Hopefully by now you'll be feeling a little more relaxed about your drawings - again don't be worrying about loose lines or scruffy scribbles this is all part of the learning process.

This section is divided into:

Perspective - 1,2 and 3 point Sketching basic forms - Cubiods, Prisms, Cylinders, Cones & Spheres Combining basic forms to create objects.

Perspective.

One Point Perspective.

When you look down a road, or a rail way track (from the side not the middle !) you'll notice that the lines going off into the distance seem to move closer together (they converge) and as they reach the horizon (horizon line) they meet and vanish (vanishing point), see image 2. This is how we see the world and how we measure visually the size and distance of objects. Image 2 is an example of One Point Perspective - that is one vanishing point at which some of the horizontal lines converge. It is a useful technique for interior design, see image 3, but it does have limitations when drawing smaller objects e.g. for product design.

Two Point Perspective.

I want to take you through drawing in two point perspective, look at images 4 - 8.

Image 4 - Sketch a Horizon Line all the way across you page about 1/3 of the way down. Mark a dot at each end really close to the edge of the paper, these are your Vanishing Points Draw a vertical line in the centre of your paper about 2/3rds of the way down about half the length of your index finger. Image 5 - from the top of this line and again from the bottom very lightly sketch lines that go to the vanishing points - notice how they converge. Image 6 - Now draw to more vertical lines [Be careful this is where some people make a classic mistake see image 7] and then from the top of each line again very faintly sketch a line to the OPPOSITE vanishing point. you should have a sketch that resembles a cube image 8 - draw round the outline of the cube and maybe shade it if you want. Image 9

Three Point Perspective, is very similar except for step 5. Instead of two vertical lines these two lines converge on an imaginary vanishing point well below the bottom edge of the page, image 10 & 11 . This third point take into account that when we look slightly down on an object, parts that are further away will be every so slightly smaller.

We don't want to have to construct horizon lines and vanishing points every time so it is important to practice drawing cubes without the need to set up a complete construction. See images 12,13 and 15.

In the same way that a square formed the basis of our 2D drawings the cube is the basic form from which we can construct all other basic 3D forms an shapes and establish proportions in our 3D sketching se image 16.

3 point perspective cubes are hard, this is going to need a lot of PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE.





BASIC FORMS

The basic forms are the 3D shapes that act like the Lego bricks of drawing, once you have mastered the basic forms you'll be on your way to being able to draw almost anything. We have introduced you to the cube already but there are 4 other basic forms to learn.

Prisms - by this I mean triangle shapes rather than the true meaning of prism - a 2D shape extruded into 3D.

Cylinders - here we will have to explore ellipses in more detail first.

Cones - A combination of a pyramid (see Prisms) and a Cylinder base (see ellipses)

Spheres - Get practising those circles from step 1 and you'll need ellipses again here.

We're going to start by producing a reference sheet see image 17. A reference sheet is a practice sheet but it is also a sheet worth keeping which you can refer back to as you work on other drawings.

Start with Piece of A4 and fold it into five columns - see image 18.

Cubiods

In the first column at the top sketch and shade a cube - see images 19. Now sketch a cubiod (rectangle square shape) below this cube [note how the two forms overlap] see image 20. Now we add a drop shadow - here we imagine a light source directly above the cube shining down so that the cube casts a shadow on the rectangle cubiod below - see image 21 - use dark vertical tone lines close together to create the shadow. Continue creating a stack of cubiods - watch your perspective lines though.

Notice how the light shading is represented on the upper faces by no tone, on the faces to the left by an open diagonal shading to create a medium tone and on the faces to the right by a close diagonal shading to create a dark tone. The drop shadow is a very close vertical shading to give that sense of coming down from above.

Prisms

Prisms are based on cubes so we sketch cubes first and then layout the triangle elements on the cube's faces, the pyramids are constructed by adding a line from corner to corner on a flat face to find a centre point which is then joined to the opposing face corner. Note I have looked and layed out the column first, see image 22. Now Line in and shape shadow and shine, image 23. Now look at your overlaps and add drop shadows - you'll need to think a little about how the shadow would fall on a sloped surface but it doesn't have to be perfect, image 24.

Cylinders

Before we deal with cylinders we're going to have to go of on a tangent and deal with ellipses first and then we'll come back to cylinders.

Ellipses.

Ellipses are notoriously difficult to sketch but once you understand them there are a number of tricks that can help you out. First we'll look at the structure of a ellipses and then we'll look at techniques to help us sketch them.

Image 25 shows a deconstruction of a circle. A circle fits inside a square where the edges f the circle touch the mid point of each edge of the square. see (1)

The edge of the circle also passes through a point under half way from the corner but over a quarter of the away. see (2)

This deconstruction can be reconstructed onto a 2D flat face square which has been drawn in perspective. see (3) Note that the ellipse unlike the circles even quarter shapes the ellipse has two sharper curves and two shallow curves - two sharp, two shallow.

Image 26 takes this a little further, note the shallows are on the minor axis (the short distance across the ellipse) and the sharps are on the major axis (the long distance across the ellipse). Also note the two axis should always be at 90 degrees to each other.

A common problem with ellipses are drawing the sharp curves two flat - watch for this in your early practice.

Image 27 shows a technique where by we draw a center line to represent the minor axis and then sketch ellipses free hand across this on the 90 degree major axis.

Ellipses are difficult, they are going to take a lot of PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE.

Cylinders then can be constructed using two ellipses drawn on opposites faces of a cuboid image 28.

Start with a Look, Layout of a number of cuboids, image 29. Follow up with Line, image 30. and then Shape, Shadow, Shine image 31 - Note the shading inside the cylinder is opposite to the outer shading.

Cones.

Cones are a combinations of a pyramid style prism at the top and an ellipse at the bottom.

Sketch out a cuboid and use a cross from corner to corner on one face to find the center point. image 32 Sketch in an ellipse on the opposite face. Carefully blend the lines from the center point into the edges of the ellipse, image 33

Spheres

Spheres don't get there form from a basic construction they are inherently circular, they get there form from their shading, lines or details. Image 34 and 35 show the two main different approaches to illustrating a spherical surface, tonal shading or the use of elliptical lines across the surface. there is also an illustration of a hemisphere.

As with all of these exercises PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.

Combining basic forms to create Objects.

These last few images show examples of how basic forms can be combined to create various different objects and really now what you need to be doing is analysing every object you see to identify the basic forms that make up the object.