You Can Draw in 30 Days: The Fun, Easy Way to Learn to Draw in One Month or Less (25 page)

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n this lesson I will explore the fun visual effect of drawing multiple cylinders in a cityscape scene. The skills we will be practicing in this drawing are overlapping, foreshortening, blended shading, shadows, and nook and cranny shading. While practicing these skills, we will also push the envelope and expand our understanding of the Nine Fundamental Laws of Drawing. Look at the lesson illustration on the previous page.

Everything looks fine and organized according to the Nine Laws. However, take a closer look at the lowest cylindrical tower. It is much smaller than the surrounding towers, so according to our understanding of the laws, it should appear farther away. Yes? This is an example of how some design laws have more visual power than others. The lowest smaller cylindrical tower appears closer because it is overlapping in front of the other much larger towers. Interesting, isn’t it? Overlapping will always trump size.

Here’s a mindbender. Look at the two hovering cylinders. The larger one could be closer or farther away. We don’t have any reference as to its position. It is not overlapping an object to pull it closer; it is not casting a shadow to indicate that it is directly above or next to an object. In this situation, its size doesn’t give us any indication of its position. Now in comparison, look at the smaller hovering cylinder over on the left. Because it is overlapping the other tower and casting a shadow, we can determine it is closer. If I had drawn the center hovering disk a tiny bit in front of a tower, or a tiny bit behind a tower, I would have given the viewer a context of where the disk was, thus eliminating a confusing optical illusion.

Understanding these relationships among the Nine Fundamental Laws of Drawing will help you effectively and confidently resolve positioning problems in your illustrations. We will learn more about how to position your objects to alleviate depth ambiguity when we draw clouds, trees, and two-point perspective cities in later lessons.

Now let’s draw!

1. Draw a large picture frame, taking up an entire page of your sketchbook. Sometimes it’s fun to place your drawing inside a drawn frame like I did in my sketchbook drawings of the koala, the spheres, and these towers.

2. Using guide dots, draw the first foreshortened circle.

3. Draw more foreshortened circles, some large, some small.

4. As you continue to draw more foreshortened circles, be sure to place some high in the frame.

5. Draw a few more foreshortened circles positioned slightly out of the frame. These peeking towers have a nice visual effect. A few of my students have gone on to illustrate for DC Comics and Marvel Comics. When I’ve had the privilege of speaking with them over the years, I’ve always picked their brains for techniques to share with my students. Probably the most valuable tidbit I’ve heard over and over again is to position objects slightly off frame. For example, when working on
Spiderman
or
The Hulk
, these artists will draw the character moving into the frame or moving out of the frame with just partial views, such as an arm, a shoulder, and an edge of the face.

6. Draw vertical sides down from the lowest foreshortened circle. When you are drawing full scene pictures like this, it is always a good idea to detail in the lowest objects first. Why? Because the lowest objects will be overlapping every other object in the picture. One scenario where you wouldn’t necessarily want to draw the lowest objects first is if you are drawing a space scene of planets (think the opening segment of
Star Trek: The Next Generation
or a space scene from
Star Wars
). Another scenario would be if you were drawing a flock of birds in flight. The bird positioned highest in the frame might be drawn larger in size and overlapping other smaller birds lower in the frame. In both scenarios, overlapping still trumps all the other Nine Laws.

7. Continue drawing the vertical sides down for the lowest row of towers.

8. Concentrate on overlapping, drawing the important peeking lines down from each and every foreshortened circle.

CAUTION: Avoid drawing the sides of two towers lining up like this:

If this happens, go ahead and erase the edge and part of one of the foreshortened circles. Extend the erased foreshortened circle a smidge—just enough to ensure that it is overlapping behind or in front of the other tower. This idea of “offsetting” objects just enough so that the edge lines don’t merge is a very small but helpful tip to put in your drawing toolbox.