I tried my hand at drawing an ear. Jack Hamm’s book helped me to get some feel about the general shape an ear should have (img040). Then I search for a photo of an ear and tried to draw that.
I found that I have the tendency to use to dark lines while sketching. The problem with that is that lines have two purposes. Not only do they mark the edge of the subject, the ear in this case. They’re also used to show ridges by representing shades. When you use to dark lines to mark edges it looks like there is a ridge where there should be none.
Yesterday I said that I figured out how shading worked. Today I tried it again.
It’s kind of a trick.
I find that I have two modes of looking at a drawing. In the one mode the drawing is flat and darker and lighter areas are just that. Darker and lighter areas.
In the other mode the drawing becomes 3 dimensional and just by looking at the ridges it becomes obvious where shades will be cast and which areas should be darker and which should be lighter.
The trick is to switch from one mode to the other when your drawing needs it. A few days ago I did that by accident and it felt like an epiphany. I didn’t even know it was possible.
Today I couldn’t get it to work so I had to do it the old fashion way: Work on something else for a few hours and when you return to your drawing you’ve switched.
Then you can see what you actually drew. You can think about what you should do with your next drawing but you can’t actually work on the drawing.
img040
img041
Posted on Flickr by Henk ter Heide
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