You Can Draw in 30 Days: The Fun, Easy Way to Learn to Draw in One Month or Less (37 page)

6. You can stop here, and you have a great looking pyramid! You can add the texture of stone blocks, draw some crumbling edges and piles of stone debris, and you have an ancient site. I’m thinking more along the lines of adding doors. Strange? Clever? Sketch in the position of the doors.

7. If the door is on the right, the thickness is on the right; if the door is on the left, the thickness is on the left. Draw the thickness on the right-side door on the right side of the door.

8. Draw the thickness on the left-side door on the left side of the door.

9. Complete the shading on the sides opposite your light source. Remember, this is a flat surface that requires smooth single-tone shading,
not
blending. However, inside the curving door on the right side, I do blend the shading because you always blend shading from dark to light on curved surfaces and you shade with a single value surfaces that are flat and facing away from your light source position.

Depending on how much time you have, draw this wonderful scene of multiple pyramids. Notice how I’ve drawn one pyramid below the horizon line and a bunch of pyramids far away in the distance, dropping behind the horizon line. A very important thing to notice in this drawing is how the law of overlapping trumps all of the eight other concepts. Look at how size is just not a factor in this picture. Usually, in drawings we have created so far, things drawn larger will appear closer and things drawn smaller will appear farther away. However, in this drawing, even though the enormous pyramid dwarfs the smaller group, it still looks farther away, deeper in the picture. Why? Because the power of overlapping. I’ve drawn all the smaller pyramids overlapping the giant daddy, thus creating the illusion that it is deeper in the scene.

If you are reading this, you have succumbed to the visually tasty dessert these pyramids offer to your eye. Repetition of pattern and design is enormously pleasing to the eye. Take a look at the pyramid variations below, drawn by students just like YOU!

W
hat do volcanoes, craters, and coffee mugs have in common? This amazing lesson!

Let’s stretch our imaginations and apply the foreshortened circle to three completely different objects. With this lesson I want to heighten your awareness of just how many objects in the real world are foreshortened circles. As you draw these three foreshortened objects and the many foreshortened lessons in this book, you will begin to recognize foreshortened objects all around you. Recognizing foreshortening and other laws of drawing in the world around you will help you learn how to draw in 3-D.

As I glance around, I see foreshortened circles everywhere: a water bottle, a coffee mug, a quarter on the carpet next to my computer bag, the top of the fire extinguisher on the wall. Take a look around—how many foreshortened circles do you see? Let’s apply foreshortened circles from the real world to our drawing lesson, starting with a volcano.

1. Draw two guide dots. I still encourage you to use guide dots even though you are a time-tested pencil warrior deep into Lesson 20 of this book. I still use guide dots after more than thirty years of drawing!