You Can Draw in 30 Days: The Fun, Easy Way to Learn to Draw in One Month or Less (8 page)

6. Because this drawing is all about enjoying yourself, go ahead and stack a few spheres on top.

7. Some of the spheres are breaking from the pack, seeking a less crowded, less congested life. Brave solitary spheres are establishing the first rural outposts.

8. Here’s the greatest sphere of all, except, of course, for the enormous Jupiter-size sphere the entire group is settled on. And now for the new drawing term: “horizon.” Drawing a horizon line adds an effective reference line for your eye, establishing the illusion that objects are either “grounded” or “floating.” Usually I draw the horizon line with a very straight line behind my objects. In this picture I want to create the planet feel, so I’ve curved it quite a bit. Looks cool, eh?

9. Go ahead and draw a few more planets in orbit above the sphere pile. Take this idea of “adding extras” as far as you want. Go ahead and draw a row of thirty-seven planets in the sky overlapping down to the horizon.

10. Identify the position of your light source, and begin adding cast shadows opposite your light position. For consistency I’ll keep my light source positioned in the top right, even though I’m tempted to slap it over to the left side just to throw a curve ball at you! I’ll save that sudden light source position change for some later lesson. . . . You are now forewarned!

11. This nook and cranny step will take some thinking. Keep darting your eye between your light position and the objects you are shading. Put some pressure on your pencil, and get a really nice dark shadow into all the nooks and crannies. Take your time; this is a fun step in the lesson, so enjoy yourself!

12. On the first shading pass, let your pencil fly over the spheres, just lightly shading the large areas opposite the light source. Don’t worry about the blending yet; just lay down a base layer to work from.

Make several more shading passes over all the spheres. Really work the dark edges, the dark nook and crannies, and the dark spaces on the ground between the spheres and the cast shadow. Work the blending slowly up toward the light. Constantly dart your eyes back to confirm the position of your light source. Take your time, work this well, and enjoy the exhilarating punch-out effect you are creating. You see? Drawing in 3-D is easy with me!

13. Blend your shading as smooth as glass. If you haven’t had time to purchase a handful of blending Stomps, your finger will do just fine. Use controlled, careful pressure to smudge and smear the shading, blending it lighter and lighter from the darkest dark edges to the lightest brightest hot spot on each sphere. Work this for a while. The smoother you make the blended light transition from dark to light, the more “glasslike” the surface will appear. “Smooth as glass” is a nice segue, allowing me to introduce another great term: “texture.”

Texture gives your objects a “surface feel.” You could draw curving, spiral, wood-grain lines all over these spheres and create the illusion that they are made of wood. You could scratch a ton of hair onto each sphere, and suddenly you would have a very strange looking alien family of furry blobs. Texture can add a lot of identifying character to your drawing. (More on this great principle in later lessons.)

14. Adding extras to your drawing adds another layer to your learning. I can and will teach you the specific skills you need to create technically accurate three-dimensional drawings. However, the real learning, the real fun, the true enjoyment of drawing come from you internalizing the skills and externalizing your creative imagination.

I’ve been driving my four-year-old son around a lot lately, hour-long commutes to downtown Houston. As soon as we start the trips, he happily demands, “Elmo! Elmo! Elmo!” So off with my preset NPR, and in with the Elmo CD. I’ve got the songs memorized now; I hear them in my head, my dreams, my nightmares! However, there is one song that I really like, even after 1,500 listening sessions: “It’s amazing where you can go with your imagination! The things you will see, the sounds you will hear, the things you will be!”

Who knew? Elmo is a little red furry dude of wisdom. I can teach you how to draw, easy, no problem. The fun part is how you launch from this starting point by practicing, practicing, practicing . . . all the while adding, adding, adding tons of your own brilliant creative imaginative extras.