THE ART OF DRAWINGS SHAPES - 23.9.23
The constituent elements of the form, like themselves, are composed of lights and shadows which are not necessarily subject to an always rigid canon, but which reveal themselves - through a common and similar pattern - according to the occasion on which are perceived by the eye (the angle, the incidence of light on it, etc.) this indicates that the shapes must be drawn not through the decorum of an exact canon, but through a practice of observation which subtilizes the look at the form, starting to capture it better - in its perceptual depth - and which thus allows it to be drawn.
This happens with the elements of the face, the eyes, nose, mouth, ears; drawing students are generally trained to draw geometric patterns to which the shapes of facial elements would be allocated; It happens that in this case, a significant part of the observation and perception of the shape is debased and nullified by the geometric calculation of the "space" in which the elements of the face should "safely" be drawn. However, the student often ends up noticing that when changing the angle and point of view in which the element of the face (the eye, nose, or mouth) is presented to him, he in turn feels the difficulty in "allocate" said facial element within the space you will be designing; because his perception of form is still blunted, which makes him dependent on "crutches" and prefabricated "templates" to draw, therefore, when the rules of drawing are changed (angles, types of shadows, environments, etc.) it becomes a new difficulty to adapt to a new canon to design the new perspective.
On the contrary, when the student learns to draw shapes as they are - and they are always and simply shapes! - in his patterns of lights and shadows, he learns not to draw the geometry of the element, but himself as he presents himself before him, as he will be trained to capture the forms in their subtleties and in their revelation.
The image that illustrates this text is the 10 Lessons for drawing portraits* , the step-by-step instructions for carrying it out are the same, in it I indicated the "traditional" canons but in a simplified way, where I "plan" the construction of the blocks, a topic I may be addressing in the future; When I created this book-ebook I thought about providing certain crutches to the aspiring designer, however, I recommend abandoning the canons as quickly as possible, presenting them only in a didactic way for the purpose of assistance, since I am not - due to the impossibility of middle - next to the student to advise him on the revealed shapes and their captures. It turns out that this same image illustrated and cited here could be drawn (and I did it many times!) without the help of the so-called canons, when the designer is more skilled and drawing with greater freedom, and that's why I use it as an illustration object for the text : it was not the canon that accomplished it, it was the vision of the forms, despite the same having been done through the canons (for didactic reasons). When drawing, for example, an eye, we must not merely think about how to create a mold to draw it safely, but capture the shapes that appear to us, their lights, shadows, shines, the combination of which will allow us to reveal, through the drawing, the shape of the eye. The artist, therefore, must not be a decorator of geometric and canonical patterns, but rather a visionary master of forms.
*Ten Lessons for drawing portraits can be found at:
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