprise, surprise!
A good analogy to this idea is that I can type on my laptop, yet not have a clue as to the mechanics of how a computer actually works. You can safely drive a car without understanding how the engine works. Similarly, you can (and have!) successfully learned how to draw fundamental shapes without knowing the science behind it. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t learn the science of vanishing-point-perspective drawing, because you should, and you will in later chapters. But what I am saying is that too often, in too many classrooms and in too many how-to-draw books, the immediate introduction of excessive, tedious drawing information can LESSON 12: CONSTRUCTING WITH CUBES
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severely hinder or entirely block students from experiencing the initial fun of learning how to draw the fundamentals. When information-overload anxiety hits beginning students, they naturally get frustrated. They experience failure and accept a completely false assumption that they are void of talent and therefore do not have the ability to learn how to draw. The truth is that learning how to draw has nothing to do with talent. You have experienced this firsthand with these lessons.
During thirty years of teaching drawing, I have learned that the best way to introduce students to the thrill of drawing in 3-D is by first offering IMMEDIATE
success. Immediate success ignites delight, enthusiasm, and MORE interest. More interest inspires more practice. More practice builds CONFIDENCE. And confidence perpetuates a student’s desire to learn even more. I call this the “self-perpetuating learning success cycle.”
What we have seen in these lessons is that drawing absolutely is a learnable skill. Moreover, learning to draw can dramatically increase your communication skills—which can in turn have an extraordinary effect on your life. I’ve personally witnessed the effect it has had on many of my former students, who have fulfilled their individual potential as remarkably creative teachers, engineers, scientists, politicians, lawyers, doctors, farmers, NASA Space Shuttle engineers, and yes, top artists and animators.
7. Draw the horizon line above the
8. Using the lines you have already drawn in
house, and position your light
direction NW as reference, sketch in light guide source. Clean up your drawing by
lines on the roof for shingles. Draw the direction erasing the extra guide lines.
SW guide line on the ground to add the cast
shadow. Darken in the undershadow along the
base of the roof. The darker you make it, the
more you will recess the wall under the roof,
pushing it deeper in the picture.
7
8
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9. Complete the simple house with shingles, drawing the near shingles larger and reducing the shingles in size as they move toward the far side of the roof. Draw the windows, keeping your lines parallel to the outer wall edges. Same idea applies to the door. Draw the vertical lines of the door matching the vertical lines of the center and right side of the house. I’ve scribbled in some shrubs on either side of the house. Go ahead—bushes and shrubs are fun details to add.
10. Add thickness to the window and
door. Complete the drawing with shading.
little house on the prairie.
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Lesson 12: Bonus Challenge
Understanding how fundamental shapes, such as the cube and the sphere, can be transformed into real-world objects is one of the main goals of this book. Take a look at my student Michele Proos’s drawing of the mailbox. Try drawing this mailbox yourself. Begin by transforming a cube into a mailbox.
Begin shaping the face of the mailbox on the right or left side of the cube—it’s up to you. Again, notice how the near edge of the mailbox face is longer than the far edge. This is another example of how size creates depth. Draw the post and mailbox details. Look at how the dark undershadow pushes the post under the mailbox. Complete your three-dimensional mailbox with more details. These small details—the postal flag, the handle, the street address, and, especially, the texture of wood—finish this drawing nicely.
Consider texture as being the icing on a cake and your drawing as being the cake. Texture adds the visual feel of the By Michele Proos
surface to your objects: the fur on a cat, the cobblestones on a street, the scales on a fish. Texture is the delicious “flavor”
you add to your drawing, the dessert for your eye. A brilliant, inspiring example of texture is Chris Van Allsburg’s illustrations in his book The Z Was Zapped. Take a look at this book; it will take your breath away!
Student example
Here’s a student example of this
lesson to inspire you to keep prac-
ticing your drawings every day!
By Kimberly McMichael
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L E S S O N 1 3
ADVANCED-LEVEL
HOUSES
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I was initially going to have this advanced-level house as the Bonus Challenge for Lesson 12. However, I realized there was such a high volume of educa-tional content in this drawing that I decided to make it into a full lesson.
Doing this allowed me to include an additional house drawing, my favorite “deluxe multiroof house,” as the Bonus Challenge. A
win-win scenario, I get to wedge another one of my favorite lessons into this book, and you get to learn how to draw more intricate houses.
1. Redraw Lesson 12’s simple
2. Using your direction SW line
3. Keep your eyes checking the
house up to this step here.
as the reference angle, draw the
reference lines in direction SW.
ground line for the left section
Now, dash out the next line in
of the house.
direction SW to form the top of
the wall.
4. Draw the vertical line for the near corner of 5. That line you have just drawn is now your
the house, and draw the bottom left side with
reference angle line in direction NW. Use this
a line in direction NW.
to draw the top of the wall.
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6. Draw the far left vertical wall. Draw a guide dot in the middle of the bottom of the wall.
7. Draw the vertical guide line up from your
guide dot to position the peak of the roof.
8. Draw the peak of the roof, making sure
the near edge is noticeably larger than the
back edge. Complete the roof with a line in
direction NE. Erase your extra lines.
9. Using the lines you have already drawn as
reference direction lines NW and NE, lightly
draw in guide lines for the shingles. Add the
door, windows, and garage. Once again,
make sure that each of these detail elements
lines up with the direction lines NW, NE, SW,
and SE.
LESSON 13: ADVANCED-LEVEL HOUSES
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10. Complete your brand-new house! How exciting, but we’ve got to hustle here—
the moving truck is arriving shortly, and we still need to install the new carpeting.
Draw in the shading, shadows, and very dark undershadows under the eaves. The sidewalk and driveway are drawn by strictly following your direction guide lines! Look at how much faith I have in you! This is a very difficult element, and I’ve thrown you out there on your own with no safety guide lines! You are well on your way to drawing houses with only a few guide lines. You are way out on an independent limb here, so you might as well sketch in a few trees and shrubs, and (why not?) let’s recycle our good ole mailbox from Lesson 12.
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Lesson 13: Bonus Challenge
Before you try to draw this on your own, which I know you will successfully do in short order, I want you to trace this building three times. “What!” you exclaim in shock and horror. “Trace? But that’s cheating!” No, no, no, I do not agree. For thirty years I have gotten flack for always encouraging my students to trace pictures. I encourage them to trace pictures from superhero comic books, Sunday comics, magazine photos of faces, hands, feet, horses, trees, and flowers. Tracing is a wonderful way to really understand how so many lines, angles, curves, and shapes fit together to form an image. Think of any of the great artists, painters, or sculptors of the Renaissance—Rafael, Leonardo, Michelangelo—they all traced pictures to help them learn how to draw. I have discussed this age-old art education question with my colleagues at Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks PDI. Each one of them unhesitat-ingly responded that tracing the drawings of master illustrators helped them truly learn how to draw during their high school and art college years.
By Kimberly McMichael
LESSON 13: ADVANCED-LEVEL HOUSES
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Lesson 13: Bonus Challenge 2
For this challenge, visit my website, www.markkistler.com, and click on the video tutorial entitled “Deluxe House Level 2.” (Be ready to push pause on your computer screen a lot as you draw.)
By Kimberly McMichael
Student examples
Look at a few student drawings, and compare their different unique style with yours.
You each followed the same lesson but had slightly different results. Each of you is in the process of defining your own unique style and your own unique way of interpreting these lessons and the visual world around you.
By Michele Proos
By Suzanne Kozloski
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L E S S O N 1 4
THE LILY
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T oday, as a reward to yourself for doing such a wonderful job of drawing difficult houses, enjoy drawing these flowing graceful lilies. This lesson will highlight a simple yet important line: the S curve. After you finish this lesson, I want you to take a walk around your home (or wherever you happen to be). I want you to carry your sketchbook and write down/sketch six objects that have S curves in them (tree trunks, window drapes, flower stems, a baby’s ear, a cat’s tail). You will be surprised how easy they are to spot once you open your artist’s eye. This exercise will help you become aware of how important S lines are to our aesthetic world.
3. Transferring what you learned from
1. Begin the first lily
2. Tuck another smaller S
drawing all those foreshortened cylinders
with a graceful S curve.
curve behind the first one.
in the earlier lesson, draw an open fore-
shortened circle to create a petal.
4. Draw the pointed lip of the petal. Draw
the bell of the flower by tapering the sides
down. Tapering is another one of those very
important ideas that you will start to notice
everywhere now that you are aware of it.
Your child’s arm tapers from the shoulder to
the elbow and from the elbow to the wrist.
A tree trunk tapers from its base to its
branches. Your goldfish’s fins, your living
room furniture, that martini glass in your
hand, all consist of tapered lines.
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5. Draw the curved bottom of the bell. Here we’re using the concept of contour.
Curving contour lines define the shape and give it volume (contour lines will be described in greater detail in the next chapter).The near part of the bell is curved lower on the paper. Draw the seed pod in the center of the bell.
6. Draw more S curves to create
the tops of the leaves.
7. Draw the bottom of the leaves
with slightly more exaggerated S
curves. Notice how I used a bit of
curl from the rose lesson to tuck the
tip of the leaves behind. Determine
the placement of your light source,
and darken the nook and cranny
shadows. This is the moment when
the drawing really pops off the page
in the third dimension.
LESSON 14: THE LILY
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8. To complete the shading, use your
blending Stomp to gradually blend the
shading from dark to light across the
curved smooth surface of the flower.
9. Add a few more lilies to cre-
ate a delightful bouquet! Hey,
here’s a fun idea: Scan your
drawing of these lilies, and e-
mail the flowers to all your
friends! E-mail me a copy too
(www.markkistler.com).
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Lesson 14: Bonus Challenge
Take a look at this simple variation of the rose and the lily. Draw a few of these, and then create a dozen of your very own unique variations.
Note: A book that you must get your
hands on is Freaky Flora by Michel
Gagné. Incredible drawings, inspiring
creativity, wonderful shading, I ab-
solutely love this artist’s work. Also
take a look at the amazing flowers in
Graeme Base’s Animalia. They’re just
phenomenal.
Lesson 14: Bonus Challenge 2
Take a stroll around your home, garden, or office with your sketchbook, and note/sketch where you see S curves and tapered lines in at least six places/objects.
LESSON 14: THE LILY
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Student examples
I enjoyed these student examples so much. Take a look and keep inspired to draw, draw, draw every day!
By Suzanne Kozloski
By Tracy Powers
By Michele Proos
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L E S S O N 1 5
CONTOUR TUBES
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T o effectively draw curving tubular objects, such as trains, planes, automo-biles, trees, people, or even clouds, you need to master contour lines.
Contour lines are especially important when you are drawing the human figure. Arms, legs, fingers, toes, and, well, just about every part of the human figure involves the use of contour lines.