Portrait Drawing Lessons:

SIMPLICISSIMUS: about shape

Portrait Drawing Lessons - About Shape 1

Whereas proportion establishes the underlying rhythm of drawing shape(s) expresses the narrative.

For this lesson my intent is to present a sketch that relies mostly on shape rather than three-dimensional form. Also I thought that working with three different colored conte crayons would be fun.

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This sketch was done from a photograph taken of an older woman selling pistachios near the Galata Bridge in Istanbul on a cold, blustery early Spring day. She was bundled up in layers of scarves and a heavy coat. The rectangular shape of her face framed by a colorful headwrap immediately piqued my interest.

There are numerous possibilities inherent in this subject: an oil sketch, a highly resolved graphite drawing, a watercolor (Sargent’s sketches come to mind) or a simple sketch that plays upon shape. My choice is the latter. Of course variations on a theme is also a distinct possibility.

For those of you who worked through the first part of my Beginning to Draw Workshop you will immediately recognize that the main body of the wrapped head very closely approximates the Square. The width is only slightly larger than the height which I have illustrated here with a red line at ‘A’.

Portrait Drawing Lessons - About Shape 2
Portrait Drawing Lessons - About Shape 3

Using an earth-colored (Burnt Sienna is the closest approximation) red Koh-I-Nor crayon I quickly struck the arabesque of the wrapped head. Knowing that the overall proportions are very, very close to a square made my job much easier. With training you will come to immediately recognize dynamic rectangles and with this training the striking of shape becomes ingrained and second nature.

The foremost criteria in striking shape is simplicity. Don’t get caught up in extraneous detail. Matisse was fond of saying ‘There is no truth in details.’

Striking the initial arabesque is, relatively speaking, the easy part. Accurately placing a shape within a shape is not so easy. At this stage my drawing looks deceptively elementary, almost childlike in its simplicity.

However, not only must the second shape be of the correct proportion and shape it must also be placed within the primary arabesque. Not so simple. Once again, the trained artist can feel where this second shape must go and, to the viewer, readily work their magic. The artist in training, however, will need to sight and ascertain proportion, shape and placement.
Portrait Drawing Lessons - About Shape 4

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