Drawing 1 - whiteboard notes

We are nearing the end of our drawing 1 course at ACAD this summer. It is sad, however I have witnessed the students improvements by leaps and bounds during the duration of study. They have been given their final assignment for next week and we covered some points that were missed from previous perspective class and some stuff to help them work on their final self portraits.

We covered ellipses and circles in perspective as well as how to construct cartoon hands based on the Preston Blair method as a gateway to more easily construct realistic ones. We also looked briefly at difficulties drawing the feet as well as a bit on foreshortening as these tend to be difficult when drawing from life.

To accompany the note packets I handed out, I gave a lecture on constructing the head in profile and facing forward and some of the rules to know and pitfalls to avoid.  Most people put the eyes too far up and don't give enough space for the skull and brain. Really the eyes sit halfway down the head, though it is the tendency when starting out to have them too high, which makes the face look neanderthal.

I think it was the hair, that caused me to add the moustache while keeping the mood of the class on the humorous side, after all, Hitler was an artist, right?!

I also did a demo on how to draw and eye properly and all the little tricks to move them away from drawing almonds or ovals and what to look for in shadows and how to create sparkle and depth in this most important but inset part of the face. The eyes are the window to the soul so it is very practical to focus on representing the eye effectively.

I did a quick demo before introducing the exercise of how to plan out and tackle a portrait.  I am really starting to notice how the traditional techniques are prevalent in all forms of drawing. Establish the limits of the page and plan the composition. Find a strong vertical, whether it is for perspective, life drawing or anything else, we are prisoners of gravity after all. Then find some horizontals then work with proportions, the second most important lesson for drawing realistically. The first rule is: draw, draw, draw or practice, practice practice. The students tackled the assignment extremely well in the time given and I am very happy with their progress and look forward to next weeks critiques.

A little perspective

I teach a few classes I love at ACAD. Here are the perspective class white board notes for my teen drawing class at ACAD, the days topic drawing objects in perspective. The goal for artists is to to create a 3 dimensional representation on a two dimensional surface using the rules and geometry of perspective.

I like to start the class drawing the basic shapes that are the building blocks of art. Square, circle, triangle, cone, cylinder and torus. Then we jump into the idea of constructing shapes using isometric drawing. I so metric drawing uses This style is often used in drafting, video games; like Qbert, sim games like Zoo tycoon and The Age of Civilization and the ever so popular Minecraft. Ancient Japanese art used this method to describe large spaces by placing things further back by placing them higher up in the picture plane. Isometric projection, when you blow things apart is most often used to plan and design industrial objects, engineering, mechanics, machining, as well as to help you assemble Lego and your ikea furniture. It is a great starting point in transforming a simple square into a cube. From there the possibilities are endless as you can use simple shapes to create much more complex and organic forms.

When I went to Ladysmith Secondary School, I was very lucky to take drafting as an elective. In this class we were taught how to read and create orthographic drawings. These are multiple drawings from various sides used to describe a 3D object. Here, I show how with a side, top and front drafting view you can turn the information into an isometric drawing of the object. This teaches how flat surfaces can be translated into a 3D representation of the object. Very important in designing and creating things, kinda like CAD on paper. Of course, in school this was the simple first object we tried. Of course, it got far more complex as we progressed in our education.

The above examples are not perspective but how to create 3 dimensional drawings on a 2 dimensional surface.

Perspective (from Latin perspicere, to see through) in the graphic arts, such as drawing, is an approximate representation, on a flat surface (such as paper), of an image as it is seen by the eye. The two most characteristic features of perspective are that objects are drawn:

• Smaller as their distance from the observer increases
• Foreshortened: the size of an object's dimensions along the line of sight are relatively shorter than dimensions across the line of sight

from Wikipedia - The free encyclopedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_(graphical)

 To really get the sense of things going off into the distance as perspective does you need to first learn 1 point perspective. One point is great for distant landscapes and was developed around the 5th century and developed in the Medieval era. Graphical perspective based on mathematics and didn't really mature into the way we know it until the Renaissance. Here all objects above or below the horizon collect to one vanishing point in the distance on the horizon line.

1 point is often used for interiors as well, in cartoons or any time you are staring at a flat wall. The horizon gets blocked but if you put a window in the right place you can see it. All verticals and horizontal remain constant on straight objects everything else recedes to the vanishing point making it very easy to draw train tracks, telephone poles and tiled floors.

Then we try two point perspective. This type is used when looking at the corner of the object coming toward you or receding into space. I love daring block lettering with this technique. This type of perspective drawing is used everywhere, most often in architectural renderings. By placing a vanishing point on either end of the horizon you can really describe perspective well. After the students follow along in their notebooks as I do the drawing demo I give them the method of constructing a simple bird house in Isometric and them have them translate it into a 2 point perspective drawing. The sloped roof is the real test of understanding the rules of 2 point perspective as it is angled and does not follow the rule of vertical or horizontal and so they must figure out how to situate it so it looks correct before we carry onto the next challenge.

As a challenge, I get them to draw the same room in 2 point but from the interior. I ask them to add the objects in their bedroom using what they have learned. The trick here is that verticals stay vertical but horizontal lines converge to either of the two points instead of staying parallel to the horizon line. I added this fish tank with light refraction on request by the student who drew the squid on the board beside my first set of white board notes. lol.
-------
I then taught 3 point perspective but must have accidentally deleted the pics off of my iPhone without noticing before making this blog post:( We drew skyscrapers from a birds eye view and worms eye view. More often I draw a church from worms eye view as it helps show how distorted space becomes at the steeple if your vanishing points are close together. While explaining when you are drawing everything takes your perspective in your world and thus you are the god plus I usually draw a church one my students asked me to put these into god perspective so I called birds eye view angels view and worms eye view the view from praying on your knees. I went one step further and called one heaven and the other hell. Dry yes, but it gave me a ridiculous "literal" chuckle. Dry I know.

We looked at some of the great 1st year examples that were hung in the hallway that week while eating the Halloween candy we were given by my boss to devour. I abstained, as most were from the company Nestle, which I wholeheartedly boycott due to their openly stated evil corporate desires to privatize the worlds natural water resources for their profit. That aside, I teach foreshortening of cylinders using a nearby paper towel roll and expelling how ellipses and work. I then show in steps how to properly draw circles in perspective using the steps drawn to get the proper centre and axises using geometry to help construct the proper circle in perspective. This is so useful for drawing coffee cups and bottles and more, if it is done well it really sells the drawing, if not it looks so wrong. I cover spheres quickly as they pretty much always look the same, a shaded circle. There are other means and methods but this is a lot to cover and assimilate in just one class.


If you like this lesson post I'd love to hear about it, drop me a comment or if you would like to learn more feel free to contact me thru my website:http://brianbatista.com/contact.html

Sniffing markers is part of the job!

I've been teaching my Cartooning class to teens all this week at ACAD. They are a good little group quietly drawing their assignments as I write this post. I have also been teaching evening classes which has me swamped, but its the good kind,  art day and night.

Here are some examples of the notes I write up on ye ol' whiteboard. I do hate using these pens. But it helps to accompany my hand outs. All in a days work!

 Here are some character design and how to flesh out the character from the skeleton. Also some angry birds just for fun.
 
We start every class with some drawing exercises I listed off some objects from them to draw from their imaginations we also do a little blind contour.

 From the perspective drawing classes. Above is one point perspective examples, landscape and a room interrior.

 I drew graphical boxes from a single vanishing point and a gun in 1 point perspective.

 We moved into two point perspective practice. Here are 9 cubes floating in 2 point perspective space, above and below the horizon.

 My white board is really starting to get mucky. We drew a bunch of bird houses in 2 point perspective as well, seen here in blue dry erase marker.

 We also did a room interior applying the rules of 2 point perspective.

 We moved onto 3 point perspective and did many examples of worms eye view and birds eye view, then tried the bird house again. I did an example using a basic stair case sketch covering all the methods we covered: isometric drawing, i point, 2 point and three point perspective.

 I explained foreshortening and ellipses and how to draw ellipses properly using a nifty geometry trick. We turned our elliptical shapes into useful drawings and drew soda bottles with liquid in them at varying angles.

I covered layout design, word bubbles, onomatopoeia, timing and text on this white board panel. Then the students got to work on their assignments, leaving me with an opportunity to update this blog.

I hope you enjoy. Don't forget to check out the Vanageddon show this Friday and Saturday only!!

FB info and event page is here.