“Learning to see like an artist” is often described as noticing your subject as a combination of simple shapes instead of a cartoon object that you have in mind.
We’re trained to think in object-mode: I see an apple. Apples are supposed to be round, so you draw a round shape – a circle. That, however, might not be what you can see from your perspective, and how your eye truly perceives the form: instead of an apple, it might actually be a rounded shape with a straight side, and a bulge on the top, and a dent at the bottom. So we have to trick our brain into unseeing the readymade object, and then train our hand to follow the shape that we actually see and translate it to paper.
Seeing and describing an object on the page in flat shapes is a good technique to start with, and there are more methods like this to ease the brain into drawing mode, like looking for negative shapes, looking at proportion and perspective first, constructing your drawing with guidelines, or laying down simplified basic shapes first and then redefining them. All of these will definitely make your drawings better, because instead of the ready-made cartoon apple you will observe the real apple in front of you and explore its peculiarities.
But there’s one technique that really helped me to get my drawings to look three-dimensional on the page. It’s focused on describing three-dimensional forms instead of flat shapes, and here’s how it works in practice:
How to create three dimensional realistic drawings – Sketching Fundamentals lesson (video)
This video is an outtake of my new class Sketching Fundamentals which I just released – a foundational drawing class that will teach you basic sketching techniques in-depth.
You can take it as a self-directed class or, as an intensive 8-week run-through with structured assignments and individual feedback from me. There will be assignments and lots of exercises, and my guidance for the entire 8 weeks. This run-through has just started last week, but you can still join! In any case, you will keep access to all class materials afterwards.
Sign up here:
Self-directed class
8-week class with individual feedback
I am taking your sketching fundamentals class which is really excellent…..it is certainly filling in a lot of gaps. So well laid out with lots of techniques to practice……. Bravo indeed.