You Can Draw in 30 Days: The Fun, Easy Way to Learn to Draw in One Month or Less (4 page)

4. Scribble shading on the circle opposite the light source. It’s okay to go outside the lines—don’t worry about being perfect.

Notice how I have scribbled a bit darker on the edge farthest from the light source and how I have scribbled lighter as the shading curves up toward the light source. This is called
blended shading
. It is an awesome tool to learn to really create the “pop-out” illusion of three-dimensional drawing.

5. Use your finger to smudge-blend your shading like I have done here. Check this out: Your finger is actually an art tool similar to a paintbrush! Cool effect, isn’t it?

Voilà! Congratulations! You have turned a scribbled circle into a three-dimensional sphere. Is this easy or what?

Here’s what we’ve learned so far:

Easy as pie.

One important goal of this book is to teach you how to apply these lessons to drawings of “real-world” objects. In future lessons we will be applying the concepts you have learned in drawing this three-dimensional sphere to drawing fun interesting objects you see in the world around you. Whether you want to draw a colorful bowl of fruit on a table or a sketch of a family member in real life or from a photograph, you will have the tools to do it.

Let’s start with drawing a piece of fruit, an apple. In following lessons we will tackle more challenging objects, such as buildings and people.

Take a look at this photograph of an apple with the light source low and on the right.

Take a look at these drawings from folks just like you!

Y
ou have completed Lesson 1! Way to go! Now, let’s use that sphere skill of yours to draw globes all over the place.

 

 

1. Space permitting, continue on the same sketchbook page. Draw a circle.

2. Draw a second sphere behind the first one. How? As you draw this second sphere, you will be using three new drawing laws. Three at once!! Have no fear: We will take them one concept at a time, and it will take far longer to read about them than to use them. Take a look at my example below. I have drawn the second sphere a bit smaller than the first sphere, a bit higher up on the paper, and tucked behind the first sphere. In doing this, I’ve used three drawing laws: size, placement, and overlapping. Go ahead and write these notes in your sketchbook.

Size = Draw objects larger to make them look closer; draw them smaller to make them look farther away.

Placement = Draw objects lower on the surface of the paper to make them look closer; draw them higher up on the paper to make them look farther away.

Overlapping = Draw objects in front of or partially blocking the view of other objects to make them look closer; draw them tucked behind other objects to make them look farther away.

Go ahead and draw the second sphere smaller, higher, and behind the first one like my sketch below.

3. Determine where your imaginary light source will be positioned. This is probably the most important step in drawing realistically. Without a determined light source position, your drawing will not have consistent shading. Without consistent shading, your drawing will not pop out and look three-dimensional.

 

4. Keeping in mind the position of your light source, draw a cast shadow. Remember that it goes off to the side, as if it is on the ground, in the direction opposite the light. You do not need a ruler to determine the exact mathematical angle. Just eyeball it for now. As I said earlier, a good solid cast shadow will anchor your drawing to the surface of your paper.

Remember that if at any time you get a bit confused by my text explanation, simply look at my sketch example and copy what I have done. Be patient—all this information will be repeated throughout.