I’ve always been at least a little interested in anything
artsy or creative. While I’m fairly skilled and familiar with anything musical,
having played multiple instruments, and participated in two shows through
Northwood and KR’s drama department, I’ve never put much time into drawing. My
cousin took art lessons during her elementary school and middle school years. She had a
natural talent and a passion for art. I was always impressed by even her
doodles, but never took the initiative to improve my skill in this area, until
now. I will be using Giovanni Civardi’s “Drawing A Complete Guide” in order to
get at least a basic idea for all things drawing.
The first thing that struck me as very important was the
light and shading in a drawing. Whether the drawing is color or
achromatic tones (meaning tones that have no color), the contrast in light/shading can be incredibly useful. One of the most important things shading is used for is volume and depth.
Value is light and shadow portrayed in the drawing, and chiaroscuro is the
contrast between the two. These two ideas help create intuitive space. "Intuitive
space an illusion created by the artist that tricks any viewer into seeing depth, volume and mass on a two dimensional
surface" (Civardi 83). The first thing I decided to do in order to properly use intuitive
space was to draw some basic objects, three dimensional objects like spheres, boxes and cones. Two important
things to include were the object’s cast shadow and form shadow. A form shadow is the less defined dark side on an object that is not facing the light source. The cast shadow is the shadow created by the object, or the shadow the object casts (Civardi 89). One also has to account for the small amount
of reflected light, adding an unexpected lighter patch where the form shadow
is. Minding the shadows and the different tones each part of the object
had was very important when it came to finally drawing, since that really helps when you are creating the illusion of a three dimensional object. I started with drawing
the lighter part of the circle, and then slowly transitioned into the darker parts. After this, I then increased the level of detail in the object and its shadow. My first attempt at a drawing was a sphere with proper shading and shadows.
The final product came out looking pretty good, but it took much longer than I initially thought it would. Even the slightest change in lighting is significant, ( Civardi 81) and getting the gradual change in shading was much more difficult, and often took me multiple tries to get it just right. Ultimately, the most important thing I learned was the level of concentration of focus that goes into drawings like these. Detail was incredibly important, but in the end the final result came out much better than I originally anticipated.
The question I have for you guys is what are some things or activities that require even the smallest amount of detail in order to be successful? How do you reach the level of detail needed?
Giovanni, Civardi. Drawing, A Completle Guide. N.p.: Search, 2006.
