Amarpreet Singh: Drawing a Tree

For my final post, I decided to put all of my skills to the test. Throughout my blog posts I’ve done many things such as shading, drawing curves freehandedly, and even more shading. Alright most of my blog posts somehow relate to the topic of shading. For this final drawing, I needed something that could show my improvement in overall drawing and shading as well.

That’s why I decided to draw a tree. Catherine V. Holmes, the author of my book called "How to Draw Cool Stuff: Basics, Shading, Texture, Pattern and Optical Illusions,” has a very detailed tutorial on how to do so. 90% of the drawing itself is shading the tree, which was perfect to show my improvement from drawing my first drawing freehandedly.

First, Holmes tells us to draw “a basic trunk and a few bits of branch stemming from it.” (Holmes 134) Holmes also suggests not to use a ruler as the tree’s trunk should be natural with lots of tiny imperfections.

Next, I drew the outline around the tree. I made sure not to make this symmetrical, as Holmes had stated “don’t make it perfectly symmetrical – trees are organic structures and are never exactly the same on both sides.” (Holmes 134)

Continuing on with the shading, I took note of the fact that there would be a light source. Of course, Holmes had a work around, shading darker on the left side of the tree while having some darker parts pulling off to the right.

Going on I darkened some parts of my tree, mostly the shaded leaves and the trunk itself, only to bring it out a little more in the mess of the shading.

Again, I used my technique of swiveling the pencil lightly around the parts I needed to shade, I learned to do this while drawing my eye.

Finally I erased the outline of the tree and added details to the trunk of the tree, noting the fact that the light would change how the trunk looked. Also drawing a cast shadow can be important as well.

What do you think, did I improve from my first post? Also, was my human eye better or this tree?

Overall I had fun learning about all these different techniques and things about drawing. I still need a guide or helping hand but practice makes perfect. 

Amarpreet Singh: Drawing a Swallow

In my last blog post I saw that my rose petals were a little off. I still needed work on drawing curves by hand. I felt like I improved on it a little bit but I didn’t immerse myself into the art. You can tell if it’s off or not. So that’s why I decided to draw a swallow, a type of bird that is characterized by its adaptation to aerial feeding.

First the author of my very helpful book, "How to Draw Cool Stuff: Basics, Shading, Texture, Pattern and Optical Illusions,” Catherine V. Holmes says to draw a simple circle. Of course this was sort of a challenge for me since I still needed to practice drawing circles and curves enough to do it perfectly. That’s why I decided to use graph paper. The squares on the graph paper showed me how to conserve the space around the circle to make it look somewhat decent.

Going on, I continued to draw the small beak of the bird. I did as Holmes had suggested, “simply extend off of the circle, drawing free with your hand, like a gust of wind pushing it upwards and descending down.” (Holmes 113)

As I went on I drew the two lines extending from the exterior and the wing alongside it. The wing springs from the head to “add a sense of depth.” (Holmes 113)

Now came the tricky part, tiny little curves, as you can see I had a little trouble with the alignment of the extending curves based on my eraser marks.

Then I continued on to drawing each little feather between the wings and tail. This was probably the hardest part as I tried to keep it clean but struggled to keep it symmetrical as well.

The author then tells to draw a smaller group of curves alongside the top of the wings. This was tricky for me as well, I misjudged the size of the curves and didn’t look back to the bigger wings to see how big I needed to draw them.

Finally I filled the bird in with a thin sharpie and erased my pencil marks. I thought it would make it look nicer, which it did, but it also shows the imperfections in my wings.

I obviously need to work on drawing curves and circles freehandedly. Feel free to leave tips down below.

What do you think I should draw for my final drawing?

Amarpreet Singh: Drawing a Rose

Last time I drew an eye, which was pretty interesting and I felt like I improved my shading skills. This time I thought I’d try my hand at drawing a rose. I even had to draw a rose for my chemistry class for the periodic table since I got rhodium. The origin of the name comes from the Greek work “rhodon” meaning “rose.”

First the author of my book, "How to Draw Cool Stuff: Basics, Shading, Texture, Pattern and Optical Illusions,” Catherine V. Holmes tells us to start by drawing a simple rose petal.

After drawing the simple rose petal you have to simply “extend off of the rose petal continuing the simplistic design towards the right.” (Holmes, Pg. 79)

Continuing with the drawing, we draw the petal which resides on the right side of the rose.

With more details, we continue upwards by adding small petals.

The small petals then connect together and form the base of the rose. Now we can see more of the rose and see how this way of drawing the rose is very simplistic.

By continuing down and drawing the exterior petals of the rose we finish it off.

But not before adding a few leaves at the bottom of the rose, which extend from the base itself.

Adding a few sharper leaves adds more detail as well.

Finally, we add the stem and finish our simple rose drawing off.

I thought that this way of drawing a rose was very interesting. The author used one petal to extend off of the other and complete the drawing without adding too much complexity. This is easy for beginners like me and I thought it was amazing.

What do you think of this way of drawing a rose?

Amarpreet Singh: Drawing a Eye

In my last Blog post I tried my hand at drawing for the first time. It wasn’t very impressive with the lopsided shading and the missing details. This time I thought I would try to add more details to my drawings. That’s why I chose to draw an eye. My book, "How to Draw Cool Stuff: Basics, Shading, Texture, Pattern and Optical Illusions" by Catherine V. Holmes, has a very detailed guide to drawing a simple yet very detailed eye.

First the author suggests you draw “an outline shaped like an almond, making the inner corner lower than the outer corner.” (Holmes 65) This technique of drawing and almond-shaped outline is great since it shows how easy it is to start the drawing.

 

After I drew the outline I drew the inner circle. Which wasn’t that hard, but I still need to practice free-handing circles to better my drawing skills.

 

Then I drew the pupil and the highlight. The author suggested to “draw the highlight first to extend the pupil off.” (Holmes 65)

 

I continued by filling in the pupil of the eye as dark as I could, the author suggested this as it shows adds more detail by putting the highlight above.

 

Drawing the eyelids and putting on a few lashes was the easiest part of this. Drawing little bits of lashes lets you go back to it later to add gender to the eyelashes. “The male eyelashes have lighter eyebrows while the female eyebrows have darker and taller eyebrows.” (Holmes 65)

 

I darkened the inner circle along with the outline of eye. Continuing by drawing lines into the pupil extending from the inner circle.

 

Then I shaded in the outer edge of the inner circle along with the pupil darker as I went on. It was suggested to add more lines to add more depth as well.

 

I drew darker and taller eyelashes for a female eye.

 

Now came the hard part. The shading of the eye. The author suggested to smudge the pencil shade with your finger but instead I swirled my pencil lightly over the parts I wanted to shade in a circle. It worked pretty well.

 

Tell me what you think of my second drawing and feel free to leave tips.
Have you ever drawn an eye? It was an interesting and surprisingly quite easy experience for me.

Amarpreet Singh: Drawing a Present

Ever since I was child, I've always wanted to learn how to draw. I was always fascinated by how people could draw amazing things on paper. I'm sure some of you guys have had similar goals, to accomplish something that you've always wanted to do.

In my learning process, I will be using the book "How to Draw Cool Stuff: Basics, Shading, Texture, Pattern and Optical Illusions" by Catherine V. Holmes.

This book includes lot's of descriptive instructions with lot's of vocabulary. Not only is this book great for starters, it's great for people who have always wanted to get into drawing.

First I wanted to start with turning simple shapes into objects. The book says that you must have an understanding of "the value added to a shape (2D) when drawing creates form (3D), the lightness or darkness of a value can indicate where a light source falls onto an object, overlapping and shading the four basic forms in art can lead to combining them for other forms." (Holmes, Pg. 32)

I first wanted to draw a gift box. I started out by making the outline of two squares on my paper, each lined up to make it look like a cube. Then I connected the two squares together to finish my cube and then erased the bottom left hand corner of the cube to make it look more like a box. Trying to draw on the ribbon lines was the hardest part for me to do since you had to angle the lines just right to make it look good. I then drew a faintly outlined ribbon on top of the box for reference to when I would be shading the ribbons in.

As I shaded in the ribbons I made sure not to shade into the part where I had outlined the bow. After I finished shading the ribbons lightly, I erased the space where my bow would be and then drew it in again before shading it in.

This was my first time drawing something and if you'd like to leave any helpful tips or comments below that'd be greatly appreciated.