- Lesson Details
- Transcript
- References
- Instructor
- Iliya Mirochnik
- Subjects
- Drawing
- Topics
- Anatomy, Design, Still life
- Mediums
- Charcoal, Charcoal Pencil, Paper
- Duration
- 1h 36m 58s
- Series
- Russian Drawing Course 6: Drapery
The Pipe Fold will serve as an introduction to drawing cloth as it’s basic shape comprises primarily of cylinders. In this lesson, you will learn how to draw and describe the general structure of this kind of fold, which will allow you to reconstruct the Pipe Fold from imagination. Taking what you’ve already learned about rendering simple forms, and applying it to drawing the Pipe Fold, you will expand your ability to draw different materials and fabric and create a structure for analyzing and drawing drapery.
This lesson includes both the reference image used in the lecture as well as a 3d model of the plaster cast for your assignment.
Materials
Graphite pencils
Kneaded and Hard Erasers
Roll of Paper, Smooth Sketchbook paper
Easel
Used in video :
Long point sharpener
Sharp eraser
Waterdrop blender
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Discussdedicated to the study of cloth. Cloth is usually intimidating
and I don't think it should be at all. For the most part it's
just an application of all these principles that we've
already covered. We're going to approach this the same way that
we have with anatomy. We're going to break everything up
into individual structural components, explain them, work on
them individually, and then move on to combine them to
something a bit more whole.
I've put a lot of work into adding all of this new content
and I am certain that you'll enjoy it. With that, let's begin.
a part entirely dedicated to the study of cloth.
We're going to approach this the same way that we have with
anatomy. We're going to break everything up into individual
sort of structural components,
explain them, work on them individually, and then
move on to combine them into something a bit more whole.
And so
cloth is usually intimidating and I don't think it should be
at all. Especially considering that for the most part
it's just an application of all these principles that we've
already covered.
Okay.
With that let's get started.
charcoal because I think there's an ease of tonal
application as well as
just a tonal quality that will allow us to achieve
a bit more on the page at a greater speed then if we use
something like pencil again, right like the graphite I think
lends itself to a structural analysis, but for our purposes,
I think might just take too long and focus the attention a
little bit elsewhere.
Okay, so in front of us
we have a bunch of cloth.
Now the important thing to think about is that since we're
going to be working
and observing the cloth in front of us, some of these
principles that I'm going to be talking about -
I mean, I've arranged it so that those principles are our
most evident. At the same time we're not simplifying it to the
point where there aren't any other elements that at this
point you might not be fully aware of.
And I think that's kind of the interesting thing about how I'm
going to be going about this.
So
the type of structure we're focused on here is called the
pipe
fold.
And I think immediately, right, it's clear
kind of what that entails.
It's
a tubular
element
and the main point of which is that usually it's when cloth is
hanging and locked in some
some area on top and then is hanging down
without crossing over, without altering direction all,
things like that. So see what I'm doing to just demonstrate
this is actually
giving you some tubular structures and already it's
beginning to look like cloth.
Now, of course
something's going to happen like maybe we can
give them a different direction as well.
We're going to talk about composing cloth as well. Like
it's not simply something you observe but also if you think
about composing it correctly, then you're also - then you begin
to observe it more accurately strangely enough and this of
course applies to anatomy and everything else as well.
So here we have -
snap this in half - here we have these particular elements. Now
the one thing to keep in mind is that you don't want the
lines that are perfectly parallel. You don't want them
anywhere.
So what will usually happen is that where the cloth is
are bunched up it is
a bit narrower and then as it gets relaxed and hangs it
tapers outwards and then as it begins to sort of lock in
again and maybe cross over, already becoming something
other than a pipe,
it squeezes in again.
And we'll be talking about that a bit more as we explore the
specifics of what we're actually observing.
Okay. So the one thing to add is now how do we make it look
like cloth and this essentially comes down to all
of our principles of light and shadow.
So just taking this kind of really simplified
understanding here
and removing like essentially if we were to take each of
these cylindrical elements and maybe even cut them in half,
right? So we're cutting them in half.
You know, we're taking a tube and we're cutting it in half
across
and then looking at something right that begins to happen,
right, and then kind of connecting them with a bit of an
concavity in between them.
We have something that looks like this, right? Even here just
the concavity inside is flatter and longer than
you know in other places. Now once this is established,
assuming our light is here, we can just work on each of these
tubular areas by finding our terminator, finding our core
shadow and reflected light as well, and then casting a shadow
from that on to
the
adjacent area. See that already is beginning to look more like
a form in space. Now imagine the light was coming across a
bit more, it was closer and that cast shadow is actually
longer.
Let's try it.
So in this case, right, we have that
terminator,
our core shadow, but all that really begins to
matter here is how long your cast shadow is. It
might even fall on the next -
not just on the sort of inner concavity, but on the convex
part of the next
pipe or tube.
And there we have it.
And of course, let's just add enough to get to
the final one
and there's the
again.
Now usually from what I've seen, explanations of cloth
essentially end in these kind of schematic
analysis.
And I think that's great, especially if you're looking to
invent cloth from your imagination
and you'll see that a major part of this is that.
But what we have here is
is something a bit more complex. And I think the main
idea is to practice this principle and practice finding
it in life just like with anatomy. Like let's say for
learning about a knee, the point is to understand it as a
schematic, a simplified anatomical structure and then
begin to look for those elements in something a lot
more organic, a lot more complex actually and then
finding ways to connect those
two aspects of our understanding, our actual of our understanding our actual
like understanding of a form and our observation of it.
For our purposes,
not just to make it harder on everyone, I'm also
adding
a fabric of a darker color, but also a different textural
quality. So when we are modeling that fabric, we're
actually concerned with the quality of the highlight,
right, because we're also thinking - because if there's
anything in our history that has really exemplified the
ability to paint to paint texture for the most part has
been cloth. So we're going to talk about that as we go
particularly focusing our attention on this sort of
pipe, this tube, but also analyzing maybe some other
things that come up along the way,
which you see will then
add to your understanding as we move on to
twoother types of -
to other elements of cloth anatomy if you will that you
will encounter so when you encounter them you won't be
them for
for the first time.
With that let's let's get started.
So
let's see what we have here.
I'm not so sure we need to go all the way to the bottom of
the page, where the cloth is really sort of - there's that
major change in plane happening and because of that
certain changes in the structure, which don't
necessarily correspond to what I'm talking about here. I'm going to
raise this up actually a little bit. It's okay if this overlaps.
So I'd say this is an
analytical assignment if you will.
Okay, so
right just as with everything, figure out general proportions,
block in
just the area you have of our with flour.
I guess
turquoise fabric
and then just figure out
where some of this other stuff is, right, things are going at
different angles. So that's okay.
Okay,
and that is the page that we have.
As you see this already kind of reminds you of cloth strangely
enough.
Okay. So now let's get a little bit more specific with just
establishing the general outline of these pipes, these
tubular structures. Now, of course, they're not perfectly
tubular, right, in some cases they might be but due to the
you know, how heavy the cloth is, there are times when things
might get a little bit more angular.
And you know, stuff like that happen, so just keep your eye
out for these changes.
Okay, so
right, and let's sort of just automatically right away
begin to
draw these
cross over
lines, right, these sort of anatomical lines and sort of
the change of form along the plane.
I'm not so concerned with the proportions though, right, if
it's not as long that's okay, if it is, you know, it's fine
too.
Keep in mind, this is just cloth hanging.
The real interesting part will come when we begin to
think about
a cloth on top of a form, especially when we have cloth
on top of human anatomy.
Okay, so I think
I'm getting where I want to be now.
Obviously this right here, right? That kind of flap,
overlap thing, is not at all a pipe fold.
So
just at that point rely on your observation. Until you know what
it is, rely on your observation. And of course as with all the
parts of this course,
when you go - not even if - when you go
and do this again after having done the other parts of the
course, even after having completed the entirety of this
part on cloth,
go over and sketch all of these assignments again,
except you see how things change because now
you know all of the other
structural qualities of cloth, of just adding on to your price of just adding on to your
understanding, always.
All right, just let's try to figure out angles.
All right, okay.
There we go. It gets confusing, isn't it? I think
so.
I'm a little bit lost but that's fine.
And here's some other stuff and here's some other stuff
and then there's a bit of that. Okay, and so
the point isn't to get everything completely polished
all the way to the end., right, that's not the idea but the
idea is to do a fair amount and see what we can learn from it,
right, to take it up to that necessary point of completion
in order to learn the largest amount on a given assignment.
Okay, so we're not going to get too far without light and
shadow, so at the moment ignoring the local color,
right? So, okay. The local color right is just the general
color we'll encounter that in painting,
but in this case the general tonality of a fabric.
Obviously the turquoise fabric is a darker color
than the white one. And since we're not using color we show
that in value. But not yet.
So now it's time to follow your shadows and treat them as a
block.
Now the turquoise fabric is much more reflective. It's kind
of -
it has
those strong highlights. So we're going to use them. It's
more like satin
and I like that as a fabric because -
and actually can tell us more about
other types of fabric as well.
But in other times however, we might not be able to see the
highlight as clearly. So this is why we use this,
look at that. Just knocking in those core shadows and possibly
a combination of the cast shadow as well in some in some
places not overthinking it but see how because we're focusing
on this pipe
like structure, right, a tubular element, we are - everything is
kind of going along the page, right? It's all a vertical
movement.
All right.
Couple little overlaps up there and then
this is primarily cast shadow over there.
All right.
Good. Good, good.
Now what I'm going to do though right away right, before I get
to anything else, I'm going to figure out what the local value
is.
So that's why I put the shadows in first because as you see if I
just do this, I keep all that.
all this stuff at the bottom of the page. We're not worried
about the change in plane there yet. yes.
Okay, I'm okay leaving this where is. I'm still - what helps
actually is maybe reinforce some of those changes and now
they make so much more sense because they're sort of in line
with our
shadows. The important thing, right, is to know that in this
situation, right, the lower the line, the closer that element
is to you, right, based on perspective.
But let's just maybe break things up into some planes,
right? You can think of it as round though. I happen to see
angles everywhere I go and planes so.
Good,
so just a little bit of reinforcement and you can see
the more I do that, the more they begin to look like
rendered cloth.
And everything is
a pipe. Now, the thing is
obviously I've simplified this. Even if I were to show, right, if
this is kind of
what they begin to look like at a certain point,
I'm holding them on top and bottom as well.
That is always too simple. Right? It's a schematic. It's
supposed to be simple in order to grasp principle, but it's
too simple to just apply, which is why I think the educational
concept of the academy
are interesting because you learn all these - you learn anatomy, you
learn
a bunch of other things kind of at the same time while
practicing your ability to just complete a piece.
It's not exercises that kind of remain exercises. There's
potential in every exercise to be a completed
and interesting
work of art is
a strong term maybe but let's just go with it. A completed
work of art. Even if it's just cloth.
Okay, so
right, but here you don't even see the other side, right, there's overlap.
So the thing that I'm talking about right is that when I
explain this they're neither just parallel nor do they
actually get small on top and get wider and then taper, this
happens multiple times, but just keep that in mind as
you're looking at a bit of cloth, right, at a piece of
sort of a tubular cloth.
It's important to get
comfortable
with -
in order to truly understand the schematic it's important
to get comfortable with things deviating from the schematic.
With that said let's move on. Of course, the white cloth like
casts is going to be easier.
Because it's easier to see
where things are.
I'm currently not too concerned with all of the reflected lights
and and as you know, I'm
sometimes skeptical of reflected
light a bit because it has a tendency to
sort of overpower our large light and shadow
relationships. So we'll get into that because here you need
that reflected light. You need to show that this light
from a fabric that's light in color, maybe even a tiny bit and color maybe the tiny bit
translucent is affecting the Shadows. There's no way to
avoid this,
but we'll get to that, right, we don't need to start
with that.
So clearly it's too dark right, but that's okay.
Because it might not actually not be, it
just looks too dark now.
See the approache is relatively loose.
Not overthinking things.
I'm thinking of this
sort of pipe like structure
while at the same time also just figuring out where my shadows
are.
Good.
I like that these are going at an angle, just creates a little bit
more interest.
And then here we are
with some of these things right here, some of these things right
here, these things right here. Let's block them in.
This is all darker value.
Kind of maybe
just get a general tonality over this.
And see I think we're good we're I think we're good
strangely enough, right, you think
maybe I've gone mad.
What am I really trying to show you here,
but you'll see in a second, once we
now with sort of a general tonality, general placement
established, begin to work into each of
the pipes.
Okay.
Let's start here on top.
Depends a little bit harder. Let's get a softer one. What is
this?
Interesting. Okay. Yeah, let's try this.
And I'm just going to work my way
down this structure. Now
the hard part is seeing
the shadow, right, because of the quality of fabric the shadow is
sometimes not that obvious, but we do need to reinforce
that terminator.
What will make the fold come alive actually
is the
sort of the quality of the terminator right? All these little creases,
how sharp and how soft this curvature is is what this
becomes about. Now
just going to move this half tone down into here though a
little bit too.
See more and more beginning to look like
what we need it to look like.
Now the best part about folds is that it's not a portrait,
if you know what I mean.
Is that if there's a lack of accuracy
no one will know.
But if the principles are off, if the sort of understanding of
light and shadow is off, then of course it would be obvious
that something is
amiss
even to the the casual viewer.
All right. There we go. Now, this feels a little bit sharp
to me. So let's knock that back.
And notice how I'm exaggerating some of these things. I have
exaggerated how wide that curve, how the Hawaii that curve how the
amplitude of that curve, and I'm sharpening some of this stuff.
Now right here you can almost break things up into planes,
right? This is almost flat down to here before it begins to curve.
Almost.
If it is flat, in fact,
we're gonna have to see how to
show that. The highlights will play an incredibly
important role here, obviously because they are that -they will
show that change in plane.
Nice. Nice. Good. Up here we're moving this up, fantastic, and up
to the and elongating them as I go up a little bit and now I'm
just gonna going to go along
this
area right here.
Right. I personally think inventing cloth is a
fundamental importance. I think it's impossible to invent
cloth unless you've spent the time learning
to,
for lack of a better word, render it.
But I tend to think that we
remember
what we have placed on paper.
So my hope is that after this assignment,
due to the fact that we were speaking about these tubular
structures, we're going to reinforce their tubular
quality, right? They are sort of straighter.
Straighter than that. This one's a little kind of wobbly,
but that's that too. But once you -
so we're talking about these forms, right? We're practicing
them just from like -
in a sense you just have to kind of even not think about
what they are. You know, this is up here.
I've spoken about this particular construction of a
cloth as you just hang it up and
it's just kind of hanging
in accordance with the, you know, gravity
that you
you will begin to remember what these things are.
Simply because you're practicing them.
Okay. Okay. Excellent. Let's move on.
Now this whole area. Now of course on white, right, you
always get to see more on white
because of that strong reflected lights and
you get to really see a clear definition of light and shadow.
THat's the whole point of casts right to remove this sort of
confusing qualities of color.
This pencil.
That's nice too.
So obviously right here is the beginning
of a fold that's definitely not a pipe fold, it's
sort of a flat area just hanging over. So we're going to
ignore that actually, it's not even there.
We're going to start it off right where it kind of begins
to become a pipe fold, but it's very important to keep in
mind what's going on there, right?
And then it wraps into the light
and then this one kind of comes out from behind,
falls in, out, out,
that whole thing is up there, too.
Half tones begin to play a greater role here because
they're more obvious.
See so something like this,
it's quite convenient.
And then
we can extend this upwards.
That's a little bit of a crease not that that matters that much but
it's part of a pipe.
Now, of course, I want you to know
that though we are going into this like anatomy of the folds
and stuff,
I tend to think that they're all kind of the same.
So after we go through all of them, when you're really
encountering them in life,
you might not always be able to tell them apart.
There are certain
that - there are times when you will be but other times you
might be a little bit confused about which one is
which.
And that's fine
because it's the general principle that counts.
Good now, let's bring this down.
And that in there is almost like a crease almost a occlusion
shadow
inside there. I mean it kind of isn't a criticism.
Bringing that crease down.
Notice I'm simplifying like I could go into some of
these small things, right, like some of these changes
in here
like that. And you can see that begins to happen when a pipe
begins to break up into
smaller pipes.
The one thing that I'm going to go over is something called
the eye
of the fold
and essentially that means that when you do have a pipe,
as soon as it begins to change direction
it has to squeeze
before that happens.
And this sort of squeezed area is called the eye of the fold.
So when a pipe
breaks up
into
a smaller pipe that essentially begins to happen, right? This
right here is in some ways the eye
as well.
But you can see it, it starts a little bit earlier
begins to sort of crease
and then
that
begins to happen. So just keep in mind that there's a tension
every time something is breaking apart or changing
direction. However we'll see much more of that when that
becomes part of the anatomy of a particular type of type of
structure.
The type of -
that's when we'll really think about that.
Knock that back.
Good.
Some lights in there. Here towards the bottom, right,
there's a lot, you can begin to see where these pipes begin to
have eyes.
And that's the name of my
horror movie is when the pipes
have eyes.
Right, they begin to
squeeze and then expand.
So that's already a hint at how you can begin to invent not
just a fold that's a pipe but a pipe that slightly changes
direction or even a pipe that kind of comes apart. I just
almost
like almost pretend to sculpt that cloth.
As you see I'm thinking sculpturally in my mind but on
the page, this is quite an abstraction.
But of course
the flatness of everything
on paper is fundamental, right? It's how we perceive a flat
relationship, a flat pattern across the page, along the page,
that matters more than the illusion of form in my opinion.
So with that said,
and we could see where it's beginning to appear,
where some of these structures are, let's start to actually
spend a bit of time with the actual sort of core shadow, cast
shadow, the particular sort of ornament of The terminator.
The ornamental quality of it. And of course to do this We
we use our hatch, right? We're still not doing too much in the
half tones. Sometimes I like to wander into them because I
think without them you can only do so much.
All right and right away you're putting in core and cast.
So by working the terminator I'm immediately
I'm working the core and the darker half tones as I said
wandering in there because of the curvature, right, how
important that curvature. Now you could see there's
some changes along like the fact that this is here does
not actually change the fact that this is a tube, a pipe
right, but it does add a lot of character it's just a
minor change along the tube.
This is important.
Notice right here we're getting some of these reflected 0
the reflected lights now compare them to the reflected
lights here.
We're not going to worry too much about the texture at the
moment, but notice how not just the highlights are sharp on
this cloth due to it's it's a it's a
textural quality but also the reflected lights are also
sharper. They're more like a reflection or something then
they are
just a softer
gradation.
Important for now we're hitting a light, right? We're
hitting this light on that flat plane right here.
Okay, interesting interesting. For character let's add a
little bit more of these accidental creases. these accidental creases.
Right and when I refer to them as accidental,
right, they could have not been there and that would have
been okay, right, if we just ironed the drapery,
they probably wouldn't be there to the same extent. We'd still
have the structure, the non-accidental part, right, the
form, the thing that makes it up, we would have the tube, the pipe
but those small accidents are what actually makes it come
alive, it's sort of it takes it out of the realm
of the absolute, right, it kind of creates -
it puts it within
our universe a little bit. It just so happened that we didn't
iron this this thing, right? It just so happens that that is
what this fabric looks like today
but
so, yeah, let's not get carried away with maybe some of these
ideas.
with the same principal. Now due to the gradual because due to the gradual
nature of this curve and the - I'm not so sure
that we can really
spot such a clear terminator.
I'm almost certain we can't.
So we're not going to right, because texture here is important to
us.
At the same time we know it's a shadow
because we see how that
cast shadow begins to appear here.
That sharp edge of it.
I'm gonna move it over a little bit, right, feel free to move and
compose when you're doing doing cloth. We're not thinking
too much in terms of composition, but still, right,
think of the amount of space
between, them the amount of space on each side. And if
they're too even in real life, everything is too equal, too
evenly spaced out,
ask yourself if you want that.
Most of the time you don't.
Sometimes you do.
So but to lock things in, right, there are creases up in here and
stuff like that. Not worried about them.
We're going to avoid all those,
or not all those but most of those.
Gonna lock this in a little bit right because you need
those occlusion shadows as well, right, dark in there,
right? You know, that's a fold going in under.
Good, so we are focusing on the - right, this is an exercise in
pipe.
In these pipes,
the pipe fold.
So whenever we see something that's a little bit more
complicated for now let's ignore it. Right we're doing
a weird sort of combination of a schematic
and observed thing
from life
or because I think is that this particular
methodological sense
you learn the most.
I'm avoiding the highlights. I think the highlights are what
really finally give me a texture. I don't really prefer
to polish that part off.
Not worry about that now.
Now here the terminator gets a little bit more precise so you
can see it. Now of course cloth is a little bit time-consuming
because there's a lot.
I'll have to do, a lot to observe, painting cloth is
equally important to learn.
Painting cloth
is kind of no
different than what we're doing now except in the medium
of paint.
Adding a bit of light there. Just little bit. I know it's
too bright, but I just wanted to isolate that pipe fold
up here. I wouldn't even say it's a fully - it's not even
this is not an ellipse. I can see that this fold itself is a
little flatter than the front so it's gaining a bit of a
plane.
That makes things a little bit tougher.
And as you see, it's those deviations from the schematic
that make the schematic worthwhile.
The point isn't to have a schematic that explains
everything that can possibly happen.
The point is to establish
a framework
but a framework is not reality.
This is the reason
why I think one must explore as many different approaches and
schematic conceptualizations of things as possible because
there's no one right answer.
This especially pertains to anatomy for the ones that I
give you
will be the ones that I tend to use and the ones that I've come
up with by looking at a lot of other ones.
That's kind of the secret right? So
this right here the cast shadow that is in reality due
our
certain amount of interference is going to be
in life is lighter, but I'm making a bit darker, right?
We've encountered that in our casts.
Alright, then
what we have.
This is kind of a business, you know, quite enjoyable. I gotta
tell you.
Look at that.
See,
not
a big deal.
Make that
cloth cast a shadow
onto the wall behind it.
Simply to not forget
let's put a highlight in, right, the interesting thing
about this is that the highlight is actually just on
the edge, which is kind of crazy because as you know,
highlights are not
on the edges of a form, they're always indented from the edge.
And you can see that happening too though, right? It usually
means there's something maybe a little bit more of a
crease in places, but you can see that the highlight is
internal in a lot of ways.
And here it will be something in.
on the highest point of the form and also on the lowest.
I'm using the highlight here more than anything else to
show
the actual continuation of that of that fold.
Softer there.
But we'll get back into this.
Now let's move on to this
white fabric.
Now we can see the immense amount of creases, right, also
unironed. This was intentional. I saw this fabric and I thought
this is
really great. I like these tiny little cuts, those tiny little
creases. I think they really add a lot of life.
And also it teaches us to ignore them. This is the most
important thing, right, learn to ignore these things,
learn to use it when you need it. But look at that crease
right here. That's actually a crease. Now is that a pipe
anymore?
I would conceptualize it as as a pipe just with angles. So
a more kind of
a pyramid, a long extended pyramid
if you will.
So, of course
you can now see how awesome it is to practice really seeing
that terminator
here
because this is one of the clearest places you can see it.
Because you're getting that rotation. If you
remember I did it - there was sort of an explanation I gave
right where if you take a piece of paper and you crease it
on one side but the other side you kind of leave a bit more a
bit more rounded, that was the explanation that I gave for
figuring out that terminator area if you will or a
terminator line.
So that
was essentially a cloth, like a piece of a cloth.
All it was.
See how that softness is beginning to appear. If we need
a couple of these little creases to give a little bit
more
character to it
and you have the time and you want to spend it on that
then please
that's actually quite enjoyable. But if you're
working on the large form
and that's just it. But look at this, right? This is clearly
a flat shape, kind of looks a little bit like a -
little bit like a lapel on a shirt. A
lapel.
Flat. So see clearly
the fact that you know pipe folds now,
not going to help you with that one. But also we can't ignore
it. Now
the interaction of one form on to interaction of one form on to
another.
Cast shadow.
Look at that clearly one on top of the other, fantastic.
And then move this up.
Notice I'm using
this to smudge a lot because I'm trying to get a lot of
tonal changes and softness fast.
And it's not that I'm trying to speed this up,
I'm like, you know, simply because I want to do this
quickly. I'm trying to speed this up because
I think if I spend too long in one area
with something that is sort of as confusing as what we're
looking at
you lose -
you might
lose this thing that I'm after which is still trying to
establish that schematic within a more observed much more sort
of spontaneous structure.
Even if I sort of carefully laid it all out, right there's
still things that I wasn't able to control and I
was happy not to control.
But if I don't do this quickly, then this all becomes about you
know, just
you know, the light and shadow and you're sitting in one area
and
like it's something to practice on casts a little bit more
and even on cloth. But here
where we're focused on, as I said, the anatomy of cloth, not
the execution of it,
I feel that I need to
make the execution
as quick
as possible to give you an idea of the structures,
right? So you can see the structures come alive, if you
will, appear on paper. Obviously, this would not be
here without a proper execution.
I hope I'm being clear.
So that all, this whole area, had nothing to do with
our pipe folds.
Right?
But due to the fact that it was the intersection
of the darker colored fabric and the lighter colored fabric,
which is still by the way unclear,
not as clear as I want it to be. So now I see the need to maybe
just do a little bit of a
tone,
knock back the darker fabric yet again. It also allows and yet again, it also allows
us to establish those reflected lights a little better and
highlights those that more later.
Here's a nice intersection, right, soft soft curvature, soft
curvature.
And then there's a little gap as it moves into the
crease.
I'm gonna clean out these lights.
I would like them to sharpen that area.
Here this light becomes from the other side. Now if you
think about it,
pipe
based on what I did here if you cut them sort of in half
right along this line, you cut them in half like this,
you get the inverse of those pipes, if you just -if you're
able to look on the other side,
right? So we're from one view there is a
concavity, on the other side is a pipe fold.
Maybe that's excessive but it maybe will make you think in
three dimensions.
Cast and core shadows, big block of shadow there and then we're
going to break it apart inside just enough for things to
work.
But maybe not yet. So we're right here.
Terminator.
On this clear -
that is obviously a pipe fold, but maybe is a little bit
more angular.
How many times have I have I said the word a pipe? I feel
like it's a lot. Now in this kind of cavity
that's a plane as a flat - that's a flat plane. Let's not
go back. You can see the darker value too, it's perfect cast shadow.
Awesome, see how clear that is? Let's just slightly soften it
and we'll be good.
Remember, we're not worried about every part here, but look
this continues,
this was - this example right here it's the movement of one
sort of Shadow from a fold on to a complete nothing, just the
concavity between the folds but a different fold all
together.
Awesome.
Good, good, good, good. Now the hard part of course right is
we're going to have a hard time with separating some of these
values.
But I think we'll get there. Now
look what we have inside here.
We have a bit of that occlusion, right? It's a deep
concavity in between the folds. Now, you'll between the folds. Now, you'll
notice similar principles if you're ever working on the
petals of a flower.
Right. It's very important to figure out those occlusion
shadows and flowers.
You can't just - see in the human
anatomy for the structural rendering, occlusion shadows
are actually not that important.
They are for a quality of light.
But that's not fundamental to a structural
analysis of the human body.
Strangely enough, right?
I will
hear arguments. I'm certain I already hear them in my head.
However
cloth without the textural component, without a feeling of
light seems to me meaningless.
Oh boy.
Get that back up there.
So see I'm primarily working in this way. Now this
is getting a little confusing, right, because for true
interesting depiction, we're going to need more than just
the pipe folds.
And we'll see that as we add on all those other structures,
we're not going to just do one and then forget it and do
another, you'll see how they repeat. We're starting with
the pipe because in a sense, it's the most common. It's the
foundational element of the fold.
I'm just moving down that terminator.
Now,
I'm okay with that for now. Keep in mind right the
highlight's not happening yet. Look at this wonderful, very
clear sort of pipe happening right here. Now the light there
is a little more confusing, right?
There's a sharp edge here. It's obvious why that's that, if you
just look at this
not so much a pipe, but
a fold over there as well.
Now
there's also a type of structure called the drop fold
as well.
And in a sense, I think the pipe
is -
and the drop fold are pretty much identical.
But calling it a pipe gives you the image of a pipe
in your head, of a tubular structure and that's much more
important for the analysis of what's sort of happening the of what's sort of happening
in terms of light and shadow. Now saying that it's just now saying that it's just
dropping from up high to
some point below it, right, just hanging is helpful because it
perhaps incorporates structures like we're
encountering here, like something like that is a drop.
Things that aren't necessarily tubular, right, things that maybe
have a little more angles.
But I think we've covered that, right, that it's not - so I
would rather you think of it as a pipe and then as a tube
and then deviate from that
than adding this confusing element of placement. Think
of it as a structure
first and foremost.
Don't
use its action, if you will, if you can,
to analyze it as much at this point in time.
So yeah, so that's a kind of what
we're up against like are you thinking of the action
are you thinking of the structure and of course in
reality probably you should be thinking of both of those
things. But let's take it one step at a time.
The action
is of course important
when you're thinking a little bit more
compositionally.
So just doing a little more of all that here.
Okay, I like what we have up to this point.
I think I need to take a moment to
sort of avert my eyes, relax, allow them to relax a tiny bit
before going in and really sort of just figuring out the way to
polish everything off
in the way that we're already accustomed to, right, to just
figuring out the total hierarchy. And of course the
completion of edges. I'll see you in a minute.
of adjust, there's a lot of
contrast here, a lot of sort of parallel action
happening on the page. So I needed to relax for a moment.
So let's get back to it and really sort of add those tiny
little elements that will bring this to
a polish.
So all the main principles are here, right? We've got it all
in here. So.
Just going to get in there and reinforce some of these things and in a
lot of ways it's the darker areas that I'm going to need to
focus on, right, the darker ones
are the ones that are going to give me
the reflected lights , right so that hasn't gone away. That's a
principle that I keep going over and over and over again,
right? I'd rather you,
do a little bit kind of get a general tonality maybe slightly
lighter than it needs to be on some of the
highlights, some of the shadows. Maybe a
little bit lighter
on the shadows. And then
what you need to do from there is tone down the darker
occlusion shadows, terminators, cast shadows. Right so
in that respect you don't need to do that much. You don't need
to make your reflected lights lighter with an eraser, a common
mistake, you instead need to just
get the areas them darker. That's the general
principle.
There are exceptions to this but they're actually
surprisingly few.
We encounter them in some of the cast assignments, for the
most part we stuck to it.
So at this point, right the problem with a polish is that
it's piece by piece.
I don't know if that's a problem, but it could be if your attention
span is as
awful as mine.
So I'm just
working into some of these
lighter half tones. Actually surprisingly spending
a bit of time on those things I was talking about, those tiny
little creases, right, because you don't need them everywhere
but you just need them in a couple of places, right, keep in
mind Bridgman talks about how you can't help
but have a preference, right, when dealing with cloth, you
can't help but sort of gravitating towards
some creases over others.
To some patterns over others. It's just - it's natural because
there's just so much happening to get all of that
information.
I wouldn't say it would be impossible
but would be considerably harder and often pointless,
right? As teachers of mine always told me that our art,
right, they meant
the visual arts, is an art of preference.
Right, you practicing
this kind of analysis, picking out what you need
and going with it.
See so I'm just doing some of this.
A couple of creases.
Having nothing to do with the tubular quality of the form,
right? Nothing.
But I will add, right, I'll add at this point. This is a pipe
fold, but of course
it has elements of the drop. It is in essence
both of those. I just don't want you to not, sort of
to encounter that concept and then be confused by it. In certain
books it is -
two of these are grouped like I'm
I'm doing now
and in other instances
they are considered
individual,
I'm going to use the word anatomical, structures.
I even think this is excessive,right, they're just too light. but they're just too late
Knock them back just a little bit. Just knock them back.
Then begin to push, right? So it's just a matter of
sharpness now.
I'm working pretty much - I'm figuring out that kind of
where is our main elements of everything kind of gets a
little bit a little bit looser as we move away from the
middle part of the page then it's fine.
Right, we will learn to resolve this as we go, we're going to be
doing a lot of exercises
and resolving everything is also a matter of preference
right?
You can work on every single part
or you can pick and choose the ones that really are effective.
Now simply to just add a challenge.
Right like we need more challenges.
I'm going to
do a little bit of work on that
pipe that's splitting up here.
I'm not going to do the intricate sort of smaller sort of
pipe that moves out of there.
I don't think that's necessary.
But I just think adding
pretty much a single significant detail
right, something that changes the structure,
sort of steps outside of the schematic
is going
to make this look
alive.
Now at the same time I say that, the
the issue of course is the like the assignment is not in
the rendering. I've mentioned that of course and it isn't
but at the same time you have to learn how to do it.
So
the interesting part about it is that
you kind of learn it without thinking, you learn it as just
sort of a natural part
of learning the rest of it, of learning the principles.
Then I'll be bright right here. Right? It's these areas of
contrast that we can control
and of course the sort of tapering
of the light, not only of the form
but of the light. Kind of allow that to fall off just a bit.
A couple of these creases I can't help myself.
Now. Keep in mind I used to hate specifics, I used to hate all
of the all of those tiny details. I didn't do them for
years.
Don't make that mistake, learn to do them a little earlier. I
think. On
the other hand maybe that's what kind of allows me to work
quickly, right? Because I just could keep a larger
more generalized idea in mind
because that's all I cared about for the longest period of time.
I'm going to move up into there without being too specific, but
maybe carve a light right? That's it.
Keep it a little bit more geometric
Now let's get into here.
It's the same kind of small creases,
small things that this is where you can kind of relax and just
enjoy
these parts.
Look at how sharp
this Terminator is, right?
Terminator with actually minor little cast shadows, too.
How sharp but I don't want to bring up the lights too much,
clearly all shadow, shadow, shadow. Knock it back.
I'm working to darken it just enough so that the light that I
already have here works.
And if I move around a little bit, I see a dark occlusion
shadow in between the two, which is great. Maybe not even
in its entirely,
just getting enough.
There and then moving down
with that
highlight.
Knock it back.
Right, so you can see this
tubular structure again. We're back to it. Now. Let's
reinforce just enough.
Reinforce
that cast shadow. Look at that. Looking good.
Sharp.
Actually, a kneaded eraser might be helpful here. I kind
of just to get some of these highlights.
I'm losing a little bit of information down here. I like
this part. It's all done in highlights though. I mean of
course in half tones, but these highlights play that primary
role right of being on the crease
on the inside.
And as I'm putting in those highlights, of course, they're
not all structural right? Some of them are once again just due
to some tiny little crease. Now one might ask why am I
introducing this now, right? This seems like a kind of
superfluous detail, something to worry about once the major
schematic forms are underlined. And that is just not how I
think about these things. I like
for you to be encountering all this
as much as you can
at all these points,
right, spending time with it
and
practicing
like I'm somewhat 0 I like a systematic approach to
practice.
I sort of come up with these things for myself and for
students.
For the students of mine I'm coming up with ways to teach
things in a new way all the time.
When it concerns art,
but for myself, I'm finding out
I'm trying to get away
to do this when it concerns just some sort of hobby,
be it
I read everything I can about a thing, I learn as much as
I can about it and then the reason I do this is to
create an ordered structured way of learning new information
and this I've done for languages.
I've done for cooking and a bunch of other hobbies of mine
that I have.
But at the same time, I think one of the most important
elements is that there are things you're
actually practicing, right, the assignment,
the things you're consciously thinking about and trying to
grasp. And then there's the things that then they're the
things you're practicing on
without thinking about the money. There
is subconscious kind of more intuitive kind of practice. So
in this case
we're re-enforcing these principles of light and shadow.
That is exactly the case.
You're sort of practicing them consciously, you're learning to
see these tubular structures in relation to - and seeing how the
light and shadow effect them. Also a sort of conscious
practice,
but then there are other elements,
like just completing a drawing, polishing
off an area,
thinking
in a compositional approach, right, highlighting certain
things and not others. All of that is not that conscious
right? That's not necessarily part of the
assignment, but I think it also - but it is right. So you need to
have elements like that in there as well.
So that's just me explaining how I think about this thing.
So in a sense is your only practicing the thing that you're
practicing
I think something is lacking.
That's pretty much what I'm trying to say.
There's more there.
There's more there to explore.
Right there are some of these highlights and stuff. How much
we need at this moment, probably not that
much if not at all. Right, we're kind of hinting at the
quality of the fabric? We're getting into that in a little bit.
Softer edges on that stuff though
and
now the only thing I want to do
to add to these tubular forms.
All right, isn't this sort of a -
this is a crazy exciting right? I'm just working on the
cloth that's not even describing any form underneath
it, right? It's just hanging there. It will obviously be
confusing for the eye.
My eyes are beginning to hurt.
Beginning to hurt.
I'm working on these terminators because I
I want to enhance them so that that reflected light is
stronger.
Squint. I of course have enhanced some of these
highlights in reality to the quality of the fabric, that
color of the fabric and the value of it would obviously be -
it would be a darker value on the page, which would run
the risk of having one side of the page very light and
one side of the page extremely dark and even though
we are focusing on the tone,
it's within reason right? Within.
We can knock it back a little bit.
But if we overdo it
then we're not focusing on the structure, right? There's
always
that game we play.
Occlusion shadow, cast shadow type stuff.
Look at how helpful that is.
And that fold begins to have reflected light. Now right here
I'm going to erase that bit out, right, and knock it back, of
course, and then sort of sharpen it as I go.
For these lighter fabrics that are somewhat
translucent even in places,
those occlusion shadows
in between the pipes
are of fundamental importance.
Just going to move this stuff in but be much more sort of loose about
it, right, keep it on the incomplete end of it on the incomplete end of
things.
Maybe even knock the light
back a bit.
Here, I do want to just show where that turn is. And then
where it comes out.
I know there's a lot going on here.
But in here it has to be just sort of localized, right,
localized occlusion shadow to give a feeling of something
going on in there without too much information in
here. However,
I don't know why I'm doing this. I don't know if I need
that much there.
I just want a little bit more information down there,
it's not that important. We're encountering some more
complex structures here. So I'm beginning to think that we've
reached the sort of the end of what we can achieve here. Not to
say we can't keep polishing this off until it looks you
know, absolutely phenomenal
as a polished piece.
But that's not my goal.
I think
the cloth looks good.
Parts are not as complete as others, but the principal is
there,
the principal
is there. I'm going to step back a little bit. Maybe make a few
sort of
final accents, right? I'm just focusing on some of these
darker areas because they're
right in between and they're really sort of focusing our
attention like at that part of the -
focusing our attention on that part of the paper.
When you have something as sort of random, as abstract as this,
you need to to let the viewer's eye
rest in one or two places. I mean, I'm seeing beautiful
little parts, interactions of core and cast
shadows, little creases, really wonderful areas, that could be
wonderful to spend time on however,
we need to move on to the next
structure of cloth, so I'll see you then.
with this course, you're going to be working on the pipe fold.
Now you can also of course do this at home. All you need to
do is take a piece of cloth and clip it at one point on top to
anything in the house and allow it to hang
and then
just follow along as I do them here or as
or after having watched my explanations do pay particular
attention to the anatomy of the cloth, something that I spoke a
lot about and also to just our principles of light and shadow.
Enjoy.
Free to try
-
1. How to Draw Drapery Trailer
50sNow playing... -
1. Lesson Overview
1m 2sNow playing...
Watch the whole lesson with a subscription
-
2. Analyzing and Blocking in the Structure of the Pipe Fold
16m 50s -
3. Blocking in the Shadows and Halftones of the Pipe Fold
24m 17s -
4. Using the Shadows and Halftones to Define the Texture of the Fabric
26m 55s -
5. Defining the Smaller forms of the Pipe Fold and Adding the Finishing Details
26m 5s -
6. Assignment Instructions
59s
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