How to Draw a Book
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Draw a line across the middle of the page for the spine.
Op papier te trek in plaas daarvan?
Ons maak die foto reguit en maak dit vir jou skoon, papier tel presies dieselfde
Aangaande hierdie tekening
A book is a box, and boxes are the entire foundation of drawing anything man-made. Get a book right and you can draw a phone, a table, a building and a room, because they are all the same problem at different sizes.
The rule that fixes almost everyone's box: the lines going away from you are not parallel on the page. They converge, very slightly. Draw them parallel and the book looks like a badly folded piece of card.
Stap met stap
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Stap 1
Draw a line across the middle of the page for the spine.
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Stap 2
Draw the top edge of each page going away from the spine, leaning slightly toward each other.
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Stap 3
Close each page with an outside edge, coming down and back toward you.
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Stap 4
Join the outside edges back to the bottom of the spine.
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Stap 5
Give the book thickness: a short line down from each outer corner, then join them.
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Stap 6
Add the page stack as two or three short lines along each outer edge.
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Stap 7
Add a few light lines of text on each page, following the page angle rather than lying flat. Done.
Wat hierdie een jou werklik leer
This is a perspective lesson disguised as an easy object. The specific skill is convergence: parallel edges in the real world are not parallel on your page, and the amount they converge is what tells the viewer where they are standing.
It also drills placement hard. A box has eight corners that all have to agree with each other, and a corner that lands a few millimetres off is instantly visible in a way that a wobbly cat ear never is. This is the lesson that makes people notice their own accuracy for the first time.
Oefen hierdie: Line confidence Proportion Corners and joins
Wat jy nodig het
A pencil is best here because you will want to draw through the box lightly and lose half the lines later. And put a real book on the desk in front of you - this lesson is much easier with something to look at.
As dit verkeerd gaan
If the book looks bent, your two page halves are meeting at the spine at different angles. Draw the spine line first and build both halves off it.
Draw the whole box lightly before any detail. Yes, including the edges you cannot see. Drawing only the visible edges is how the corners end up not agreeing with each other.
The pages should be a stack, not a single line. Even two or three short lines along the edge will read as paper - a single hard line reads as a slab.
Do not press hard on the construction lines. The whole method depends on being able to lose them, and a deeply grooved line stays visible long after the graphite is erased.
Druk die stappe
Neem dit weg van die skerm. Die stap staat druk op een bladsy.
Vrae wat mense vra
- Why does my book look bent?
- The two halves are meeting the spine at different angles. Draw the spine first and build both sides off it.
- Should the edges be parallel?
- No. Edges going away from you converge slightly. Parallel edges are the single most common reason a drawn box looks wrong.
- How do I draw the pages?
- As a stack of short lines along the edge, not one hard line. Two or three are enough to read as paper.
- Do I need to know about vanishing points?
- Not for this. Just make the far edges lean toward each other slightly and it will read correctly.
- Should I draw the box I cannot see?
- Yes, lightly. Drawing through the form is what keeps the corners agreeing with each other.
- Open book or closed book?
- This lesson draws an open one. A closed book is the same box with fewer steps, so try it straight after.
- My corners do not line up.
- That is the actual lesson. Draw it again - accuracy on corners improves faster than almost any other drawing skill.
- What should I draw after this?
- A mug. Boxes and cylinders together cover most man-made objects you will ever want to draw.