Hitting the Bottle. A designer's approach to drawing:While there are various ways to learn to draw, the approach we are taking in this Design Drawing class is with... bottles.
Wha?!
Hear me out here! By studying bottles, it give students a chance to analyze a simple object for it's underlying structure. When you look at a Michaelangelo drawing it's remarkable how he was able to see and draw the simple, most essential elements in his figures. Through our study of bottles, we will learn to do the same. In doing so, with simple objects like bottles, it will help us to eventually see the structure within more complex objects, like cast statues, the human figure, trees, etc. But it all starts with bottles!
Approach: First off, I should mention that as you begin this drawing, it is recommended to start by drawing and finishing one bottle, just to get familiar, then using that as a basis for the bottles next to it. As you begin your bottle drawing homework, start the bottle drawing as you would any other of our class drawings: that is by first deciding on the initial height of your drawing, and marking that off with a top and a bottom point. This forms your first constant. Next, draw in the center-line, then the mid-point, then measure (using knitting needle/ skewer) the bottle to find the relationship of the width to the height (this is called comparitive measuring). Draw this in to determine your notional space.
Now start to identify the basic shapes that compose these bottles (triangles, rectangles/squares, circles) and measure to find the key transition points. An example of this on the above illustration is the point on the left-most bottle where the circle in the center transitions into the triangle.
Start with the one bottle, then draw in the other 2, forming a composition. Keep this drawing. Next week we will learn to make an overlay, using tracing paper, analyzing spatial elements (perspective) of the bottles, taking them from the realm of 2-dimensions to the world of 3-dimensions.
So find a quiet spot, put on some good music, and enjoy the process. And if you get stuck feel free to contact me. tim.mansen@gmail.com
