Seeing and sketching accurate proportions is the foundation of drawing.This lesson takes you step?by?step, through the entire process of drawing a cute little candle?shaped duck, from initially looking at the shapes and proportions to completing a contour drawing.

Preview lesson B02 - Seeing SHapes and Proportions

The duck came out great so I decided to follow the instructions and find something else to draw. I came up empty. The duck had 3 big, clear shapes: circle, kidney and triangle. Everything else has crazy shapes or no shapes. What's the shape of a Coke bottle? What's the shape of a penknife?

Check my Gallery link for the 10-Min Deer drawing I did. Then read my comment to get a feel for what shapes I used to draw this. I identified the shapes the same way this lesson did.

Coke Bottle = Upright cylinder for lower half, and smaller tube or triangle for upper half, then blend the two shapes into each other.

PenKnife = Oval for body of knife, then rectangle with triangle on end for the blade.

Always remember, shapes can overlap each other. You might be imagining the shapes too literally separate from one another.

I did that step of this one on a photo I got from flickr of a bear skull. Just print anything you find from flickr in greyscale and you're using this lesson. A bear skull is a good one because it's mostly just 2 ovals and 2 quarter circles, and you can add as much detail and shading as you want. Bones in pencil on white paper come out great as far as I'm concerned.

Excellent, now we are waiting for your post in the Gallery!

As requested, but I didn't get a good picture of it. The paper is obviously not on a flat surface.

Yes, very nicely done. Check your camera for different light settings using flourenscent, incandescent, daylight or shade. The right setting will allow you to get the right whites to show through. So now you have your first Gallery object. Wasn't so bad, now go out and draw more pictures to post.

Thought it was going to be easy, didn't you?
Eric

THIS IS A GOOD LESSONS BECAUSE I LIKE TO DRAW SO THANK U

Tuhray! Did you fall asleep? I can only see the top of your head!

Welcome to Drawspace and I hope you continue, because if you like to draw this is the place for you to be. Go ahead and try each of the lessons, then get your drawings posted so we can all take a look.

Eric

Very enlightening! Until I read this, I never could understand how artists could determine the correct proportions, but this explained it in a basic, simple, easy-to-understand way. Great lesson.

OK, I probably should have used a heavier line, and cleaned it up better. But here's Ducky!



I took this and the the previous lesson of positive and negative space to start on a redbud twig.



I started cleaning up the lines and penciling in the details.



Beginning to layer colors.



Of course, with the digital camera out, there's always distractions...



Back to the task at hand, you can see that I got in a hurry with the colors and the blending. My wife, who has the patience of Job, desperately needed help keeping the baby out of the plants...



And the final product, signed and dated.

before i would just jump into my drawings and they always ended up looking unbalanced.
I really enjoyed this lesson and the step by step breakdown of the duck figure into simple geometric shapes.
so adorable[font=Century Gothic]

A great follow-up to negative and positive space tutorial. A great tutorial to learn to see in proportion.
Thank you.

This is the first lesson I did and here it is
[attachmentid=5763]

Excelent lesson! I wonder if doing this with real live objects will be any harder...

This was a very helpful tutorial. My logical mind tends to take over and I only see what's before me, not the shapes that make up what's before me. I didn't use to do this but for like two years I didn't draw a thing. Now I'm trying to get back what I had.

This lesson made me know that I actually can sketch! Thanks a real lot!!

Olá galera da DRAWSPACE.COM,

Com toda certeza estou gostando muito do que estou vendo, a minha dificuldade é justamente entender as linhas em inglês, hahahah!!!!, mais nada que um bom tradutor possa dar um jeito, abraços e parabéns pelo site.

[attachmentid=8997]

hello ducky.

[attachmentid=9197]Hi I'm Anna i have 14 years old and i love to draw.Ur lessons are very helpful for me thanks a lot!!
this is my duck

Thanks.

I liked. Training the proportions is very important. I have some difficult in seeing some geometric shapes in more complex objects ...

Great lesson. I am giving into my artistic needs and learning how to draw. This is my 1st attempt.

Now I am off to draw something new :-)

Hi, I cann't do proportion cicles free-hand, I'm a real beginner! What can I do to draw them better?

this lesson is very useful. remember to read it an o the activity you will get more out of it.

My duck and the deer. Following the lesson I tried to draw the deer and I was pleasantly surprised by the result [attachmentid=10345]

Hi,I'm happy for you. I'm still trying...A soon as I fix my scanner I will post it here.

Hi, Thanks for the lesson. It's very informative and easy to follow except one small thing. On page four as step number 1 you say "draw a bean shape"... without any(!) measured proportions to follow. I found that it's much easier to draw a head. Then we immediately know how low should be the bottom of the bean, how wide (in horizontal dimension) the bean should be, etc...

hey i like its cool .

growing up i didn't get help or education when it came to art because my family didn't have the money. i learned by myself with my hands and eyes. (sometimes i would draw secretly because my parents would scold me for wasting paper!)
later i eventually kept myself away from drawing because i simply didn't have the money to spend for it. i only use the cheapest materials. (good quality materials are very expensive in my country)
i stumbled into this site and finally i have something to help me improve whatever talent that i have and my interest in drawing is gradually coming back.
the simple, fun approach and delivery of the author is perfect for us people with a different primary language. ( i live in the philippines so forgive my english!)
thank you so much for bringing your knowledge to the internet.

since i did this lesson, i learned to look at the proportions of everything. this is great.

I just finished the duck and finally got it to the point that I could live with. Everytime I thought it was ok, I found something else to change. It turned out Ok although messy because I pressed down too hard. The paper I used is old so it was difficult to draw on. Proportion is a challenge for me. As I work on it, it turns out ok though. If I find a scanner I may post it.

The second object I drew was the swan (in Lesson B01). It's ok. But I sketched the hair on the head and neck to fuzzy. It looks like a swan at least.

jwatson This comment page is all new to me. I feel like I'am guessing at every step I
take. I have been drawing on and off for many years. It is good to review
some of the things I learned years ago. Many areas I do so automatically and
probably do not realize I'am missing some steps. It is a challenge to learn again
at my age. I'am looking forward to the coming lessons. My computer skills are
quite limited also.

My First Ducky:

Click to view attachment

His tail is too long, but I'm quite impressed. I didn't think it would turn out so well. These lessons are really neat!

That's really great. I gould like if at the end of this general lessons, could be a couples of images more to practice.

WOW! I did my first drawn
what do you think about it ?
I just took like 30 mins to do it
Click to view attachment

Excellent lesson on seeing shapes and judging proportions.
Thoroughly enjoyed the contents.
Thanks

This just makes so much sense! Really helped me to see and break down more complicated subjects into easy to deal with shapes. Great Lesson!

I just finished my first lesson!
I took the wick off because I thought it looked cuter without it. Waddya think?

I love seeing everyone's drawings!
I learned a lot in this lesson.

This Lesson was actually pretty simple.It was fun,cutting things down into basic shapes,and then highlighting the details afterwards

This lesson takes you step-by-step, through the entire process of drawing a cute little candle-shaped duck,
That was so cute.. Can you imagine a candle-shaped duck? LOL I think it should read duck shaped candle.

I really enjoyed the duckling.

Dear Brenda,

I'm an absolute beginner and after some practice on my own was ready to give up and stick with other hobbies. Then I found your site. I've taken your first two beginner lessons about negative space and seeing shapes and I'm feeling some excitement; my duck looks like a duck. Thank you. I got a little ambitious with my 'homework' and made a sketch of a photo portrait of my daughter. I was happy to see that the outlines and proportions were not bad, as I used your techniques. Features such as the eyes and mouth, however, were crude and cartoonish and a very poor likeness. All in good time, I hope.

Is there a way we can see examples of the tasks that you set for 'homework' after each lesson? Either work of your own or other learners that demonstrate the skills being practiced? I suppose what I mean is galleries connected with each lesson. At the moment, I have no scanner and can't upload any of my own work, unfortunately.

One other thing I think would make the lessons even better. If we could open the original photo e.g. of the candle duck, in another tab or page. It's easier to tab back and forth than scroll up and down. Just an idea; I know nothing about the technology required to do that or whether it's even possible with PDF files.

Thanks again. I look forward to lesson three, tomorrow.

Sincerely
Eoin Meagher

Here is my duck I also did a Turkish-coffee pot using the same principles. Original picture also included.

Great lesson! I'm really excited to be embarking on these lessons.

I have a question about what is the best way to approach these exercises: should I spend as much time as it takes to get my proportions near-perfect, or should I get it to a "good enough" point and move on? I'm drawing a chalice as the "challenge" portion of this lesson and wonder if I'm spending way too much time on it. I'm eager to move on to the next lesson, but am reluctant to leave my drawing before feeling completely satisfied with it. But that could take hours! How much of an obsessive perfectionist should I be about these exercises?

Thanks,
Monique

wow, its amazing how this simple lesson greatly increases my drawing.

on this issue, we can say that the proportions are accurate in a drawing or object where this takes us step by step how to draw an object and then complete the drawing of an outline.

duck revised, mug revised

Yuuuup - Here's my Ducky yah'll -