Welcome to Proko, my name is Stan Prokopenko. This episode is a really important one.
I’m going to be introducing you guys to the basic elements that make up any picture.
We see everything around us in 3D. And then we try to draw it on a 2-dimensional
surface. Of course drawing an actual 3D world on paper is impossible, so we have to learn
how to create the Illusion of depth. Any picture can be broken down into the basic elements to create
that illusion. It’s like the periodic table of elements for artists. Except lucky
for us, it’s a much smaller table of elements.
So, we can use these elements to show form and depth if we are realists or representational
artists, but it really isn't just used to show form and depth. It can be used for anything,
any picture that you can see, anything around you,
can be broken up into these elements. An abstract watercolor painting, a realistic portrait,
a photograph of a sunset, anything that you can see can be described with Shape,
Value, Color, and Edge. I would even argue that there are only 3 major elements: Shape,
Color, and Edge. Because value is just a subelement of color. But value is so important that artists
have separated it into its own element. And when we’re drawing, it's the only subelement
of color that we can see. And so, we forget about the concept of color for a drawing,
and we just say value. When we start painting,
we introduce the other two sub-elements of color - hue and chroma.
So, let’s go over these elements one by one, starting with 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 of geometric shapes; squares, rectangles, circles, ovals, triangles,
diamonds, crescents and so on.. These are simple, geometric shapes as opposed to complex, organic ones.
For example, this complex shape of a leaf can be simplified in the earlier stages of a 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 it's 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 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.
Now let’s move on to color. Now, I'm gonna go into color theory in a little bit more depth later,
since it’s a very complex topic and it deserves its own
episode, and maybe even a whole series of episodes. But right now, I’ll just go over the very, very basics.
Color has 3 subcategories. The Hue, the Chroma, and the Value. For example, this color has
a purple hue, the number 8 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 pure or how grey the color is. On one end, you have the high chroma colors
that you see in the rainbow, and on the other end you have 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 exact, 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 just add
a little bit of the green to the red, I'll still have a red, just a lower chroma version.
Okay, let's move on to value. Value is how light or dark a color is. There is an infinite
amount of values, but artists like to simplify it to a finite scale, zero to ten. It's
a lot more manageable that way and easier to communicate. A teacher might
say, make that shape one value darker. And you'll know roughly about how much one value is.
Drawing with charcoal, we don’t see color, since everything is grey-scale. Or a better
way to put is, we don't use hue or chroma. The only part of color that we see is value.
So, many artists have separated value as its own element and say it's 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 show representation of what you're looking at.
You don't need it to show form or depth. So, I think it’s wise to practice drawing
without color as a beginner, since it's one less ball you have to juggle.
Once you get the hang of values, then you can paint with color, 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 it's what will catch the eye of someone looking at your artwork. It could
set off an emotional response, that a grey-scale drawing just can't do. But
as the artist, you must understand, that if you don't get the values right, the rest of
the colors won't look right. So focus on accuracy of values, and that will allow you to experiment with color,
and bend the color.
So that's your color basics 101... maybe not even 101, more like 1-0... half.
So, let's move on to edge. Edge is the transition between two shapes.
It doesn't have to be the 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; it's a sudden change. A firm edge is almost hard, but has a very
small gradation. ((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 two 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, you need to have
an intuitive checklist of elements to identify. What is the shape, color, and edge? And within
color, what is the hue, chroma, and value? To make this intuitive, you have to train your
brain to intentionally think about these things as you're analyzing the subject.
Eventually you don't have to force it anymore, and it becomes part of your observation process.
For example, as you look at this clementine, and you observe the shadow, ask yourself:
what is the shape? is it circular, rectangular, triangular, etc. In this case, it's 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 to 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 from 0-10, you can choose to go for a narrower value range,
say, 3 to 7. In that case, this 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? Iiit’s somewhere in the middle, probably a little closer to
the high chroma side. And the edge is firm on the left side and softer
on the right.
The ability to see and properly identify these elements is a skill. It's a sense that
you need to develop. At first you will struggle to see the subtleties, but just as a musician
tunes her ear to hear notes and compose those notes into a symphony, you too can train
your eye and the ability to see these subtleties and you'll be able to view the world through an artist’s eye.
As with most things, it’s about repetition, repetition, through practice.
Before you go, I want to thank everybody who bought my Portrait Drawing DVD. You guys have
been really, really supportive and I owe you a big thank you! If you don't have one yet and want
to learn more, just go to proko.com/dvd1
So, again, thank you guys so much. I'm really lucky to be able to do this.
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