Creating Depth in Your Drawings

When we draw, we are trying to fit a 3-dimensional world onto a 2-dimensional surface.  It's quite a trick when you think about it.

Here are a few tips to help create the magic of depth in your drawings.

Overlapping 

When one object overlaps another, it's obviously in front.  You can see that happening in the drawing of apples on a table above.

Relative Size

Notice how the closest apple appears much larger than the distant apples.  This works from still life drawings to landscapes.  You can check it by measuring the apparent width of the near apple and comparing that measurement with the width of one of the distant apples.

Softening Edges & Contrast

We see softer edges and less contrast in objects that are farther away.  Notice how the little shed has crisp edges and high contrast, but the more distant trees are really just shapes without much detail, and the far hill is reduced to a single tone.

The photograph of the scene shows this clearly, but we can also exaggerate the effect in our drawings if we want to create more depth.

Converging Lines

Notice how the little lane is quite wide at the bottom of the frame, and narrows until the sides seem to almost touch towards the top of the drawing.  Parallel lines converge as they move towards the horizon.

Here's the reference photo for this drawing.  You can also see how the little trees to the right of the lane get smaller and closer together as they get more distant.

You see more detail in the nearest part of the scene -- the weeds at the bottom right & the tree shadows over the lane, vs the single tone for the distant forest and the simplified trees near the top of the hill. 

Foreshortening

Foreshortening can be maddening at times.  

You see something coming towards you (or receding away from you), and your brain believes it knows how to draw that simple object.  Yet, when you draw what your brain tells you is right, it looks wrong!

You might be drawing a simple object, but from a complicated perspective.  It's important to trust your eyes.  Look carefully!

Remember that the closest parts of the object will appear much bigger than you expect.  I drew the close end of the baguette 2x the size of the distant end.  You can measure this with your pencil or other straightedge, even a ruler if you like.   Measure it yourself on the photo below.

 Here's a post from another artist about how artists measure the things they draw using the pencil & thumb method:

 https://blog.artlounge.in/blog/2024/2/22/how-to-sketch-using-pencil-and-thumb-method

Notice the way lines converge.  

You can hold your pencil in the air in front of you and rotate it like the hands of a clock to get the correct angle, then lay the pencil on your paper in that angle and make a quick line to help you see where the line you draw should really go.

Remember that the foreshortened view shows you a compressed view of something.  

For instance, long loaves of bread will appear much shorter than you expect. Measure the width of the broken end of bread. Now compare the width to the length of that loaf.  I find that the length of the bread is almost 2x the width of the bread -- much shorter than you'd expect.

Negative space shapes.

 We call the area around the subject the negative space.  When you look at the shadows and shapes around the object you're drawing, it helps you to see the true shape of the foreshortened object.  You can compare these negative space shapes with the corresponding shapes in your drawing to make sure you got the shape of the object right.  

For instance, notice the V-shape between the two baguettes in the photo above. Notice that I got the distant V-shape between the loaves right in my drawing, but not the V-shape closer to the front.  It's easy to make mistakes. Double checking the negative space shapes helps you make a more accurate final drawing.

These negative space shapes help you to see if you've drawn the foreshortened object right.  If you have the same shape in your drawing, it's right! 

Foreshortened objects look weird!

Remember, after you get done with your drawing, the foreshortened object may still look weird.  Foreshortened views look strange.  Do the best you can; then take a break!

Come back a little later, and your drawing may look more natural to your eye.

Remember that all of these techniques take time and practice.  The more you draw, the more you learn.  I hope these techniques help you to create a sense of depth in your drawings!

Happy Creating!

Drawing in the Museum

Last Friday we wrapped up the Osher class Drawing in the Museum.  We had a lot of fun!

Here's a look at some of my sketches.

The Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History allow artists to bring in only a sketchbook and pencils.  Turns out, having a limited list of supplies simplifies the drawing process and helps me to kick my creativity into gear.  The art and artifacts in the museums are fascinating, and you can imagine yourself as an early adventurer sketching a Native American mask (above) or a Goliath Beetle (below).

Next time you plan a visit to a museum, or even a new park or cultural spot, make it an adventure and record what you see with a pencil and a sketchbook!

An urn in the Hall of Architecture.

Details on a statue.

A detail of a lion capturing a horse in the Hall of Architecture.

I hope you'll take yourself on an art date, and bring your sketchbook along.

Happy Creating!

Mark Making Practice in Beginner's Pencil Drawing Class

A good book can inspire us to get sketching.  These pages were inspired by Pencil Drawing by Arthur Guptill (more on this book here).  I followed the book's mark making exercise as a warm-up, and felt inspired especially by the marks with varying pressure (top right of the page above).

It can help to reduce the fear of the blank page to start off with mark making, and copying another artist's work is even easier.  Even though in school we've been trained not to copy someone else, copying in art (as long as you give credit to your source) is an important part of learning.

Find an artist you admire and make a copy of their drawing, their marks, even a portion of an artwork.  This process will build your drawing skills and help you to see new ways to solve conundrums in turning a three-dimensional world into a two-dimensional drawing.

 Happy Creating!

Pencil Drawing: A Voice from the Past

A dear friend was cleaning out his studio and gave me this book.  I've been admiring the illustrations -- all done in graphite pencil.

Sometimes, it's simply fun to "picture walk" through a book (as my eldest called it in their childhood), absorbing inspiration from the images.

As artists, we learn from copying other artists.  

These simple exercises in mark making and value studies keep our hand limber, help us expand our skills and explore new types of marks we can use in our drawings.

I hope you copy some of these pages and then add your own twist.

Wishing you sparkling inspiration and happy creating!

Autumn Still Life in Pencil

A great way to build your drawing skills is to set up a collection of objects you find appealing and then draw or paint them.  I'm currently teaching Beginner's Pencil Drawing at the Community College of Beaver County, where each week we set up still life scenes like this one and draw them. 

The subject of this still life is texture. With only graphite pencils, we can express the shiny texture of a teapot, the woven sides of a basket, the grainy nature of wood, the papery husk of an onion, and the grooved surface of a pumpkin, all with mark making.

I used a 4B and a 6B pencil, a tortillion, also called a blending stump, and a kneaded eraser.  The tortillion is simply a pencil-shaped blender made of rolled up paper.  It has no lead of its own, but when you rub it over pencil marks, it smudges them to create a smooth, uniform area of value.  It's a little like painting with graphite.

Sometimes, it's hard to discern the values in a scene.  I "cheat" and take a photo, then edit it using the filters on my phone to turn the scene into a black and white image.  This technique helps me to see the relative values in an orange pumpkin, a brown teapot, and a burgundy onion.

I encourage you to set up your own still life scene and draw it.  It might feel more challenging to draw from life, but you'll get a more vibrant drawing.  And it's great practice to help you with seeing values, and observing shapes, depth, & details. 

When you set up your still life, place it by a window or find one single light source.  Otherwise, you'll have a confusing array of shadows -- one from each light source.  I happened to be lucky enough to have a sunny day and a south-facing window.  A desk lamp will serve if you don't have any sun!

Happy Creating!

Community College of Beaver County Continuing Ed. News!

I was delighted to open CCBC's  Fall 2025 Continuing Education Course Guide and find myself on page 12. 

I'm honored to have my classes featured, and hope you'll join me this fall for Beginner's Pencil Drawing and Pencil Drawing: Color and Shading!

You can register for these classes by following this link:

https://ccbc.coursestorm.com/

Then click on "Arts" under "Beaver County Classes."

I'll be in the studio to welcome you on the first day of classes, Monday, October 6th.

Hope to see you there!

Figure Drawing with Model Selena

 We finished our Osher semester with model Selena and a focus on Dance and Movement.  We began with 6 x 2-minute gesture poses, grouping them together on our paper in 3's to represent 3 dancers in motion.

Selena gave us graceful, dancerly poses.

Next, we challenged ourselves with a 2-minute, continuous gesture. Selena moved slowly but constantly from one pose to another, and used a long, flowy piece of tulle to help express her movement.  

It was hard to try to complete one full gesture drawing of Selena in any pose, but we watched mindfully as we drew, and relied on our memory to complete each gesture.

Though the end drawing looks scribbly and imperfect, the process of drawing this continuous gesture sharpened our skills and exercised our visual memory.

We wrapped up our gestures with a 5-minute upside-down pose.

After a break, we moved on to the long drawing, beginning with a 4-minute sketch to determine how we wanted to lay out our final drawing.

I was glad I took the time to lay out my drawing, as I realized exactly where I wanted Selena's body to land on the page to give her space to look up, creating the composition I wanted.

Many thanks to model Selena for her beautiful poses and inspiration!

Storytelling with Model Elizabeth

Our Osher Figure Drawing class was fortunate to have model Elizabeth as our collaborator in artful storytelling in our most recent class.

We looked at the art of John William Waterhouse (1849-1917), a British Pre-Raphaelite painter whose artwork took myths, the poetry of Keats and stories of contemporary authors as their subjects.  His work was rich with detail and color.  We set out in class to tell our own stories with studies of Elizabeth's elegant poses.

We began with 2 minute gestures.

In each pose, I could imagine a story being told of picking fruit from an apple tree,

or of listening dreamily to a story being told.

Perhaps now she was reaching into a pond for a magical crystal.

Here, she seemed to be admiring a lover or watching the stars.

And now, she was being coy with her fan at a party.

We moved on to a long pose, and took the first 4 minutes to create a quick gesture of that pose to help us in composing our drawings.

Elizabeth held a silk rose to her breast and several more draped at her feet.

For my final drawing, I imagined Elizabeth dreaming of her true love in a rose garden, escaping the summer heat in a shady patch on tasselled brocade pillows.

Isn't it amazing how we can infer a story from another person's posture?  

Elizabeth's imagination and elegance swept the class away into a land of stories and creativity.

Many thanks to our inspiring model, Elizabeth!