going to introduce to you guys the basic elements that make up any picture.

We see everything around us in 3d. Then we try to draw a 3d world on a 2 dimensional

surface. Of course drawing an actual 3d world is impossible on paper, so we have to learn

to create the Illusion of depth. Any picture can be broken down into 4 elements to create

that illusion of form. It’s like the periodic table of elements for artists. And luckily

for us, it’s a much smaller table.

So, we can use these elements to show form and depth if we are realists or representational

artists, but it’s not limited to just showing form. Any picture, anything you can see can

be broken down into these elements. An abstract watercolor painting, a realistic portrait

drawing, a photograph of a sunset, anything that you can see can be described with Shape,

Edge, Value, and Color. I would even argue that there are only 3 major elements. Shape,

edge, and color. Because value is just a subelement of color. But value is so important that artists

have separated it as its own thing. Also, when we’re drawing, we’re usually drawing

in black and white. And so, in a black and white drawing value is the only visible part

of the color. So, we put aside the concept of color, and just say value. When we start

painting, we introduce the other two subelements of color - hue and chroma.

So, let’s go over these elements one by one, starting with Shape.

Shape Shape is a concept that’s familiar to most

of us. It’s the elements we use to draw as kids. It’s the area that something takes

up. It’s the outline, or the contour of all the pieces in the drawing. But it’s

not limited to just the outline of the big elements. The smaller parts also have specific

shapes.

For the early stages of a drawing you want to develop your ability to simplify a shape.

This is important so that you can focus on the composition and the breakdown of the big

picture. Getting distracted by the smaller details too early, can hurt you in the long

run. Working big to small is usually a good idea.

When simplifying, think about geometric shapes. circles, ovals,squares, rectangles, triangles,

diamonds, crescents and so on.. These are simple shapes as opposed to complex organic

shapes. For example this complex shape of a leaf can be simplified to this in the first

stage of the drawing and then the details can be found in the later stages.

Shape is the most important element to convey the identity of an object. These two shapes

are very different and symbolize two very different things. They are not 3 dimensional,

but its still very obvious what they represent, just by looking at the shape. That’s why

“shape design” is such an important skill to practice and develop. Simply put, shape

design is making your shapes look good. It’s a bit arbitrary, but you know it when you

see it. You could say that this shape is better than this one because it’s cleaner and more

interesting. It does a better job of getting the point across and doing so in a more interesting

way.

Color Now let’s move on to color. I’ll go into

more depth on color theory later, since it’s a very complex topic and deserves it’s own

episode or even a whole series of episodes. Right now, I’ll just go over the basics.

Color has 3 subcategories. The Hue, the chroma, and the value. For example, this color has

a purple hue, a number 3 value, and a medium chroma.

Hue is what we typically refer to when we say color. Yellow, orange, red, blue, green

- these are all hues. Your traditional color wheel is an arrangement of hues.. If you shine

a light through a prism, it will break up the light and reveal the color spectrum. The

same colors as the rainbow. And the same colors as the color wheel.

The terms warm and cool are used to describe the two sides of the color wheel if you cut

it in half. The warm family shares orange as a common color and the cool family shares

blue as a common color. Think of fire being warm and ice being cool.

Chroma refers to how grey or how pure the color is. On one end are the high chroma colors

that you'll see in the rainbow, and on the other end are the low chroma greys with a

gradual transition. In some color wheels you'll have the high chroma colors on the outside

with a gradation towards grey in the center. You'll often hear people using the term "neutralizing"

a color. This just means lowering the chroma and bringing it closer to grey. There's two

ways you can do that. The first is just adding grey to it. As you'd expect this will bring

it closer to grey. The other way is to add its complement, or the color across from it

on the color wheel. Mixing these two colors will result in the color in between them.

Half and half will theoretically make grey. Now, pigment isn't perfect, so you usually

won't get that exactly perfect grey. But you'll definitely bring it closer to grey. Depending

on the ratio you mix, will result in a color somewhere in between the two. So if I add

just a little bit of the green to the red, I'll still have a red, just a lower chroma

version.

Ok lets move on to value. Value is how light or dark the color is. There is an infinite

amount of values, but most artists like to think of a finite scale, zero to ten. It's

more manageable that way and it makes it a lot easier to communicate. A teacher might

say, make that shape one value darker. And you'll know roughly how much 1 value is.

Drawing with charcoal we don’t use color, since everything is grey scale. Or a better

way to put that is, we don't use hue and chroma, the only element of color that we see is value.

So many artists have separated value as its own element and say its more important than

the other elements of color. You can have a very beautiful drawing without using color

- just greyscale. you don't need it to draw a representation of what you're looking at.

You don't need it to show form and depth. So, I think it’s wise to practice drawing

without color as a beginner, since that’s one less ball you have to juggle as you’re

learning. Once you get the hang of values, then add the colors, and go wild.

But, I don’t want to make it seem like color isn't important. It is! Colors are beautiful

and quite often its what will catch the eye of someone looking at your artwork. It could

set off an emotional response to a piece of art, that a gray scale drawing can't do. But

as the artist you must understand, that if you don't get the values right, the rest of

the color won't look right. So focus on accuracy of values, and that will allow you to experiment

and bend your colors.

So that's your color basics 101, maybe not even 101. More like 10half...

The final element is Edge Edge is the transition between two shapes.

It doesn't have to be an edge of a volume. The shapes within the volume have edges too.

The types of edges range from sharp to extremely soft, with an infinite amount in between.

But to simplify it we’ve come up with 4 types of edges. Sharp, firm, soft, and lost.

A sharp edge is a very sudden transition between 2 shapes. It’s sharp like a razor blade.

There is no transition, its a sudden change. A firm edge is almost hard, but it has a very

small gradation to it. Think of these as corners that have a bevel or rounded corner. On a

figure you’ll typically see firm edges on tendons and joints.

A soft edge is a very smooth transition between 2 shapes. You’ll see a longer gradation.

Soft edges are like clouds or baby butts.

A lost edge is one that is so soft, that you can't see it anymore. It’s frequently used

in areas where the values of two forms are close together and a really soft edge would

merge the two volumes together.

Putting it all together

Every time you're drawing or painting and you look at your reference, you need to have

an intuitive checklist of elements to identify. What’s the shape, color, and edge? And within

color, what's the value, hue, and chroma? To make this intuitive you have to train your

brain by intentionally thinking about these things while you're analyzing the subject.

Eventually you don't have to force it anymore, it becomes part of your observation process.

For example as you look at this clementine and you observe the shadow, you ask yourself:

what is the shape? is it circular, rectangular, triangular etc. In this case, its a crescent

if you simplify it and something like this, when you look at the details.

What is the value on a scale of 0-10? and more importantly what is the value in relationship

to all the other values in the picture? This shadow, is the darkest part of the picture.

So if you want your picture to have the full range of values, from 0-10, you have to make

it a value 0. The top part of the shadow on the clementine is about 1 value lighter than

under the clementine. The reflected light down here is another 1 to 2 values lighter.

Instead of the full value range of 0-10, you can choose to go for a narrower value range,

say 3-7, The darkest part would be a 3 and the highlight would be a 7. And accommodate

the other values to fit within that range. So it’s the relationships between all the

values in the picture that really matter. The next question is, what is the hue? Even

though it’s an orange clementine, not all the colors on it are orange. I’m seeing

a transition from orange on the light side, to a redder hue on the shadow side.

What is the chroma? Ehh, it’s somewhere in the middle, probably a little closer to

the high chroma side.. And the edge is firm on the left and softer

on the right.

The ability to see and properly identify all these elements is a skill, its a sense that

you need to develop. At first you will struggle to see the subtleties , but just as a musician

tunes her ears to hear notes and compose the notes into a symphony, you too can develop

your ability to see these subtleties and view the world through an artist’s eye. As with

most things, it’s about repetition through practice.

Before you go, I want to thank everyone who bought my Portrait Drawing DVD. You guys have

been really supportive and I owe you a big thank you! If you dont have one yet and are

interested, you can go to proko.com/dvd1 to learn more.

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