Today we will talk about simple but very important things. We will talk about the theory of understanding the basic forms of drawing, in the course will be offered a little practice.

Remembering drawing lessons in my art school, I often catch myself on the fact that frankly admire the simple and accessible approaches that carries the system of academic art education, where gradually and very competently to the students brought the idea of adopting the basic rules of construction and drawing of various subjects. And now, when I myself try to explain many basic things to my students, I involuntarily turn to the same language that was used by my direct teachers.

Consider the theory of forms. Each of us understand that our surrounding consists of simple and complex geometric shapes. Any items can be represented as a set of simple objects. For example, houses are rectangles with prismatic roofs; cars are parallelepipeds with oval and cylindrical inclusions, and even a rose flower is just a ball with rounded petals on the edges.

And, on the contrary, in some simple form we can always see the inclusion of some more geometric shapes. For example, a rectangular computer case has different recesses, buttons in the form of small cylinders or cubes. And even an ordinary spherical football is divided into several convex octagonal sections.

Today I want to confirm all said above with two simple illustrative examples.

See a complex-looking structure, the crown of the tree. Not so long time ago I published lessons of drawing trees and drew attention to the fact that not everyone has an understanding of the essence in drawing this subject. It's not scary, because artists are not born, but become.

The crown of almost every tree can be considered as a set of simple elements. Now I will prove that it is so. Let's sketch such a simple scheme. Here we have a branched trunk and crown, consisting of several balls. So far it's just circles, but draw on.

As you remember, the shading of the ball is quite peculiar. If we take into account that the light on the crown will fall from the top left, the shadows and halftones on the spheres, of which in the future will be our crown, will be superimposed at the bottom right. The only amendment is that there will also be a small backlight – light reflex bands along the contours of the balls. It's those simple rules we shaded our sphere shading.

Important point. For crown did not get flat, we must remember that some balls of the crown is closer to us, and some is futher. And so they will also be shaded differently. Some balls are better lit, but closing the light to others. This applies to those balls that are just at the top left. Remember that together all our spheres are one geometric figure – our future tree!

Everything is quite simple. We seem to split our spheres into separate elements, drawing on them individual bundles of leaves, and if you draw on larger formats, then the leaves themselves. We do everything according to the same shading rules as on the initial spheres.

Now we have not just incomprehensible balls on the branches, but almost a real tree! If you carefully and consistently followed the instructions, you will never make a mistake in the end.

Important note. If you now remove the final drawing far from the eyes, it will still look quite voluminous. This is the crown of the tree, not some flat foliage. This is just the result of the right approach to business.

The second example I would like to talk about is drawing dreadlocks. By the way, a very characteristic case, including for those who do not quite understand how to draw hair.

It would seem that the hair is simle thing to draw. But they are incredibly thin, and dreadlocks – a kind of plump sausages! And here the trick is that each individual dreadlocks and each hair separately – it is, in fact, the same objects. And those and others are cylindrical specimens and appear by the same rules, just the scale of them vary widely.

If we begin to apply the tone, it is exactly the same as standing on tightly to each other cylinders. Just remember that some hair will be closer, and other ones is further. It doesn't have to be dreadlocks. Even ordinary hair often lie in separate strands or bundles, and are drawn exactly the same rules.

An important role is played by competent shading. It should be applied according to the rules obtained in art schools. Remember about plaster cylinders and cones?

Next, I generally scattered tones in the hairs that look like a strong increase. Feels like tentacles, doesn't it?

At the end I added the details and get almost real dreads! Note that the overall detail of the shading I did not break. The hair bundles turned out to be cylindrical in shape.

Those simple rules, which I have told you today, work in respect of any subjects. If you understand them and at the same time look at things around you, you will discover the whole universe of objects, which at a certain angle can always be represented as a set of simple forms. After all, in fact, even an elephant or a bear can be taught to draw, but the real artist is different from the draftsman that he does not just look at the world, but also sees its hidden essence.

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