Tag Archives: Ellipse

Outline drawing.

In the process of drawing images, we often start out with a basic outline drawing, as the foundation, for learning where everything else goes, in relation to the outline and each other. The problem I find with many beginners and well practiced people alike, is they do not always, understand outlines very well, also as in the case of beginners, they do not understand at all, in many instances.

The easiest way to draw and understand outlines, is by using tracing methods of drawing because when you trace an image, you can only, realistically make an outline, as tracing doesn’t lend it’s self to shading. Tracing also gives you a better understanding, of how pictures work, especially when trying to understand, construction drawing.

Wheel images showing perspective distortion.
Car wheel images showing distortion when seen in perspective.
Wheel images showing perspective distortion line drawing.
Car wheel images showing perspective distortion in a line drawing format.

Let me explain, by using a car wheel as an example, we all know that wheels are round but they are only round, when we look at them directly face on, because when we turn them, at an angle, they become, more and more oval, in shape.

The correct term to call this oval shape, is an ellipse and is something many people have problems with, when trying to draw them accurately, to find out more about this, please take look at single point perspective and two point perspective, you will find the both helpful.

Get yourself some pictures that you might like to draw and trace them, so as to be able, to take a look at these images, as only line drawings, you will notice when tracing these outlines, that they are most often, not as you might have thought they are.

Doing this, will help you to understand, that shapes are not often, the shapes we think we see and that wheels, are most often not circular but oval, along with many other shapes we see but actually, only think we see. This is because our brains tell us that wheels are round or that a shape is this shape or that shape, when in actual fact, many shapes are not what we think they are because our brains are telling us what we see, rather than actually, seeing what we see.

Single point perspective drawing.

The single point perspective drawing, is made up of a vanishing point, on the horizon line, where all construction lines, converge to give the impression of the object disappearing into the distance, as objects do, when we look at them in real life, this enables us to give our drawings, the impression of being three dimensional. Many illusions of depth, can be created by doing perspective drawing and most people find it very interesting, to do this type of drawing, in fact many people spend hours doing it because they can easily create, very dynamic 3D drawings, that look impressive.

How to draw perspective, using a single point, the most basic single point of all, can be done by putting a single dot or point, in the center of a piece of paper and then drawing perspective lines, from the center to the out side of the paper or drawing area, this then creates a single point perspective, if everything is then drawn in relation to these lines, it creates, the illusion of things, getting smaller, as they lead off into the distance, like they do in real life.

The drawing below, shows a distorted cup drawn in single point perspective, the cup looks distorted because the construction box, at the top and bottom, are on a slight angle, slanting down to the right, making it seem distorted.

In the drawing further down the page, below, the construction boxes are drawn head on and the horizontal lines are drawn, fairly accurately spaced out from each other, top and bottom making the shape, seem correct and not distorted like the cup drawing directly below.  The other aspect of this drawing, is called an ellipse, which is the oval shape, made by circular objects, when looked at in perspective, this can be created by following the explanations in the drawings.

A single point persepctive drawing of a cup.The drawing below shows a more detailed explanation, of how to draw ellipses in single point perspective, the basic formula for this type of drawing is made by using an horizon line, which can also be called the eye line. The horizon line is mostly, just a horizontal line drawn across the paper, where your eyes, would be level with, when looking at the object and the perspective point, would be placed on this line so everything in the drawing, would converge on this single point, creating the illusion of perspective.

Single point perspective drawing with ellipse.

How to draw an ellipse in single point perspective.

Information sheet, how to draw an ellipse in single point persepctive, diagramatic.

The humble graphite pencil is a great tool to use, as a first place to start because of the many, cool effects you can develop and implement into your drawings with it, like mark making, notice the different types of shading in the drawings above. There is a combination of tonal modeling, hatching and cross hatching, which are the main types of mark making used in most drawings.

Also the graphite pencil, is probably the easiest tool to get your hands on, for doing drawing of all kinds, including the single point perspective drawing, like in the examples above.