Lecture-5

Beginning with basic shapes:

We can draw just about anything can be drawn by simply breaking down the subject into the few basic shapes: circles, rectangles, squares, and triangles. By drawing an outline around the basic shapes of our subject, we can drawn its shape. But our subject also has depth and dimension, or form. As we have seen earlier the corresponding forms of the basic shapes are spheres, cylinders, cubes, and cones. For example, a ball and an apple are spheres, a glass and a tree trunk are cylinders, a box and a building are cubes, and a pine tree and a funnel are cones. This is the first step of every drawing: sketching the shapes and developing the forms. After that, it is essentially just connecting and refining the lines and adding details.

Combining Shapes:

Here is an example of beginning a drawing with basic shapes. We start by drawing each line of action, then build up the shapes of the dog and the chick with simple ovals, circles, rectangles, and triangles.

Fig. 68: Shapes turn into forms

Building Form:

Once we establish the shapes, it is easy to build up the forms with cylinders, spheres, and cones. We notice that the shapes are now beginning to show some depth and dimension and turn into forms.

Creating Forms:

Here are diagrams showing how to draw the forms out of the four basic shapes. The ellipses show the backs of the circle, cylinder, and cone, and the cube is drawn by connecting two squares with parallel lines.