$125
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Full course
Learn the basics for how to draw a variety of clothing and drapery. Master the 7 basic folds and understand how fabric interacts with the human figure.
$125
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Educator, painter, and art historian. Author of Figure Drawing: Design and Invention and Gesture Drawing: Dynamic Movement and Form.
LESSON NOTES
What's in Premium?
A common issue with drawing drapery is losing the underlying figure. In this premium lesson, I show you how to keep your mannequin's perspective intact when adding complex folds. You will watch me critique student work and demonstrate how to wrap folds around the body's topography. We also cover how to set up your drawing for rendering. You need to understand surface changes before you even think about lighting. If your clothed figures look flat or stiff, this video will show you exactly how to fix those issues. You will learn how to make your drapery describe the solid form underneath.
Get this lesson and more in the premium course!
DOWNLOADS
critique-half-lock-and-spiral-folds.mp4
1 GB
critique-half-lock-and-spiral-folds-transcript-english.txt
64 kB
critique-half-lock-and-spiral-folds-transcript-spanish.txt
70 kB
critique-half-lock-and-spiral-folds-captions-english.srt
106 kB
critique-half-lock-and-spiral-folds-captions-spanish.srt
118 kB
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Your folds will look flat if they ignore the mannequin underneath.
You must establish the perspective of the figure first. Watch how tension points and wrapping lines force your fabric to describe the volume of the body.
Thank you so much for the feedback, it was really helpful!
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9d
Glad to hear it! My pleasure
I have a couple of key take aways from this less. First is just seeing more of your breakdown an assessment of the folds is super helpful in applying the concepts and drawing along to commit them to practice.
Second relates to the rendering since I know I've been one of the people asking for it. I think this is an area where I do need to go back to the basics. I feel like I have a good understanding of the underlying structure of the manikin (something I've practiced a bunch) but I don't feel like I have a good grasp of how to light the simple forms consistently or the structure of the complex surface created by the folds. The example of the leg being a drumstick, which is just an egg and a cylinder that everyone knows how to light really pointed me to needing to spend some more time with that fundamental. I should probably spend some more time tracing the surface contour as we did in the earlier assignments as well.
To that, are there good exercises or resources to practice those skills? This is an open question to anyone who has something they like in this area. I like to take multiple inputs and see what sticks.
Also, with the lag between doing the assignments and seeing the critique, it's wild to look back and see the obvious progress in my own work just from these drawings to the latest ones!
All really helpful comments on my submission. Of the three I did, that was the first drawing and I think I definitely get smarter with the designing and thinking about form beneath by the second and then really challenged by that on the third. Looking back, I see A LOT of parallels (the front arm is parallel to the belt which is parallel to the collar). Thanks. The next project is proving really challenging. So much to consider with having to edit and design with the 7 folds. Phew!
