Drawing A Cone from Life: The Funnel

This is a fairly simple object to draw, with not much complexity. But “do not despise small beginnings.” Sometimes, we want to advance on to the complicated and interesting subjects, and we can think that such simple exercises as a funnel are not worth doing. But pause for a moment, and realize that the underlying principles in this simple funnel are the same principles that guide a professional painter when they view the distant snow capped mountains of the Andes, or the light coming in from a window and flowing over a woman’s back, or a water tower on a city building, or the sun setting on the pyramids of Giza. In this lesson, we pay attention to the external form, the identification of shadow shape, and massing in. We also learn a bit about texture in drawing, where we see how a brushy background can serve to heighten a tight foreground object. In this lesson, join me as I dip a paintbrush into powdered graphite and water, to “paint” the background in a graphite wash.