Drawing shapes: simplifying & line importance

Line and Simplify Shapes

We will talk more about shape identification, how to use that to your advantage. Also, we will start with the line shape and drawing it. We're not done with the photo either, there is so many things to say about it. I want to encourage you to work from life too. It is the very best way to learn to draw.

Lines

How does line help? Well, it will be the absolute first thing you put on your paper for design purposes. The concept of the line identifies the basic shape placements, how you lead the viewer through the painting, and your basic composition. I can't express it enough how important this concept is in composition. 

1.     Rule: Line decides the composition in the most basic sense. It should be an uneven space devision.  Never forget this rule. Our brains are made in such a way that we unknowingly will space things even, but our visual senses like uneven representation of our visual field. This is a basic concept that is stressed in Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting.  Every artist should have this book. Also, another book that I think should be in every artist library would be Drawing Scenery: Landscapes and Seascapes. 
2. The first step would be to identify the horizon line. Remember to keep spaces uneven. Ask yourself; is this drawing about the sky or the earth? Then place your first line after you decide the frame of the picture (rectangle, vertical or square). 

The concept here is on how to divide your space and where to start. 

The next line could maybe represent a tree. The bottom picture represents how a line can stop the viewers eye from traveling around the picture plane. 

The idea here is to show you how a line can cause the viewer to stop. 

If this happens the viewer in this case has nowhere to follow through with the painting and will move on to another. The important concept to take away from this is how important lines are to create a pathway to leave and enter the painting multiple times. As you see in above photo the top picture design has more ways to enter the painting, but the bottom example is awkward for the viewer. 

This next example is the use of multiple lines that leave the painting edges allowing the viewer multiple ways to enter and leave a painting.

See how this example is pleasing to the eye? I would suggest that you explore the line concept with your references in the sketchbook. The more basic exercises you complete, the more it sticks and becomes a auto reflex of sort to make better paintings. Curves can be used to represent parts of the painting. I would suggest No Values should be explored at this stage, Only how the lines can direct the eye. This is a foundation piece to good drawings. We must learn to crawl before we can run. 

This is just an example on how lines might work, both complete to all edges and incomplete. Since this is about the sky we could dissect this as the horizontal lines maybe be a pathway (river or road) to the red line. So the FP could be that object (house, tree, sign or telephone line). The dark lines in the sky could of course be clouds or even just a color change. See where I'm going with this? Lines can be curved too. Just a simple suggestion is all that's needed. This could be a very busy scene for a first painting so I would suggest something much more simpler from your reference photos.

Keep it really simple

Here is the photos that the line concept above represent.

Shapes

Shapes are simply the overall design of the landscapes. Shapes can also be described as the bones of a painting using the line concept.

How do I identify shapes? A good way is to turn your photo to black & white to help identify these shapes. You'll be looking at value (is it light, medium or dark)? How do these shapes connect? Is there blurred area where the shades melt together? That's what you are looking for. Example might be this landscape

Squint your eyes and see the large shapes.

Notice the green shapes are in the foreground and appear very dark. There also is two shapes in the background that are pink.

 Let's review the green shapes first. Every photo makes the darks appear darker than what they would be in real sunlight. They are on the same plane in this photo. Lets look at planes in a photo. Well, what in the heck does that mean? Planes are divisions that depict where objects sit as they recede back in space. This helps to create a 3D effect on a 2 dimensional surface.

The pink area is the foreground, the green is the middle ground and the orange is the background. The sky and river have their own shapes too, I just didn't identify them in this photo.

It looks like we have 4 big shapes. But wait, the green areas are not connected well. See how we can connect them with that sliver back by the thin area of red shape? We could use that shape to connect the greens together. That gives us one big green shape.

The blue areas mark similar light values (lets give it a 3 on a value scale)we might want to consider for this painting. We may also decide the blue value of the river is a step down in value (4). Then red designates the darkest value (value of 7) with the green areas the next value 5or 6. Since the green areas are darker  but not as dark as the red shape of the tree line. The orange area is for us to remember this is the furthest plane away from us and must be treated as a value lighter that the foreground. It's another concept to learn (arial perspective) which we will tackle in another post. Just remember things get lighter and duller as they recede in the landscape. 

This might seem all too much, but look at your references and try to pick out the large shapes, squint and connect the shapes where you can. Identify the planes. Value and color choices will depend on these. Try blending the green shapes together. Make a notan of 3 shapes. Does that look pleasing to you? Use light, medium and dark marks to see. In this case I would first make the sky and river separate from the earth. Then try to pick out the dark in the earth area. Thats part of the bones. Review my notan post as this discusses this concept with photos to help you with understanding. 

Your goal is to simplify your shapes. If you succeed in this it will make your painting process more intuitive because, you have worked out all the hard stuff first. This equals less frustration and more fun. 

We'll explore this simplifying more in my next drawing post. Until then keep practicing in your sketchbook, plain paper, napkins whatever works for you to draw. spend 15 minutes on it every day. Pretty soon it will be automatic and then you'll be able to see it without having to do the exercises. It's a wonderful feeling when that happens.