You Can Draw in 30 Days: The Fun, Easy Way to Learn to Draw in One Month or Less (10 page)

6. Add the third line.

7. Complete the foreshortened square. This is a very important shape to practice. Go ahead and draw this foreshortened square a few more times. WARNING: Draw the two middle dots
very
close together. If these dots are drawn too far apart, you will end up with an “open” square. We are aiming for a foreshortened square.

Foreshortening means to “distort” an object to create the illusion that part of it is closer to your eye. For example, pull a coin out of your pocket. Look at the coin straight on. It is a flat circle, a 2-D circle that has length and width (two dimensions) but lacks depth. The surface is at an equal distance from your eye. Now, tilt the coin slightly. The shape has changed to a foreshortened circle, a circle that has depth. The coin now has all three dimensions: length, width, and depth. By tilting the coin slightly, you have shifted one edge farther away from your eye; you have foreshortened the shape. You have distorted the shape.

This is basically what drawing in 3-D boils down to, distorting images on a flat two-dimensional piece of paper to create the illusion of the existence of depth. Drawing in 3-D is distorting shapes to trick the eye into seeing drawn objects near and far in your picture.

 

Now, back to my warning about drawing the two middle dots too far apart. If your dots are too far apart, your foreshortened square will look like this.

If your foreshortened square looks like the open square I just mentioned, redraw it a few more times, placing the middle dots closer together, until your shape looks like this.

Okay, enough about foreshortening for now. Keep this concept in mind; it is so important that just about every lesson in this book will begin with it.

 

8. Draw the sides of the cube with two vertical lines. Vertical, straight-up-and-down lines will keep your drawings from “tilting.” Here’s a tip: Use the side of your sketchbook page as a visual reference. If your vertical lines match up with the sides of the page, your drawing will not tilt.

9. Using the two side lines you have just drawn as reference lines, draw the middle line a bit longer and lower. Using lines you have already drawn to establish angles and positions for your next lines is a crucial technique in creating a 3-D picture.

10. Using the top right edge of the top foreshortened square as a reference line, draw the bottom right side of the cube. It’s a good idea to shoot this line across in a quick dashing stroke while keeping your eye on the top line. It’s perfectly okay to overshoot the line as you can clean up your drawing later. I prefer a picture that has a lot of extra lines and scribbles that look 3-D, rather than a picture that has superclean precise lines yet looks wobbly and tilted.

11. Now draw the bottom left side of the cube by referring to the angle of the line above it. Reference lines! Reference lines! Reference lines! Can you tell that I’m strongly urging you to practice using reference lines?

12. Now on to the fun part, the shading. Establish the position of your imaginary light source. I’ll put mine in the top right position. Check this out. I’m using a reference line to correctly angle the cast shadow away from the cube. By extending the bottom right line out, I have a good reference line to match up each drawn line of the cast shadow. Looks good, right? Looks like the cube is actually sitting on the ground? This is the “POP” moment, the instant your drawing really thrusts off the flat surface.

13. Complete your first 3-D cube by shading the surface opposite your light position. Notice that I am not blending the shading at all. I blend the shading only on curved surfaces.