Why thinking as Shapes and not as Lines in Drawing.

Hi everyone!

Today I wanted to share you some experiences that I had with drawing.

I always drew, but I start to draw seriously at the age of 13. I begin to draw realistic portraits (not so realistic at the beginning, but it's normal ;) )

I take habits to draw from photos, and I trained my eye in this discipline.

When I began, some years after, to draw by imagination, like character design or something else, my tests were not at all conclusive.

In fact, it's been like I started from zero.

--Why ?--
Because when I drew with photos, I visualized my drawing as lines, that they correspond to the 2D model I saw;
I therefore did not develop my 3D mind.

To be able to draw things or characters from imagination, you have to understand how are made these things.

And a simple way for it is to break everything down into primary forms : the square, the cylinder, the sphere and the cone.

First, we have to master these primary forms. So, we have to train your hand and brain to draw them, in every 3D position.

For the sphere, it is not difficult, because in 3D the sphere appears like a perfect circle in every position.

It's also a good exercise to put perspective points to have a better view. The square is the easiest to draw with this technique, because you can directly follow the lines.

Thinking in 3D can be a very difficult thing if you are not used to. Don't hesitate to observe objects in real life, see how perspective change if you stoop or stand up.

After we hand up these primary forms,
we have to decompose every object, animal or human in those forms.

A simple way is to imagine every object in a box, and begin our sketch by drawing this box in the right perspective.

In this example, I imagined the bottle in a box, and then in a cylinder.

Simplify in elementary forms allow us to focus on the important, and to have a global vision. It's a thing that I still have to practice, as I had to see everything in details.

And when you control this, you will be able to build drawing from zero, without models, just from shapes.
While drawing with contours in mind will keep you dependent on models.

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I hope I have made myself clear ;
I also want to say that this technique can be very frustrating at first. Especially if you come, like me, from realistic drawing techniques ; because it's like you start from zero, like a child.
And at the beginning, drawing these forms doesn't help at all to do right sketches, in fact, it's more difficult than if I tried to draw the lines directly, by eye.
But it's a very important exercise, and when you master it, you won't need to draw these shapes anymore, because you will see them directly, and you will have trained your brain to do so.

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Hope you will like this article, and that it will be useful for you. 😊

See you soon!!