I recently posted a video of an artichoke which demonstrates how I do an armature drawing to show the surface contour. One of my enthusiastic blog readers sent me a drawing that she did of a pumpkin and was having trouble understanding how she could improve the drawing. Here is copy of the drawing that she sent me.
I printed out her drawing and placed a piece of tracing paper over it. This is the drawing that I came up with along with some pointers.
The first thing I did was redraw the stem and get the elliptical shape working properly. Then I found the center of the stem where it joins to the center of the pumpkin. In my drawing this is the red dot. From there I estimated where the center point of the bottom of the pumpkin was. I then drew a line (in blue) through the center of the stem as well as the center of the pumpkin. This establishes the AXIS of the pumpkin. All longitudinal lines must converge to the center of the axis at BOTH POINTS. As you can see in the first drawing the longitudinal lines do not end at the point of the axis. As soon as the lines converge into the 2 points the drawing begins to come to life and is less confusing.
The lines that go around the pumpkin the width of the pumpkin are the latitudinal lines and they must also follow the surface contour. If the pumpkin was a cylinder or a sphere like an apple, the lines would simply be a series of ellipses that change size as the shape becomes wider or narrower. This is not the case with the pumpkin as the sections are convex throughout the entire shape. The latitudinal lines show the undulation of the form.
I hope this helps to further solidify how surface contour works within a complex form. Many thanks to my blog reader for allowing me to share this with others.
Do you have something that you are struggling with? Maybe I can help you with it. Drop me a note or leave a comment.
Love it! I can always use a refresher on this subject. Thanks so much.
Hi Judy! Thanks for visiting my blog and leaving your comment. I am loving it here in Florida but miss all of the artists up north.
Hugs,
~Mindy
Hi Mindy … I watched the artichoke video which offered great instruction but still was a bit confused by the process. Seeing the pumpkin in the 2 versions gave much clarification. I will print out this example to keep for future drawings. Thanks so much for enlightening us!
Hi Carole,
So glad that this helps. All it takes is for an “A-ha!” moment to sink in to get you drawing in the right direction!
Happy drawing,
Mindy
Hi Mindy!
I was very inspired watching your pen and ink tutorials. I’m interested to see how you would incorporate color. What medium do you use for the color and how does that alter the way you do the inking? Will you have a video on this?
Thanks for the great introduction to pen and ink!
Sue
Hi Sue,
Thanks for watching the Pen & Ink Tutorials! You can use watercolor or colored ink in conjunction with black ink as long as the ink is waterproof. When the black ink is waterproof it will not run when you overlay color. Transparent color is best to use so that the black lines stay really black and uniform. Opaque colors will make the black ink cloudy and you may have to ink over the lines to get it a true black again. The other option is do the color first and ink on top. Either way…..experiment and have fun!
~Mindy