Art & Art Tutorials
Squares and Art
Intro
The image of an artist making a rectangular or square shape with his hands while looking through it over the landscape is known to a point where it becomes a tiring cliché. Usually he does this to find a good balanced composition for his painting and not just for the sake of looking artistic. But making squares and rectangles with your hands, or otherwise, can be a tool for more than just composition. Take a look at the two black and white drawings below. They are identical except that the second drawing has black a border. The one without borders is just for comparison and we will focus on the bordered drawing only in this tutorial.
Getting The Right Angle
Keep your attention on the bordered drawing and imagine that the black border is a square formed by your hands while looking through it at the attacking man. Notice how the angles of the arms, legs and claws are easier to see when compared to the right angled frame. As such it serves not only to show the correct angle of each part but the entire attacking man as well.
How to use it
When starting on a new piece, making (or imagining) a square/rectangle can help you get some initial lines drawn correctly from which you can continue to build your drawing. Simply copy the line angles of the objects you see through your hand-made square onto the paper or canvas you are working on. It requires little to no practice at all and anyone can do it. Squares are also used for perspective drawing and you can read more about that if you wish by googling for perspective drawing.
The final words
That's pretty much it for this short tutorial. As always I hope you learned something useful and new from it. That is after all what it's about. Oh, and do remember to check out the other free tutorials here at Art of Raz.
Have comments, suggestions or critique? Sign up and share it here!
The image of an artist making a rectangular or square shape with his hands while looking through it over the landscape is known to a point where it becomes a tiring cliché. Usually he does this to find a good balanced composition for his painting and not just for the sake of looking artistic. But making squares and rectangles with your hands, or otherwise, can be a tool for more than just composition. Take a look at the two black and white drawings below. They are identical except that the second drawing has black a border. The one without borders is just for comparison and we will focus on the bordered drawing only in this tutorial.
Getting The Right Angle
Keep your attention on the bordered drawing and imagine that the black border is a square formed by your hands while looking through it at the attacking man. Notice how the angles of the arms, legs and claws are easier to see when compared to the right angled frame. As such it serves not only to show the correct angle of each part but the entire attacking man as well.
How to use it
When starting on a new piece, making (or imagining) a square/rectangle can help you get some initial lines drawn correctly from which you can continue to build your drawing. Simply copy the line angles of the objects you see through your hand-made square onto the paper or canvas you are working on. It requires little to no practice at all and anyone can do it. Squares are also used for perspective drawing and you can read more about that if you wish by googling for perspective drawing.
The final words
That's pretty much it for this short tutorial. As always I hope you learned something useful and new from it. That is after all what it's about. Oh, and do remember to check out the other free tutorials here at Art of Raz.
Wait, there's more!
Have comments, suggestions or critique? Sign up and share it here!