You Can Draw in 30 Days: The Fun, Easy Way to Learn to Draw in One Month or Less (11 page)

Let’s take what we learned in drawing the basic 3-D cube and add details that enhance and identify the cube as three different objects.

 

1. We are going to draw three cubes in a group. Start the first one with your two guide dots. I’m going to be referring to these positioning dots as “guide dots” for the rest of the book.

2. Use your index finger to position the middle guide dots. This is a terrific habit to establish now, early in your drawing skill development, so that by the end of Lesson 30 using them will be second nature to you.

3. Connect the foreshortened square. This is a great shape to practice in your sketchbook if you have only a minute or so to doodle. Say you are in line at the bank drive-through with four cars ahead of you. You throw your car into park, whip out your sketchbook, and dash out a bunch of foreshortened squares. Don’t worry about needing to keep an eye out for the line advancing; a chorus of car horns will politely remind you when it’s time to move forward. Always keep your drawing bag handy, as you never know when you’ll have a few spare minutes of downtime to practice a sketch.

4. Draw the vertical sides and the middle line of the cube. The middle line is always drawn longer and lower to make it look closer. Use the side of your sketch page as your reference line.

5. Complete the cube using the top lines as reference lines.

6. Go ahead and draw three cubes like I have drawn.

7. Draw guide dots in the middle of each side of the top foreshortened squares.

8. Let’s take this one cube at a time. On the first cube, let’s draw an old-fashioned gift-wrapped postal package, the kind we used to get from Grandma at Christmas: a box wrapped in brown butcher paper and tied in string.

Shoot a vertical line down from the near left guide dot; then draw it across the top to the other guide dot.

9. Repeat this on the other side. Look at how you have forced the string to flatten across the top. The guide dots helped you draw the string inside of a foreshortened boundary. Guide dots are extremely helpful in lining angles up like this. You’ll see how often we use guide dots in the upcoming lessons (a lot!).

10. To draw string wrapping around the sides of the package, use guide dots once again to position the angles. Draw guide dots halfway down each vertical edge.

11. Draw the string by connecting the guide dots, using the line above as your reference line.

12. With this basic string wrap, you can finish all three cubes into a package, a cube game, and a gift wrapped in thick ribbon.