In this third part of the illusion of depth, we’ll look at how edges, lines, cast shadows, and paint thickness can be used to add depth to your drawings and paintings.

Hey guys, what’s going on, my name is Stan Prokopenko, you’re watching Proko. Lets jump right in and talk about edges.

Edge

Sharp edges are visually a lot louder than soft edges and so they tend to pop forward and separate object, whereas soft or blurry edges recede and bring things closer together. So, a sharp edge between these two object will separate them. Blurring the edge will somewhat merge them and bring them closer together.

When our eyes focus on something, things further away or closer to us from that object will be blurred. In photography this is called, depth of field. When the depth of field is high, sharp details are seen in a very large range. Objects far away from the focal distance are still sharp. This can seem unnatural because that’s not really how our eyes see things. Naturally we will see a narrower depth of field to help us focus on a particular area. A narrower depth of field is a great tool to add depth to a drawing.

Line

Line isn’t really a type of edge; sharp, firm, or soft, but it is a way to indicate the edge of a form. It’s a stylized way that doesn’t exist in reality, but nonetheless it is a way to indicate depth and can be very effective. The type of line you use can make or break the illusion of depth. You can vary the thickness of the line and the value of the line to achieve this.

As forms recede back into space use a thinner line. This is related to perspective, since the objects further away from us will appear smaller, including the lines. We tend to use the same line throughout the drawing. Sometimes this might be because of our tools allowing for just one line weight, such as the tip of a graphite pencil or a ballpoint pen. In that case, you’ll have to go over the line a few times to make it thicker unlike with a brush or a pencil sharpened to a taper, where you can vary the angle to change the line thickness. Also, consider varying the value of the line. Make the objects further back lighter and the ones that you want to pop forward darker. This is related to atmospheric perspective that I talked about in part 1.

Line can be used not only in separate objects, but within an object as it recedes or where there is overlapping form.

Such as in the figure. This tricep is closer to us than the deltoid. But, I want to show that the edge of the tricep is wrapping around and behind the deltoid. So, instead of using the same line in the overlap, which is still effective because of the overlap, I could use line weight to make it even more effective. I could make the line thicker in the areas that are closer and thin out and lighten the line of the tricep as it wraps around the deltoid.

Cast Shadows

Cast Shadows are another way you can show that something is in front of something else, especially when there is no overlap to do that. In fact this is heavily used in graphic design to pop things forward. Photoshop and other similar programs have a “drop shadow” option that immediately pops a shape out from the background.

In this figure drawing the cast shadow helps to bring the arm away from the body. And suggests that its further away at the elbow because of the greater distance to the edge of the cast shadow.

A cast shadow on a ground surface can indicate that there is open space behind the object and also can serve as a great way to add converging lines to add some perspective to a scene.

Paint Thickness

The final thing I want to mention is quite literally adding depth to a picture. If you’re using paint, you can physically bring something forward by using thicker paint on that area.

I won’t go not too much detail about it, but I think it’s easy concept to grasp. If you have two objects, using thicker paint in the distant one might not be a good idea. But thicker paint in closer objects can serve as a great attribute for depth. Just an idea..

Ultimately, creating the illusion of depth in your artwork will be achieved through a combination of the concept I went over in the last 3 videos, and its up to you to decide which ones you want to use and how you want to use them. It depends on your style. If you’re a beginner, try all of them and don’t worry too much about style. As you develop, your taste will grow and change, and your style will come naturally.

***

Ok, that’s the end of the series, hope you liked it! Hop on to Facebook.com/prokotv and “like” the new Proko fan page.

If you like this video, please share it with your friends. If you want to support proko.com the best way of doing that is by getting my Portrait Fundamentals DVD. The difference between the dvd and the free videos online is, there’s two additional real time demos at an hour and a half each. And it’s available as a digital download so you don’t need internet access to watch the lessons. Thank you! buh-bye

Zhaoming Wu - http://www.zhaomingwu.com

Transcript:

Last time we learned how to use color to create the illusion of depth. Now let’s explore various concepts of shape.

The most familiar way of indicating depth for most of us is perspective. You have converging diagonal lines, foreshortening of forms, overlapping shapes, and scale. With all of these principles of perspective we are using shape to create the illusion of depth.

Scale

First, the most basic rule of perspective is that as objects get further from the viewer, they will appear smaller. So, to show depth it’s a good idea to have objects of recognizable size in both the foreground and background. We know that these two figures should be roughly the same size, so this smaller one seems further away.

Everybody knows that my biceps are enormously large. A smaller bicep in the same scene will appear further back.

The objects don’t have to be the same, just any objects that the viewer recognizes and knows its approximate scale. The house on this hill gives us something to go off of to imagine the size of the hill. When we make the house smaller, now the hill looks like a mountain, and much further away.

Since distant object are smaller, there’s less space to put details. So, don’t try to cram as much details as possible just for the sake of having detail. In fact, removing information could be better. Putting more detail in the foreground elements and less detail in the background elements adds to the effect of depth. And consider simplifying distant shapes. Instead of attempting to include every subtle nuance of the object’s contours, focus on the rhythm of the shape and its role in the picture.

Converging Lines & Vanishing Points

Everybody knows you can’t talk about perspective without mentioning vanishing points. Basically as objects recede into space they get smaller and smaller and by the time they reach the horizon they are so far away they’ve shrunk to mere dots. This is best seen on boxy objects like walls and furniture and stuff.. The top and bottom of the walls are parallel, but when perspective is applied, all the lines in the scene that are parallel, will point to this one vanishing point. This is called one-points perspective. One point perspective brings the viewer into the scene to look at whatever action is happening near the vanishing point..

With two point perspective, now you have one side of the box going toward one point, and the other side towards another point. Instead of bringing the viewer into the scene like we did with one-point perspective, instead we get an effect of the closest object popping out towards the viewer.

We can choose to play up or play down this effect with the degree of the angles. For example with this car, the middle line at the headlight closest to us really jumps forward. It’s very difficult not to look there. The headlight screams “look at me, I’m in your face”. So, you would decide if that’s what you want. Is it about the headlight or the whole car? You can play down this effect by flattening the perspective a bit. Very different effect and something that many don’t even consider as they start plotting their perspective. Be careful with this because all these decisions could have an important role in how the viewer reads your picture.

Foreshortening

Now, foreshortening and converging lines coming to a vanishing point are basically the same thing.. It’s just things receding back into space and getting smaller. Though with organic forms you rarely have obvious diagonal lines directing the viewer to a point. Foreshortened, organic objects, like a leg, appear to be going back because the viewer is familiar with its extended length and when it’s squished down to half the expected size, the viewer’s brain automatically thinks, “well, it must be going away from me..it must be hidden from sight, behind itself”. So in this case it looks like it’s receding because it’s length is shorter than it should be.

Common mistakes

I see it all the time and I’m a victim myself.. Its a life drawing class, and we’re drawing a foreshortened leg. Except we don’t draw it foreshortened. We draw it as if it was fully extended. This is really common, because our brain just doesn’t want to draw it foreshortened. We’re so used to seeing a leg in its full length, that we just want to draw what we know. It’s an illusion. But, we’re not the viewers, we’re the artists and we should be in control of these effects and we should be thinking of how we can use them to our advantage. Be in control of it instead of fighting it.

Another mistake is we successfully measures the length, but then we just compress the width to make it resemble more of a leg shape.. Then you have a tiny leg. Seems silly, but it happens all the time. Stupid brain!

At first, just think of it as an abstract shape. It’s not a leg, its just a shape. Removing the identity of what you’re drawing from your mind should help you stay analytical

Overlapping Lines/Form

With an organic form like a leg, you also have “overlapping” forms to help show depth. The leg is made up of many smaller volumes, the muscles and bones, and as these recede, some will be in front of others. You can show this by overlapping the lines. Femur is in front of the vastus medialis, vastus medialis is in front of the adductor group, which is in front of the pelvis.. These overlaps tell the viewers eye that the forms are receding backward, one after the other..

So, we started with a simple abstract shape for the leg, but that’s flat. After you’re done with the simple shape, go back and establish the overlapping forms.

***

Ok, that’s it for this episode. Next week I’ll continue on the illusion of depth and explore ways of adding depth by using shape related concepts like, scale, detail and perspective.

If you like this video, please share it with your friends.

If you want to support proko.com the best way of doing that is by getting my Portrait Fundamentals DVD. The difference between the dvd and the free videos online is, there’s two additional real time demos at an hour and a half each. And it’s available as a digital download so you don’t need internet access to watch the lessons. Thank you! buh-bye

Quang Ho - http://www.quangho.com
Zhaoming Wu - http://www.zhaomingwu.com

—

Transcript:

How do we create the illusion of depth? How do we fake 3-dimensionality? In the next few videos I’ll try to explain all the ways that I know of.

Now this is not going to be about how our binocular eyes see two slightly different images from 2 different angles and our brain interprets those as a 3d image, none of that scientific optical jargon about how our eyes work. I’m talking about how to create depth on a flat surface like canvas, paper, a wall or a computer monitor. I’ll go over actionable things that you can use now to improve your drawings. We, 2-dimensional artists, only have the x and y axis to work with, but we need to learn how to draw 3d objects and 3d environments if we want to effectively portray our world. To do this, we need to be able to imply the z axis, that’s the one that goes towards you and away from you.

Contrast

The first and one of the most important concepts to know about to create depth is contrast.

This can include contrast of value, contrast of hues, and contrast of chroma, but the most effective is contrast of value… Areas with a lot of contrast will come forward; areas with little contrast will recede.

For example, in this image the foreground has a lot of contrast, which is fine. But the background also has a lot of contrast, meaning the range from the lightest light to the darkest dark is wide. it includes almost the entire value scale. If we want to push the background back and make the foreground elements pop out, we can lower the contrast in the background elements. I’m doing this digitally with a photograph, just to illustrate the concept, but I would do the same thing if I was drawing a figure or painting a landscape. We make these kinds of decisions to improve the visual impact of our pictures.

Quite often, when drawing a figure or portrait I will push an area closer to the value of the background, to make it recede. For example with this collar, as it wraps back around the head I want to push it back by lowering the contrast. I made the values almost identical and show only a thin line to suggest an edge. Higher, I darkened it a little to match the value of the hat. I was looking for ways to make the collar less visible as it recedes, instead of outlining the shape and giving it its own separate value. A common mistake is when we try to make everything important in the picture. We make everything pop forward and when everything pops forward, nothing pops forward. The image becomes busy and loses a focal point.

I tried doing the same thing at the top of the hat, by making the value lighter, closer to the background. By doing this around the perimeters of the portrait, it draws the eye to the center of the face, where there is a lot of contrast.

This not only creates depth, but also a sense of atmosphere. And it unites the person with the rest of the picture. It makes it feel like the object or the person belongs in the environment and not just a cut out shape on a page. Unless, that’s what you want.. You don’t have to add depth to your artwork, but this lesson is not about not adding depth.

Aerial Perspective / Atmospheric Perspective

You’ll hear landscape painters talk a lot about atmospheric perspective, or aerial perspective. This is the effect of the atmosphere on distant objects. When things are really far away from us, like miles away, this effect becomes very obvious. Mountains that are covered with green shrubbery or brown dirt, appear bluer.

That’s because we’re looking through a layer of particles and air molecules. This atmospheric layer scatters light from the sky and makes distant objects blue, during the day.. At sunrise or sunset, you could see warmer tones, reds oranges, and yellows. The greater the distance, the thicker the layer you’re looking through and the effect is more intense.

Things will also get lighter and colors less saturated. So, if you think about it, atmospheric perspective is really just a decrease in contrast. Contrast of value decreases as the value range shifts towards a lighter blue. Contrast of hue decreases as warm colors become cool, and contrast of chroma decreases as colors become less saturated.

This could be even more intense if there’s fog, mist, smoke, or dust in the atmosphere. Sometimes the air is so dense that you can’t see through it past a few feet. So, this concept isn’t just for landscape painters. You can use it to add atmosphere to any situation. Steam in a kitchen, smoke at a bar, or throw in a really intense atmosphere into any picture where you want to create a better sense of air and an environment.

I’ve been emphasizing decreasing contrast to make things seem further away and add atmosphere. But, don’t forget about the other end. Choose your focal points and increase the contrast in those areas. It’s a great way to make those areas pop out at the viewer and call out for attention.

Form – change of plane, gradation

A change of plane on a 3-dimensional object indicates turning of the form.

Let’s observe the planes of her cheek. She is facing to the right towards the light source. So, this plane is facing that way. The halftone to the left of that is facing us and then the shadow plane in the side of the cheek is facing towards the left side. These 3 transitions along the forms come together to create volume. Individually, they would look like flat value, but together, as a gradation, they appear 3-dimensional.

You can show a change of plane with transitions of value, hue, or chroma. But the most effective is value. You can show a little bit of form with transitions of hue or chroma, but not nearly as much as a gradation from a bright highlight to dark shadow.

Other “rules” or guidelines that I’ve heard are, cool colors recede and warm colors come forward. Light values comes forward, darks recedes. I want to point out though that these are very minor ways of adding depth and have a small role in the overall effect. A light object with little contrast might look further away than a dark object with great contrast. So, it really depends on the whole picture and how you use all the concepts.

***

Ok, that’s it for this episode. Next week I’ll continue on the illusion of depth and explore ways of adding depth by using shape related concepts like, scale, detail and perspective.

If you like this video, please share it with your friends.

If you want to support proko.com the best way of doing that is by getting my Portrait Fundamentals DVD. The difference between the dvd and the free videos online is, there’s two additional real time demos at an hour and a half each. And it’s available as a digital download so you don’t need internet access to watch the lessons. Thank you! buh-bye

Transcript:

Hey, my name is Stan Prokopenko, welcome to another episode of Proko. Today I will be showing you guys how to draw a figure. This information was passed down to me through many generations of masters and took me an entire decade to master myself! It takes at least 10,000 hours to get the hang of this, so I suggest you start practicing now.

Ok, guys pay attention cause this gets tricky really fast. I’ll start the drawing with the head and I’ll simplify it to a circle, just like we learned in the loomis method.. Then observe the torso and I’ll try to draw it as accurately as possible. This is important because it’s going to set the foundation for the rest of the drawing.

Next, let’s attach the arms.. and don’t forget the legs. There’s a lot of anatomical nuances in the contours of the legs, so pay attention to that and try to design the shape, don’t just copy them.

If you want to get really complicated you can give your person some shoes, and maybe some gloves. And a hat.

And finally, you want to make sure that you capture the right expression of the face. I suggest you study yourself in the mirror, and really try to observe the muscles that are activated during various emotions. For, this drawing I’m going to make my character happy.

Alright, there you go! You probably won’t be able to get it this good on your first try, but don’t give up. Keep working on it until you train your eye to see all the subtleties.

Apriiil Foooools. You thought I was going to start the figure drawing series.. soorrryyy. its not done yet. Ok, I promise I will have a real episode done this week on “The Illusion of Depth”

Happy April 1st

Buy an original Proko figure drawing at proko.com/stick. That is not a joke. I’m serious.

GIVEAWAY:

To win the original drawing, find me on facebook and reshare my post to this video. I’ll randomly pick a winner on March 29th.
My Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/stan.prokopenko

Winner – George Silliman

***

This video is a timelapse of the drawing I did in my previous video, which was a critique of a creature concept by John Willis. After I posted that video I went back and made some changes based on critiques that you guys gave me. So, thank you! Everybody could use some honest feedback. And I thought, what kind of example would I be setting if I didn’t go back and improve on it. At the end of this video you’ll see that I rework the brows and nose to make the expression more intense and angry. Look for that about 11.5 minutes into this video.

The drawing took me about 1 hour and 15 minutes, I sped it up by about 5x for this this timelapse.

You’ll notice that for this drawing I’m following pretty much the same procedure as I usually do, the one I’ve followed in all my step-by-step videos of the facial features. Basically I start with the linear layin, that’s what you see me doing right now. Then, I separate the shadow from the light with the 2 value drawing. Then, I establish the darkest areas within the shadows, followed by the halftones and highlights in the lit areas, and finally go through the whole thing one more time to cleanup and finalize the details.

“What’s up Stan?”

Before I start I want to fill you guys in on what’s coming and what you can expect in the near future. Right now I am working on a figure drawing series. I’m still in the planning stage, I don’t want to just jump in start making the videos, I really want to do it right. I’ll be working with models so I have to know ahead of time what to shoot for multiple episodes. And it’s going to be a fairly long series. I’ll cover gesture, structure, proportion, foreshortening, all the basics, and then go really deep into the anatomy. So, I’m really excited, that’s what I’m working on.. While I’m planning all this, I’ll be making more of these critique session and Q & A’s and maybe some random videos like timelapses and stuff. These kinds of videos take less time to produce, which leaves me some time to plan the figure series. But, I’m still trying to make all the critiques and Q&As useful and as educational as possible.

If you have any questions related to figure drawing, or something you’d like me to cover in the series, shoot me an email at submit@proko.com, let me know.

If you want to submit your artwork for a chance to get it critiqued on the show, visit http://www.proko.com/critiques.

Critique for John Willis

In this episode, I have 1 critique, for John Willis and specifically for this drawing. As you guys can see John is already fairly advanced and this is a really nice drawing. The reason I chose it for this episode was, well, 1, I wanted to challenge myself, and 2 I thought it would be inspirational for everyone to see something a little bit more advanced and creative. So, John, this is a really good start to a character concept . I’m not the most creative when it comes to concepting, and I think you’ve done a great job creating an interesting character, so i won’t really try to help you there. But, I do see ways that you could improve the drawing of this character. So, i sat down and took a stab at doing my own version of your character and i gotta say, i really enjoyed it. I usually draw and paint real people whether its a commissioned photo or a model from life, so this was different for me. I found it really refreshing to be able to change things as i wish and to be able to push the anatomy without worrying that I’m making the person ugly. This monster, creature thing, is supposed to be ugly, so i was able to just focus on creating interesting designs. Not necessarily making the subject attractive.

Anyway, John as I was drawing I took some notes of things that I felt I wanted to change. So, here they are:

• The eyes are different sizes and it doesn’t look like its part of his character, it looks like a mistake. So, that just goes back to basic construction in the early stages of the drawings. And actually while drawing my version I made a similar mistake, my eyes weren’t lining up. One was higher than the other. I’ll post a time lapse of my drawing in a few days, so watch you’ll see that I make that correction towards the end of the video.
• The wrinkles on his nose look a bit repetitive. They do a good job in showing his expression, but so many repeating shapes isn’t good design. Look for ways to vary up the shape, size, edge, value in that area to add variety and that should make your drawing more interesting.
• I noticed a little pattern in the way you choose to design your core shadows and reflected light. You make both the core shadow and the reflected lights really thin, almost like just a line. I would consider the forms a little more and add some varieties to the edge type and the thickness and darkness of the core shadow. So for example in the teeth, you can have areas of the core shadow a little softer and lighter. It would make sense to make the bottom softer and the top sharper, because the form is rounder at the bottom. But mainly you just want to look for ways you can add variety.
• In the top row of teeth you pushed the left side up with the curvature of the lip. The teeth don’t move up as the lip moves. Instead, just expose more of the gums in this area. By showing this curvature you’re indicating the tooth cylinder as if we’re looking down at them. Judging from the rest of the drawing I think we’re looking straight at him. Or, her. I guess this could be woman? My apologies to the lovely lady…
• I removed the hand because I wanted to just focus on the head since that’s the part that you’ve finished. Just judging from the layin of the hand, I’d say watch out for the repetition again. The fingers look the same size and shape. Especially in the knuckles try to look for more straight lines. Think about the tendon as it wraps over the bony knuckle and add that construction in there. Make it feel more solid. Right now it looks a bit bubbly because of these curves.
• Personally I didn’t like the hair under the bottom lip. It feels weird coming out of the neck. And I decided give him messier more rugged hair. I think it adds some nice motion to the drawing too. If the ponytail is something very specific to this guy, I am sorry for butchering your character.
• Finally, you can get a stronger light and dark pattern in there. It looks a bit soft and I think that with this character, having a more obvious shadow pattern could add some interesting shapes. Having a better worked out shadow pattern also makes for a more believable light source and that makes the creature feel more real.

Ok, that wraps it up for this critique. I will be posting a time lapse of this drawing in the next few days. Thank you John for submitting your beautiful drawing, and thank you to everyone else that submitted their work. Sorry I can’t get to everyone, but I will be doing more of these, so I might still get to you.

Sorry guys for being absent lately. I’ve been a bit busy with painting deadlines and planning the figure series. I think I’ll have more time now to focus on more videos. So, thank you for being so patient.

And if you liked this episode, I appreciate it when you don’t keep it to yourself. Share it with your friends. Don’t forget to subscribe to the newsletter to get updates on new videos. Thanks for watching!

2 hours 20 mins sped up to 7 minutes.

Thanks Matt Highfield for the photo

Watch for the huge finale!

We see everything around us in 3d. Then we try to draw a 3d world on a 2 dimensional surface. Of course drawing an actual 3d world is impossible on paper. We have to learn to create the Illusion of depth. Any picture can be broken down into 4 elements to create that illusion of form. It’s like the periodic table of elements for artists. And luckily for us, it’s a much smaller table.

We can use these elements to show form and depth if we are realists or representational artists, but it’s not limited to just showing form. Any picture, anything you can see can be broken down into these elements. An abstract watercolor painting, a realistic portrait drawing, a photograph of a sunset, anything that you can see can be described with Shape, Edge, Value, and Color. I would even argue that there are only 3 major elements. Shape, edge, and color. Because value is just a sub-element of color. But value is so important that artists have separated it as its own thing. Also, when we’re drawing, we’re usually drawing in black and white. And in a black and white drawing value is the only visible part of the color. So, we put aside the concept of color, and just say value. When we start painting, we introduce the other two sub-elements of color – hue and chroma.

Let’s go over these elements one by one, starting with Shape.

Shape

Shape is a concept that’s familiar to most of us. It’s the elements we use to draw as kids. It’s the area that something takes up. It’s the outline, or the contour of all the pieces in the drawing. But it’s not limited to just the outline of the big elements. The smaller parts also have specific shapes.

For the early stages of a drawing you want to develop your ability to simplify a shape. This is important so that you can focus on the composition and the breakdown of the big picture. Getting distracted by the smaller details too early, can hurt you in the long run. Working big to small is usually a good idea.

When simplifying, think about geometric shapes – circles, ovals, squares, rectangles, triangles, diamonds, crescents and so on.. These are simple shapes as opposed to complex organic shapes. For example this complex shape of a leaf can be simplified in the first stage of the drawing and then the details can be found in the later stages.

Shape is the most important element to convey the identity of an object. These two shapes are very different and symbolize two very different things. They are not 3 dimensional, but its still very obvious what they represent, just by looking at the shape. That’s why “shape design” is such an important skill to practice and develop. Simply put, shape design is making your shapes look good. It’s a bit arbitrary, but you know it when you see it.

You could say that shape A is better than shape B because it’s cleaner and more interesting. It does a better job of getting the point across and doing so in a more interesting way.

Color

Now let’s move on to color. I’ll go into more depth on color theory later, since it’s a very complex topic and deserves it’s own episode or even a whole series of episodes. Right now, I’ll just go over the basics.

Color has 3 subcategories. The hue, the chroma, and the value. For example, this color has a purple hue, a number 3 value, and a medium chroma.

Chroma

Chroma refers to how grey or how pure the color is. On one end are the high chroma colors that you’ll see in the rainbow, and on the other end are the low chroma greys with a gradual transition.

In some color wheels you’ll have the high chroma colors on the outside with a gradation towards grey in the center. You’ll often hear people using the term “neutralizing” a color. This just means lowering the chroma and bringing it closer to grey. There’s two ways you can do that. The first is just adding grey to it. As you’d expect this will bring it closer to grey. The other way is to add its complement, or the color across from it on the color wheel. Mixing two complimentary colors will result in the color in between them. Half and half will theoretically make grey. Now, pigment isn’t perfect.. you usually won’t get that exactly perfect grey. But you’ll definitely bring it closer to grey. Depending on the ratio you mix, will result in a color somewhere in between the two. If you add just a little bit of green to red, you’ll still have a red, just a lower chroma version.

Value

Value is how light or dark the color is. There is an infinite amount of values, but most artists like to think of a finite scale, zero to ten. It’s more manageable that way and it makes it a lot easier to communicate. A teacher might say, make that shape one value darker. And you’ll know roughly how much 1 value is.

Drawing with charcoal we don’t use color, since everything is grey scale. Or a better way to put that is, we don’t use hue and chroma, the only element of color that we see is value. So, many artists have separated value as its own element and say its more important than the other elements of color. You can have a very beautiful drawing without using color – just grey-scale you don’t need it to draw a representation of what you’re looking at. You don’t need it to show form and depth. I think it’s wise to practice drawing without color as a beginner, since that’s one less ball you have to juggle as you’re learning. Once you get the hang of values, then add the colors, and go wild.

But, I don’t want to make it seem like color isn’t important. It is! Colors are beautiful and quite often its what will catch the eye of someone looking at your artwork. It could set off an emotional response to a piece of art, that a gray scale drawing can’t do. But as the artist you must understand, that if you don’t get the values right, the rest of the color won’t look right. Focus on accuracy of values, and that will allow you to experiment and bend your colors.

That’s your color basics 101, maybe not even 101. More like 1-0-half…

Edge

Edge is the transition between two shapes. It doesn’t have to be an edge of a volume. The shapes within the volume have edges too.

The types of edges range from sharp to extremely soft, with an infinite amount in between. But to simplify it we’ve come up with 4 types of edges: sharp, firm, soft, and lost.

1. A sharp edge is a very sudden transition between 2 shapes. It’s sharp like a razor blade. There is no transition, its a sudden change.
2. A firm edge is almost hard, but it has a very small gradation to it. Think of these as corners that have a bevel or rounded corner. On a figure you’ll typically see firm edges on tendons and joints.
3. A soft edge is a very smooth transition between 2 shapes. You’ll see a longer gradation. Soft edges are like clouds or baby butts.
4. A lost edge is one that is so soft, that you can’t see it anymore. It’s frequently used in areas where the values of two forms are close together and a really soft edge would merge the two volumes together.

Putting it all together

Every time you’re drawing or painting and you look at your reference, you need to have an intuitive checklist of elements to identify. What’s the shape, color, and edge? And within color, what’s the value, hue, and chroma? To make this intuitive you have to train your brain by intentionally thinking about these things while you’re analyzing the subject. Eventually you don’t have to force it anymore, it becomes part of your observation process.

For example as you look at this clementine and you observe the shadow, you ask yourself:

1. what is the shape? is it circular, rectangular, triangular etc. In this case, its a crescent if you simplify it.
2. What is the value on a scale of 0-10? And more importantly what is the value in relationship to all the other values in the picture? The occlusion in the cast shadow, is the darkest part of the picture. If you want your picture to have the full range of values, from 0-10, you have to make it a value 0. The top part of the shadow on the clementine is about 1 value lighter than under the clementine The reflected light below is another 1 to 2 values lighter. Instead of the full value range of 0-10, you can choose to go for a narrower value range, say 3-7. The darkest part would be a 3 and the highlight would be a 7. And accommodate the other values to fit within that range. It’s the relationships between all the values in the picture that really matter.
3. The next question is, what is the hue? Even though it’s an orange clementine, not all the colors on it are orange. I’m seeing a transition from orange on the light side, to a redder hue on the shadow side.
4. What is the chroma? Ehh, it’s somewhere in the middle, probably a little closer to the high chroma side..
5. And the edge is firm on the left side of the shadow and softer on the right (at the terminator).

The ability to see and properly identify all these elements is a skill, its a sense that you need to develop. At first you will struggle to see the subtleties , but just as a musician tunes her ears to hear notes and compose the notes into a symphony, you too can develop your ability to see these subtleties and view the world through an artist’s eye. As with most things, it’s about repetition through practice.

Before you go, I want to thank everyone who bought my Portrait Drawing DVD. You guys have been really supportive and I owe you a big thank you! If you don’t have one yet and are interested, you can go to proko.com/dvd1 to learn more. Thank you guys so much! I’m really lucky to be able to do this

Submit your artwork for critique – http://www.proko.com/critiques

Artists Critiqued:

Antonio T Pinto – http://mypencilportrait.blogspot.com
Marcin – http://we-art.manifo.com

If you prefer to read, here is the transcript:

Hey! Happy new year you! Hope you enjoyed your holidays, had a restful break and you’re ready to tackle 2013! I know I am!

This episode is dedicated to doing some critiques. Critiques of your artwork you submitted that I promised I would do a few months ago..

In these critiques I’m going toi try to focus on advice that will help you improve your drawings and so most of it will be about things I feel you did wrong. Unless I see someone do something exceptionally well, then I’ll show it as an example of how to successfully do something and as inspiration. But for the most part these will probably be heavier on the negative. So, I apologize in advance, but… I THINK thats what you guys want to hear.. right? I hope so… I’m not here to make fun of you. Well, maybe a little… But my intentions are good. Its meant to be constructive criticism that you can use to grow. And btw, all the artwork I’m critiquing today was submitted by viewers specifically to be critiqued publicly on the show. They knew what they were getting in to. If you’d like to have your artwork critiqued on the show, click here and then send me your stuff.

Ok, here it goes!

The first critique goes to Antonio T Pinto

For the most part, your proportions, values, and edges are pretty good. Of course there’s room for improvement, but, not bad.. In fact I saw some that were really nice.

The thing that kinda bothered me throughout most of them was the scratchiness. Sometimes it can be used successfully to add an energy to the draftsmanship, but I think you’re taking it a bit too far. It looks messy and distracting. So it’s actually taking away from the impact of the drawing rather than adding to it. So I would take it down a notch or two. maybe three… especially in the face, where you’re trying to show volume. That much texture flattens the volumes and ages the skin, and can look like scars. It takes away from the realism of the portrait. sometimes making a drawing less realistic can be a good thing, for a specific design purpose, but I just don’t see that to be the case here. Except one drawing. Out of the 50 I looked at, this on is the only one that I think actually benefits from the scratchiness because it adds an emotional element that is appropriate here.

I saw a few drawings where you’re starting to head in the right direction. This one has a little bit of the scratchiness but you’re focusing on rendering the volumes in the important areas of the face. So, good job here. This part of the hair is good. You’re showing some gradations and just the right amount of texture. Down here however you rushed it. You lost the 3d form of the hair and it looks sloppy. Same thing here.

This one is close, but needs a little bit of work. Again I think the scratchy background is distracting. I think it’s largely because of these white spots in the background surrounding his head. They are fighting for attention and I look there instead of the focal point – his face. So, let’s try removing these white spots, and adding some more contrast and light to his face. See, now the background recedes, and the face comes forward! You need to have control of where the viewer looks on your drawing. Decide on focal point and make all your other decisions based on that. Artists are storytellers and we need to be in control. It shouldn’t be random.

The next critique is for Marcin from Poland.

I looked at some of your portraits, and I found them to be too flat. I can see you’re starting to add tones, but your still not getting that 3d look. There needs to be more value to show the forms. In this one, you have light on the front plane of the cheek, and then shadow on the side. but then right after that you have light again. and all over the side plane on the neck and head you have lights the same value as the light on the front plane. If this is a directional light, and I think it was, then there needs to be a clearer distinction between the light planes and shadow planes. I can see that you’re looking for variations of light and dark, but I’m afraid you’re only looking at the variations in small sections. you need to analyze each area as it relates to the rest of the drawing, not just as it relates to the areas immediately next to it. Even though you were correct that this area is darker than this one. You need to make sure that this plane is much darker than this. See how i did not change the relationship between these two areas, this one is still darker than this one, but now we have a clear distinction between light family and shadow family. And I think that’s the biggest thing that’s hurting these portraits is the tones are really spotty They’re scattered around and they’re not coming together to show form.

Look at your reference and figure out what direction the light source is coming from. Any plane that faces the light needs to be clearly light. Anything that faces away needs to be clearly shadow. Any reflected light that hits a shadow area, still needs to be a shadow. I recommend you review my video shading light and form basics where I go over this in more detail.

Also in this drawing, you have what i called ‘spaghetti hair’. In my video on drawing hair I talked about defining the volume of the hair first and then adding the texture second. That way you will make the hair mass 3-dimensional, rather than… a bunch of lines.

Also a related issue is, because you’re drawings are a bit flat, you’re relying on outlines to separate the forms. For example with this nostril, you have no tones. It’s just an outline of the nostril. This looks cartoony and that’s not how we see reality.

Same thing here with the jaw, ear, arm fingers.. You’re using line to separate the forms. Try to look for the value and the edge. This will give you that 3d look that you’re going for.

Hope you guys enjoyed these critiques. If you liked this kind of episode, let me know in the comments so that I know this is beneficial for you guys and I will do more episodes like it. And if you liked this episode, I appreciate it when you don’t keep it to yourself. Share it with your friends. Don’t forget to subscribe to the newsletter on proko.com to get updates on new videos. Thanks for watching!

• How long have you been drawing?
• When did you decide to become a professional?
• Whats your favorite period in art?
• Who are your favorite artists?
• If you could paint anything, what would it be?
• What will you be painting next?
• Whats the most unexpected aspect of being a professional artist?
• Favorite art assignment/project, favorite painting
• What are your future goals?
• Favorite art book
• Talk about our trip to Russia