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How, you ask, could anyone paint or draw something and not see it? Well, lots of beginning and not-so-beginning artists do just that.
This world you wish to paint is full of complexity. But, if you train your mind to simplify, to see complex things as a combination of a few basic shapes, like spheres, box shapes, cones and cylinders, painting and drawing them becomes much easier. Your artwork improves.
I know from experience there will be times, whether you paint from life, a photograph or your imagination, that you will struggle to figure out the structure of what you see or what you want to see and how to depict it.
In those instances, if you learn to draw using these basic shapes to simplify the problem, you are beginning to see like an artist.
Let me refer an example. When I was in art school we had a model, named Mike, who was built like a Greek god. While he was a good model, at first I was totally frustrated trying to draw him. I automatically fell into drawing every muscle I saw … and I saw a lot of them.
I finally realized I needed to simplify my approach if I was ever to get an interesting drawing of him, instead of just muscle studies. It worked.
But, my drawing lessons would have been much easier, if I had learned to draw people by initially thinking of the human body as just simple shapes: an egg-shape for the head, a cylinder for the neck and cylinders and tapered cylinders for the arms and legs.
At this beginning stage of the drawing, you could almost think of the body as a manikin. After getting the proportions correct, then you can add human details.
And happily, this process of simplifying complex things into simple shapes applies to almost anything. Imagine for a moment you are in Venice, Italy. You become enthralled by the view of Venice's Grand Canal and decide you want to sketch it.
The buildings along the Canal are slender, of varying heights and numerous. In addition, they are festooned with ornate windows and balconies. How do you quickly draw all that?
Most people would start by drawing one building and then the next one and the one after that. Since you think like an artist, you decide to simplify the scene.
All the buildings abut each other, so you start your sketch by grouping all the buildings together as one correctly-proportioned rectangle drawn in perspective. The bottom of the rectangle represents the waterline of the buildings and the top represent the average roofline. Since the roofs vary in height, you can go slightly above or slightly below that line as you put in more detail.
How much detail you put in is up to you. But, this example reveals another of our painting tips: the second reason for recognizing and using simple shapes. When you start a painting, it is so tempting to immediately start painting details.
Instead, start by indicating the largest, simplest shapes first. That way you are sure the most important things in your painting are correctly placed where you want them, the size you want them and the shape you want them. It is so much easier to make changes at this "blocking-in" stage than after you've painted a lot of details.
Believe me, I know the frustration of getting midway through a drawing or painting and realizing that "oops" my proportions are off. Something is too long or too short or not in the right place. Then I'm faced with either erasing what I've done to correct my mistake or starting over.
That is when a part of my mind whispers, "Oh, that's probably close enough."
I've learned that if I listen to that lazy twerp, I almost always find it really was not "close enough."
Copyright Gary Gumble 2009
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