You Can Draw in 30 Days: The Fun, Easy Way to Learn to Draw in One Month or Less (42 page)

13. Using the back walls as your reference lines, draw horizontal and vertical lines to create the far edge of the stairs. Do you remember in step 1 how I stressed the importance of those first horizontal and vertical lines? Well, this is why. All of your remaining horizontal and vertical lines must be parallel to the first ones, or your drawing will visually collapse.

14. Time to use the center guide dot again. Line up each corner of each step with your center guide dot. I’ll be referring to this as “line alignment” in future lessons. Draw light sketch lines out from the center guide dot as I’ve illustrated.

15. Clean up your extra sketch lines. Sharpen all the edges to really bring your drawing into focus. I’ve shaded the drawing with the light coming from the outside left window and the ceiling lights off. If the ceiling lights were on, where would the shading be? I’ve added floorboards and a row of ceiling lamps. Redraw this one a few times, experimenting with different doors and windows.

This sketch was drawn from one of my online animated tutorials at
www.markkistler.com
. I was inspired by one of my favorite M. C. Escher drawings. Take a look at M. C. Escher’s one-point-perspective drawings online. You will also see many two-point-perspective drawings, a really cool technique that we will be discussing in a later lesson.

Grab your plastic clipboard and black fine-tip Sharpies from Lesson 21’s Bonus Challenge. Tape a sheet of plastic Write-On Film to your clipboard, as you’ve done before. Settle yourself anywhere in your room. Sit at your desk, on your bed, on the floor, wherever you are most comfortable and in a position that gives you the best view of your room. Using your lightweight portable easel, or a few cardboard boxes, position your clipboard so that when you look through it with one eye closed, the back corner wall is a vertical line, matching closely with the vertical edge of your clipboard.

Trace everything that you see: the edges of the walls, ceiling, floor, windows, and furniture. Make sure not to move the clipboard once you start to trace. Place your drawing on a scanner, and print a copy. Use your pencils to shade your print, adding multiple tones and values where you see them in the room. Notice the real-world nook and cranny shading, the shadows, and see how placement, overlapping, and size really do impact your visual world. Is this fun or what?

Take a look at how Michele used the clear clipboard method to draw her room. The illustration below on the left is her ink on clear transparency tracing, and the illustration on the right is her example of copying the transparency on regular paper, then adding shading and details to the print. Cool!

Here are two different outcomes from two students completing the same lesson. I just love seeing these results!

B
y learning to draw a room in one-point perspective in the previous lesson, you practiced the important basic skill of creating a single vanishing point. Let’s take this idea a step further and draw a downtown city block in one-point perspective, where all the buildings, sidewalks, and road seem to “vanish” at a single point in the far distance. Take another look at the drawing of the city on the previous page. Looks really fun to draw, right? It is! And it’s a lot easier than it looks. In this lesson I will be reinforcing your understanding of several laws of drawing: size, placement, overlapping, shading, and shadow—as well as the principles of attitude, bonus details, and constant practice.

1. Draw a horizon line with a guide dot placed in the center.

2. Similar to the guide lines you drew to position the ceiling, walls, and floor in the one-point perspective room, draw these guide lines to position the buildings and the road.