DRAWING: One-Point and Two-Point Perspective

One of the first skills you will want to practice if you want to make realistic-looking sketches is perspective drawing. Making accurate 3D illusions on a 2D surface was first done by Filippo Brunelleschi in the early 1400s. His technique, which we will practice here, was an important step in adding depth to Renaissance paintings.

last supper.jpgLast Supper by Leonardo da Vinci

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Draw a line that represents eye level and choose a vanishing point. You don’t have to put it at the center of the paper, but it’s easier if you are just getting started. Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper has the eye level and vanishing point where Jesus is.

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Now draw a square or rectangle.

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Lightly draw the lines of perspective from the four corners of your square or rectangle to the vanishing point then decide how far into the distance your now 3D shape will go. Remember to keep the lines parallel to the original square or rectangle shape.

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Add a one-inch border and a bunch of shapes. Try adding Tetris-like shapes such as L or T shapes. You can show the hidden edges by drawing dashed lines.

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Remember to sketch lightly because you will want to erase all of the lines of perspective and the eye-level line later.

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When you’re done you should have something that looks something or hopefully better than this.

Two-Point Perspective

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This time you will have two vanishing points on the eye-level line which should be out of the border at the very edges of your paper.

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Draw a random verticle line then extend the edges to the two vanishing points. Drawing in two-point perspective is actually easier than in one-point perspective because you only need to draw one line then let the edges extend to the vanishing points.

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You will know your 3D shape is accurate if your hidden edges all lineup. The back hidden verticle edge should be parallel to the original line you originally drew in the front.

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Add a bunch of shapes. You can add the hidden edges or dashed lines to some of the shapes or erase them in the end. Try to have different shapes and some overlapping to add depth.

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And that is how you draw rectangular shapes in one-point and two-point perspectives. Thank you for reading. Have a nice day. Now get drawing!

Resources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Brunelleschi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Supper

DRAWING: Getting Started with Contour Lines

Are you a new artist just getting started or want to try something new? If so, then I recommend doing a still-life sketch of something focusing on just the contour lines. This means that you ignore the shading and draw like we did when we were kids.

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For this sketch, all you really need is a pencil or pen, some paper, and a subject. I used some 3M painter’s tape to secure the A4 paper to my clipboard so I could focus on my drawing and not worry about the paper, but it isn’t necessary. I also enjoyed some strawberry-flavored Korean rice wine, Soju, and a bottle of Pepsi. Why does Pepsi taste so much better from a glass bottle?

Blind Contour Sketch

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For my first sketch, I focused on the plant 100% and only looked a the paper once to place the pencil. It is important you only look at the subject and feel the surface of the paper while you slowly draw the lines. It’s not going to look great. In fact, it will look like something you drew in grade school, but it’s good practice.

Semi Blind Contour Sketch

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For the next sketch try to focus on the subject 95% of the time only glancing at your drawing for a bit. The only times I briefly looked at my paper and pencil was when I was making sure the lines were right.

Look All You Want Sketch

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You still don’t want to spend too much time on this sketch, but you can look at your paper and pencil all you want. See how much better the third drawing is? I was able to focus on the pointy parts and details of the plastic this time.

The only thing I had to take these pictures was a crappy old iPhone 5, but I lit up my room as best I could. I then used the auto-enhance and auto-crop feature in Google Photos. Still not happy with the results, I adjusted the levels, brightness, and hue in Adobe Photoshop to tweak the pictures a bit more. I constantly make grammar mistakes and typos in my blog, so I always highlight the words and have the AI extension, Readme, read the words back to me. Listening to my post always shows mistakes I’ve made that proofreading doesn’t.

Leonardo in Red

Some of you may be saying, Hey, wait a minute. Doesn’t Leonardo have a blue bandana? He does now, but in the original comics, all the turtles wore red bandanas.

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See? Here is TMNT #4 where I got the source to this Leo sketch. The turtles started off a bit dark and got more kiddy over time. It was the opposite experience for the Harry Potter generation. They got to grow and mature with their favorite characters.

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I originally sketched this with colored pencils.

I’m glad I scanned all my art and saved everything to Google Drive a long time ago. I was able to clean this up with Procreate nicely. Thanks for checking our my Leo sketch today. Who was your favorite turtle?

PENCIL & INK: Pocahontas

I saw Pocahontas in the theaters when it came out back in 1995. I was going through puberty and remember feeling attracted to her even though she was just a cartoon.

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I married a girl who looked just like her and we have two beautiful kids. I used to call her Pocahontas too. Some strong women challenged me once in a casino thinking I was being racist, but I asked them to look at her and they just laughed. I explained to them that in Thailand, people don’t get all butt hurt if you make fun of their skin color or body shame them.

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I used this picture as the inspiration and reference. I got it from here.

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I drew, erased, and redrew Wolverine’s eyes so many times that they ended up looking like this a few sketches ago.

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This time, I was going to make sure the eyes were right so the whole drawing wasn’t in vain.

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It’s starting to look like her…

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Tools

A4 paper
pencil
cardboard
Q-tip
technical pen
iPad
Procreate

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My artist friend recommended this type of pen for doing pointillism sketches. It worked great for bringing out the eyes and hair.

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I used a Q-tip to blur the pencil lead from her hair to her face for skin tone.

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I was very careful not to draw her hair OVER her neck or shoulder. It took a long time to sketch all the hairs, but I drew it in a back and forth motion, so it wasn’t like I was drawing each strand of hair one by one.

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By blurring on this rough surface, I was able to add some natural looking imperfections.

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They must have had A4 paper in mind when they designed the iPad Pro because it’s a perfect fit. It works as a great sketchpad.

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After adding so much ink and pencil to the hair, it started to curve and make the paper wavy. I started drawing this at noon, but didn’t take this picture until midnight. It was getting almost impossible to get a good photo with all the wavy paper and shiny lead.

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It was time to finish this sketch with Procreate. The blur tool made her skin look much better.

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The erase tool helped add contrast to her black hair as well as some careful digital penstrokes. There’s really no need to be careful because you can undo anything simply by tapping with two fingers, but I didn’t want any hair overlaps. I really enjoyed drawing her. Thanks for checking out my sketch today. May the colors of the wind be with you today.