DRAWING, LIKE SO MANY other skills, is a matter of being able to think of several things at once. Since the conscious mind seems to be able to think about only one thing at a time, the subconscious mind must take care of a good deal when we draw. So the process of learning to draw demands that we acquaint the subconscious mind with a certain amount of material, so that the subconscious can largely take over the control of our hand.
Actually, I am inclined to think that no artist can be called an accomplished craftsman until all matters of technique are so well learnt that they are part of his subconscious equipment. I know it is very difficult for an artist to express himself adequately unless this has been done.
Students and laymen, of course, are apt to confuse the technique with the art. As you read these pages, remember that technique is but a means to an end, and should never be confused with the end itself.
Now all types of drawing — whether by people of long ago, by people in distant places, by children, or by the most advanced artists of the 20th century — represent an artist’s effort to communicate to the observer. In this book, we are studying a traditional type of drawing: the ways and means of creating the illusion of what is popularly called reality. A fundamental characteristic of this type of drawing is that ideas are communicated by means of symbols that give the illusion of three dimensional form. In short, the artist conceives a form, draws it, and other people, who look at his drawing, receive the idea he wishes to communicate.
But first of all, in order to draw a specific form, you must be aware that this form exists. This is one of the reasons that figure drawing is so difficult for the beginner: in the human body, there are many forms which the beginner has neither heard of nor thought about. For him, these forms literally do not exist. For instance, many beginners are not conscious of the rib cage, the largest form in the body; very few are aware of the tensor of the fascia lata, though it is impossible to represent the pelvic region faithfully without a knowledge of this form. Indeed, this muscle takes six or more inches of the outline of the figure in certain poses; so you can imagine how important it is.
Once you are aware of the existence of a form, you must then come to an exact conclusion as to its shape. Unless you have decided on the exact shape of a form, how in the world can you communicate its exact shape to others?
Furthermore, you must light the form in such a way that it is recognized for what you have in mind and not for something else. A woman’s breast may be lit in such a way that it looks like a flat, white poker chip, or almost anything but its true, somewhat spherical form.
Finally, you must come to a decision about the position of the form in space. Certainly you will not wish to draw it in two or more places at once. Nor will you wish to draw a form in a position that does not reveal its true shape.
Naturally, it is difficult for the beginner to carry all these matters in his mind at once. What is more, his unaccustomed hand will be unable to draw with precision the shapes he wishes to present. And his hand will be too heavy to render the necessary values (light and shade).
You must realize that there is no royal road to drawing. It is practice, practice all the way.
So get your pad of paper and start drawing simple lines. You will find it very hard to make a really straight line, and harder to make a vertical line than a horizontal. Try drawing a perfect circle. Draw a few thousand and they will get perceptibly better. Above all, don’t get discouraged. It is said that only the divine Raphael reached circular perfection.
You should practice drawing cubes, cylinders, and spheres. These are the simple, basic forms; the artist feels that all other forms are composed of these forms, or parts of them.
Soon you will discover that there are many forms that lie between the cube and the cylinder, between the cylinder and the sphere. An egg, for instance, is neither a cylinder nor a sphere; its shape lies somewhere between the two. In your mind, whittle away the vertical edges of the cube until it becomes a cylinder. Close up the top and bottom of the cylinder and imagine it as a sphere. In this way, you will begin to feel the relationship between these forms, which becomes so important in the study of values.
Soon you will find you can give the symbol — the illusion — of any simple form you wish. After quite a while, you will realize that you can give the illusion of any complex form by combining the simple forms — or parts of the simple forms — of which the complex form is composed.
As soon as you are able to produce the symbols of the simple forms we have been discussing, you will realize that you have learnt the most important “words” of the visual language. Draw a cube and you have a cubical box; draw a cylinder and you have a column; draw a sphere and you have a tennis ball. With these simple symbols you can represent thousands of things. And by combining these forms, you can create an infinite variety of objects.
As in a language, the symbols are often identified through context or juxtaposition. Draw a spoon near your cube; the cube will promptly become a lump of sugar. Place the cube on top of a house and the cube will become a chimney. A wisp of smoke and your cylinder becomes a cigarette. Placed beneath a head, the cylinder becomes a neck. As for the sphere, add a stem and a leaf and it becomes an apple. Placed in the hand of Aphrodite, the sphere becomes the apple of discord, a golden apple of the Hesperides.
When you are learning to draw, it is most important to cultivate the habit of forcing everything you see into its simplest geometric form. Do this sort of thing continually. It enables you to feel a form in its entirety, disregarding details which are so loved by the beginner. Above all, it promotes the ability to think in mass, which must become an instinctive habit, the most important habit the student can acquire.
You will find it helpful to think in terms of many-shaped boxes: block-like, cylindrical, and spherical. When you draw an object, you can imagine the object as in the box; thus, you can feel the simplest geometric quality of your subject. Your book, your chair, your room, your house will all fit into block-like boxes. Create some cylindrical boxes and pack your lamp shade, the trunk of a tree, and the neighboring gas tank. Take a spherical box. You will need quite a large one for the moon, but a small one will contain your eyeball very nicely.
Perhaps the wilder the ideas, the better. You soon realize that there are very few basic shapes in the universe and that there is a geometric relationship between the most diverse objects. The sea is but the skin of a sphere and is related to the spherical head of a pin.
Next, imagine yourself inside the boxes. Contemplate the flat and curved surfaces around you. This exercise familiarizes you with the interior planes, with how these planes meet, and with the movement of concave surfaces. Inside a cube-like box, you are in a room; inside a cylindrical box, you are in a curl of hair; inside a cylindrical box with half a spherical box on top, you are in the Pantheon in Rome.
Later we will visualize values of light and shade on our many-sized boxes: on their exteriors, on their interiors, and on parts of them. Thus, we will begin to understand the artist’s approach to diverse subjects like the rounded hills, the interiors of breaking waves, and above all, the human figure.