Drawing 1, Part 1, Mark Making and Tone, Basic Shapes and Fundamental Form - 1 Boxes and Books

For this exercise of drawing a pile of six mixed boxes and books I decided that I would approach it from two different angles, with the easel and without, both with an hb pencil. Knowing that I would be rocking back and forth from the easel hence changing perspective I was intrigued to see how the drawing would turn out, plus I hadn't had the easel out for a while.

my workspace for this exercise

After a play around with the books I opted to attempt drawing the books at probably one of the worst angles I could put them in with the back corners of all, almost in-line.

tower of boxes and books

I was right about using the easel, even though the stack of books and boxes were in perspective the finished sketch did not look like I had drawn it from the angle I had aimed for. I also drew from the bottom book up which I found was more difficult as it is easier to draw down.

drawing with easel from bottom book up

For my second go I packed up the easel and settled for the sketchbook on my knee approach, and drawing with my head back in the chair I managed to get the books in almost the right position every time. This time I drew from the top box down to the bottom book and turning my sketchpad around as I pulled the pencil towards me to get better lines and angles I sailed through it in about 25 minutes.

first drawing without easel top box down

This time I wanted to have another go without drawing the lines through, I could have just erased all the lines on the second drawing but i decided I needed the practise so started a fresh. I drew the top box a bit bigger than it should have been and so the angles were slightly out and I almost lost the bottom of the book, but I was still happy with the finished result and so I added to the drawing  with a little bit of detail.

drawing without lines through, no easel, top down

Taking design and communication all those years ago at school paid off on this exercise but the true trick was to place a dot where the corners should be and then draw towards them, that way there is less line correction needed.

View my full learning log for Drawing 1 at: http://www.mydrawingcourse.com