Part 3 ➤ Starting Out: Learning You Can See and Draw 110 Fitting Other Shapes into the Boxes They Came In Most things in your life came in a box. That box sat on the table or the floor before the ob- ject was taken out of it. It might take a little pushing or prodding, but that object would fit back inside. Visualize your object inside a box. You can even draw the box in lightly to make sure it is sitting at the correct angle. Then, simply draw the object inside the box and you will have it where you want it. Try it! Try drawing your object in its original box to get it where you want it. Drawing That Still Life You already have all the tools to draw your still life, you just need to use them. This more complicated composition will take more patience, time, and clear seeing, but these are skills that you now have, right? See Your Still Life in Space Sit and see your composition in space, with or without the viewfinder frame or the plastic picture plane. Site the Arrangement on the Page Draw the horizontal and vertical center lines on your paper. You can use the diagonals of your viewfinder frame to make a box on your paper that is proportionally equal to the frame. Site the arrangement in that box on your paper. Then pick a place to start and draw the first shape. Try Your Hand Patience is a virtue, especially in drawing. 111 Chapter 9 ➤ Step Up to a Still Life; Composition, Composition, Composition Start out with some planning lines in addition to the center hori- zontal and vertical lines. Make a light set of shapes and lines that establish placement on the page, position of objects, and amount of overlap. Try drawing a light set of lines that enclose your com- position. You can use these lines to judge shapes and spaces against. In addition, you may want to check relative heights and widths against each other. To do this, select a baseline or measurement that you can consider having a length of “1.” Then, use that meas- urement to gauge other lengths, widths, curves, shapes, and spaces. Establish the ratio between the base and any line you measure against it, such as 1:2, 1:4, 1:5, etc. Start with a Light Sketch to Position As usual, you should begin with the lightest line, your H or HB pencil, and a light touch to draw in the basic shapes and angles and relations between things. Take your time. Don’t rush. A complicated arrangement takes more time. Consider the following as you begin: ➤ Start with the lightest of directional lines for each object. ➤ See how they overlap. ➤ Try to see each one in its own spot, but relative to the others. ➤ Imagine that you have x-ray vision and can see the backs of your objects, where they touch or are close to one another. ➤ Make sure you have left enough space for each. Check Your Spacing Don’t go on until you are sure of everything and everything is in its place, and that you have a place for everything. An object with a shape and size has to have the space in your drawing that it needs to look three-dimensional. If two objects are in the same three- dimensional spot in your drawing, they will both look flat. Give them the room they need to look full. God is in the details. —Buckminster Fuller (And he was right.) See the Detail in Each Object and Draw What You See When you have located and drawn the shape of each object in your composition, the rest is clear seeing and drawing of the remaining detail. Your finished drawing should reflect all the work you have done lately. An arrangement that you would have thought impossible to draw is now within your grasp. It is a great feeling. In the next chapter, we will look at getting things to look a little more full of volume and detail. We will look at volume, weight, light, and shadow, and how to draw them by adding a bit of tone to your line drawing. Detail and still more detail will give your work the com- plexity that makes it special. Try Your Hand The planning lines in your work should be light, and need not be erased later. They can add a vital- ity and they show the process that you have been through, too. Part 3 ➤ Starting Out: Learning You Can See and Draw Your Sketchbook Page Try your hand at practicing the exercises you’ve learned in this chapter. 113 Chapter 9 ➤ Step Up to a Still Life; Composition, Composition, Composition The Least You Need to Know ➤ A still life is a composition of objects chosen and arranged for interesting shapes, spaces, and some special sense of you and your choices. ➤ Composition is based on some classic rules, but is basically working until you have a pleasant arrangement of your objects in space. ➤ Vantage point and viewpoint are important considerations in composition. ➤ Once you have decided on your composition, see what you arranged and draw what you see. Chapter 10 Toward the Finish Line In This Chapter ➤ Establishing volume and tone ➤ Using light and shadow ➤ Creating a balance between line and tone ➤ Knowing when you are finished The most obvious reason for drawing disciplines is to train the eye and the hand to instanta- neous coordinated activity. Artists of the past and present have made countless drawings, not only as students, but all through their lives. —Harry Sternberg You’ve heard the phrase “It’s all in the details.”, and when it comes to drawing, those details include volume and tone, line and shape, and light and shadow. How do you add those fin- ishing touches? In this chapter, you’ll find out. Line and Shape Are in the Lead, Form Follows Close Behind For many drawings, a clear, sensitive contour line can say as much as you need to say. You may enjoy the line quality as it is, feel the shapes and spaces between shapes to be accurate, and have enough detail to feel your drawing is finished. In other drawings, it helps to define the form or fullness of things by rendering them with tone. Light and shade come into play here, and the direction from which an object is light- ed will determine the play of light upon it, the direction of the shadow it casts, and whether that shadow is on the object next to it and how much. Part 3 ➤ Starting Out: Learning You Can See and Draw 116 Light and shadow can create strong patterns that are part of your com- position and can make an object seem more full of volume and weight. Detail and texture are on the surface of an object, further defining it. Sometimes they can be confusing when they don’t follow the form. It is better to concentrate on shape and space first, volume and weight sec- ond, and light and shadow next, and then detail and texture can follow along later. You’ll want to make a graded chart for yourself as a guide for your range of tones to establish light, shadow, and volume. 1. Measure and draw a box 6" wide and 1" high. 2. Draw a horizontal center line to make two long boxes, 1 / 2 " high. 3. Measure and draw vertical lines at 1" intervals to make six boxes on the top row and six on the bottom row. Artist’s Sketchbook Tone refers to shades between light and dark, or white and black, that can be used in draw- ing to define areas of light and shadow or render the fullness of an object. Making a set of boxes for a tonal chart. 4. Label the first box on the upper left-hand corner “#1.” (Lefties can begin in the upper right-hand corner and work left.) 5. Box #1 will stay white. 6. Label the next box #2. 7. Starting with box #2, lightly and evenly shade the rest of the top line of boxes. 8. Label the next box #3. 9. Start with #3 and evenly shade over the rest for a shade darker than box #2. 10. Label the next box #4. 11. Begin with it and make another layer of shading over the re- maining three boxes. 12. Label the next box #5. 13. Begin with it and make another layer of shading. 14. Label the last box #6. 15. Make the final layer of shading in it. Back to the Drawing Board If you get ahead of yourself and get confused between shape and the detail on the surface, or confused about what makes vol- ume and what makes texture, just take a step back. Sit until you can see where you are and what you should do next, includ- ing a good erasing. 117 Chapter 10 ➤ Toward the Finish Line You can do this for a six-box tonal scale, or you can make it nine boxes or twelve boxes, as many as you want. Start with six boxes for now. You have a range from white to light to medium to dark. Now, on the lower row, practice matching the various tones you made on the top of the chart. Start by trying to match the darkest tone. Keep shading it in until it matches the upper box. Then, try to match one of the light tones, then try to match one of the mid- tones. Continue until you have matched all the tones of the scale and filled in the bottom part of the chart. Here is a filled-in tonal chart. In this tonal chart, we’ve filled in the bot- tom row of tones to match the top row. Your tonal chart gives you an idea of the tonal range that you can use when you are look- ing at your drawing and deciding how to add tone to it. The Art of Drawing You can make tonal charts using a selection of pencils, different hardnesses, particularly if you like very rich tones. It is important to jot down how you got each set of tones and with which pencils so that you will be able to use the same technique for building up tone on a drawing. Try a chart or two with a different range, a light one or a dark one that might not even begin with white. Part 3 ➤ Starting Out: Learning You Can See and Draw 118 You can make a tonal scale with different textural marks instead of solid tones. Try making a tonal chart that is made up of different textural marks, keeping them all the same for each tonal chart so you can see the range of tone easily. Eventually, you will be able to jump from tone to textural tone and back again while adding whatever tonal value you want because you will “see” them in your mind’s eye. Here is a dark tonal scale. Here are some circles with different textural marks to make the range of tones. Your own tone boxes can be in rows of boxes or looser shapes filled in with a range of tone in one texture. Here are some additional tonal tips to consider: ➤ Keep looking at your composition and your tonal scale. See the shapes that each tone fits into. You’ll have different tones for highlights on things, the light sides of things, the mid-tones, the darker sides of things, shadows, shadows across things, and the darkest cracks and spaces between things. ➤ Get up, walk away, and then come back and look at your work with fresh eyes. You may see things you missed when you were sitting right on top of your drawing. Correct any problems you see. ➤ You may want to darken the shade of your darkest tone to in- crease the contrast between your lights and darks. ➤ Half-close your eyes, or let them go out of focus. This can help you see tone, and then you can work on detail. ➤ For practice in form, light, and shadow, try drawing eggs, rocks, shells, or even mushrooms. Try Your Hand The more you practice seeing and adding tone to an accurate contour line drawing, you will begin to do it sooner, as you move from the planning lines to the drawing of the shapes, be- cause you will be able to see line and tone together. 119 Chapter 10 ➤ Toward the Finish Line Weight Is in the Rear, but Coming Up Fast Let’s go back to those basic shapes you collected and practiced drawing in space. In Chap- ter 9, “Step Up to a Still Life: Composition, Composition, Composition,” you drew them as contour line drawings. Now, try them as toned 3-D objects. Pick objects that are simple and not too richly colored or patterned for starters. 1. Establish a light source and direction. See how the light plays on the objects. See the gradation of tone relative to your chart of tonal range. 2. Squint at your arrangement, you will find it easier to see the lights and darks. Squinting makes it easier to see the tones. It softens detail and blurs the mid-tone so that you can see the extremes on your tonal scale. 3. Pick the lightest spots like highlights on fruit or the lighted side of a cube or mug. These areas will be at the light end of your tonal range. 4. Decide on the darkest spots, like spaces between things or a darker object. These areas will be on the darker end of your scale of darks. How dark do you want the darks to go? 5. Pick the middle tone between the lightest one and your choice of the darkest. Try to see that tonal color in your arrangement, what is halfway between light and dark. This play of light and dark has a name, naturally: chiaroscuro. No amount of tonal rendering will make for a sense of weight and volume if the object drawn doesn’t have enough space to be three- dimensional. Your careful seeing and drawing of the shape and the relationships between things must come first. Then, contour line on flatter items and tone on things with greater weight can suggest the differences in volume. First Things First: Shape and Space As with tone, light, and shadow, no amount of detail or texture will help a drawing when the basic shapes and the spatial relationships are not seen and drawn well. When this is the case, you will waste your time adding detail when you should be correcting the shapes and spaces. Similarly, all the rendering in the world will not make an asymmetrical vase symmetrical, make a bowl sit on the table if it is jumping up, or make two apples look round if they are so close as to occupy the same space on your page. Sometimes, the best thing to do is start over. If, after a while, it seems that everything you add detracts from your drawing rather than enhances it, try, try again may be the route to take. Now Start Again Pick another arrangement to draw. Choose a few objects that seem to require tone to make them appear as full as they are. Keep them simple, geometric shapes like fruit, plain boxes, a cup or mug, or some toy blocks. Try to pick objects that are close in color so the color won’t be confusing you. Later you can pick objects that require your ability to establish true color differences using tone. Artist’s Sketchbook Chiaroscuro is Italian for light and shadow. It refers here to a system of tonal shading to render an object so it appears three- dimensional. . chart. Here is a filled-in tonal chart. In this tonal chart, we’ve filled in the bot- tom row of tones to match the top row. Your tonal chart gives you an idea of the tonal range that you can use. range from white to light to medium to dark. Now, on the lower row, practice matching the various tones you made on the top of the chart. Start by trying to match the darkest tone. Keep shading. tone to an accurate contour line drawing, you will begin to do it sooner, as you move from the planning lines to the drawing of the shapes, be- cause you will be able to see line and tone together. 119 Chapter