#13: Shade a Shape
YouTube a tutorial or two—and a cat video.
Instructions
Find a few simple-shaped objects to draw.
Place them in a location with strong, stable light.
Experiment with cross-hatching or other shading techniques.
If you get stuck, watch a YouTube tutorial or two.
Finish with a cat video. I recommend any Maru.
How the huh?
One of the great parts of being young is the novelty and freshness of new experiences. One of the joys of being older is to reflect on your experience and know what works for you, what your strengths are, and what influential things were right—and wrong.
For example, I spent a lot of time and money on getting a graduate degree in Art Education, and can spare you the expense. Here’s the (theory of) Artistic Development of kids:
As we begin to have hands that can grab stuff, we naturally play with materials and make (and destroy) things. Once we can (barely) hold a crayon or brush, we make big, sloppy gestures.
Our brains and motor skills improve a little more. We start to make a set of shapes that we repeat—hence the family drawings by a kid that are one set of shapes for every person, just wildly larger or smaller. Love those furry circles for “hands”
Our brains grow, and we start to want our drawings to “look right”. Inevitably most people don’t have the talent to accurately render an image—or truthfully, the time/desire to learn.
We give up making things and say “I can’t draw.” It's sad because drawing (and making stuff more broadly) is fun and a crucial part of living a full life.
Image: My niece made a perfect drawing of her aunt, and a good example of the second phase of artistic development.
BONUS! A few thousand dollars in tuition can be summed up as such:
When a kid shows you a drawing, don’t ask “what is THAT?”
Instead, say “ooo, I like this part, can you tell me about it?”
Or say “Thank you for sharing. Please tell me more!”
This is also great relationship advice.
How I (Almost) Learned to Draw
My cousin Trevor was a comic nerd and artist. I saw his drawings when I was a kid and wondered how the heck he did it. He pointed me to a book called “How To Draw Comics the Marvel Way,” () and after some cajoling or begging (or maybe a library card?) I was able to get a copy of it. These days you can watch flip-throughs or read blogs walking you through it.
Stan Lee and Marvel illustrator John Buscema break down figure drawing and comics in the classic late 70s/early 80s style of heavy inking (and physically impossible female forms). I had only a passing knowledge of comics but was hooked—remember, this was pre-Internet. I broke any object down to cubes, columns, and used the “this is 6 1/2 heads” method to draw a figure.
Side note: one of my all-time favorite weird comics cartoons was Michael Kupperman’s Picasso comic and cartoon, where the cubist painter for some reason has an Italian accent and is obsessed with “breaking (things) down to the little cubes”. I once voiced Pablo Picasso for a MoMA Flash website but didn’t do the weird accent, even though I wanted to. Double side note: Pete Holmes has a good bit about Italian accents being the only culturally acceptable stereotype voice—though Conan O’Brien pointed out that the Irish are also in there.
Image: Picasso about to “break-a-you-down into the leeeetle cubes”
Of course, as with any step-by-step drawing tutorial, A LOT was left out. And looking back, it’s not a great book, but it did help me understand perspective… a little.
God Bless the Internet
Attending my first life drawing class in college was titillating—for exactly 7 seconds. Very quickly the mind shifts from “ooo, naked person” to “ugh, how do I draw that elbow?” I’m still not very talented at shading. My painting teacher in college had a rule: don’t ask any questions until you fill the entire canvas with paint. In other words: do the work. I mostly did not.
Luckily, YouTube tutorials have popped up. In this great tutorial, someone named Shoo Raynor goes through the basics of cross-hatching. In 12 minutes, he completely changed my understanding of cross-hatching, including (duh) rotating the paper and (double duh) going in the direction of dark to light with your pen.
Dorian Iten has a whole online course on shading, and even the preview lessons blew my mind.
Image: Dorian breaking down light and shadow
So use the internet for good, and research some new drawing techniques that have always been challenging for you. Chances are you’ll stumble upon something good, and perhaps save yourself student loan bills for a couple decades.
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