Shapes and their proportions make up the fundamental building blocks to achieving likeness. This could simply mean the likeness of a simple shape to likeness in a portrait painting. If you are just starting out with learning to draw, it can help to break down achieving likeness into simple steps that’ll help make progress.
I always recommend starting out with being able to reproduce simple shapes the way they are. We are not trying to achieve mathematical accuracy, but a practically achievable similarity between what we intend to draw and what we actually draw. Don’t underestimate this step, it may seem silly until you try it out.
Practise sheet 1
Practice sheet 1 below has a few common simple shapes. Try to draw these out like they are, how easy was it? Now, no one can draw a perfect circle by hand, you can try to get close to drawing a mathematically accurate circle or a square, but as long it’s close enough, it’s fine.
Practise sheet 2
Practice sheet 2 has a few complex shapes. You can see that these are simply made up of different simple shapes, simply adding one shape to another. If you are able to identify what simple shapes make up the complex shape and are able to draw it well, then the only challenge to getting likeness is proportion, we will talk about this later in this page.
Practise sheet 3
Now that we have seen how to simple shapes add up to create a complex shape, let’s look at some examples of how you can subtract one simple shape from another to create a complex shape. Practice sheet 3 above has some examples of this. Training the mind to see shapes and add or subtract them from other shapes helps us draw better. In reality, you will likely need to do both, adding some shapes and subtracting some others to form a complex shape.
Practise Sheets 4, 5 and 6
Practice sheets 4 has some examples of how complex shapes in reality will not be a exact fit made up of simple shapes. At this point, we need to understand that the simple shapes act a a guideline only. You may need to connect the simple shapes with extra lines, or draw around them to achieve the exact shape of the complex object. Think of it as the mortar around bricks that make a wall.
Practice sheet 5 has some more examples of this. This sheet also helps visualize how pretty much any complex shape can be made up of several simple shapes.
Practice sheet 6 has some examples you can attempt on your own. Give it a go and practise till you can draw these with ease.
Proportions
You may find that even though you are getting simple shapes right, your output is not consistent with your reference image, it’s either too big to fit in your sheet, or too small, or is crooked or skewed. One simple trick to get better proportions is to imagine a container around your reference subject. Usually the containers are either a square or a rectangle, I rarely come across triangle or circular containers. When starting to draw, draw the container first and then try to fit simple shape composite within it, this will help contain them without going too far in anyone direction. However, if you draw your container too narrow or too wide, your output would turn out to be oblong. However, the container is yet again a simple shape, so if you have mastered lesson one, you should be able to draw it with ease.
Advanced proportions
If you would like to reproduce exact proportions then you don’t have much choice but to measure. There a few different techniques to measure before you draw but it’s beyond the scope of this blog post. With good practice, you will get better at achieving proportion simply by eye balling.
