How to Draw a Mug
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Decide your eye level and mark it.
You should be able to say whether you are looking down into this mug or across at it.
Debuxando no papel?
Enderezamos e limpamos a foto por ti. O papel conta exactamente igual.
Acerca deste debuxo
Everybody draws the top of a mug as a flat oval and everybody's mug comes out wrong. The rule that fixes it is simple: the further the opening is from your eye level, the rounder it looks. Level with your eyes it is nearly a straight line; on the floor below you it is nearly a circle.
Get that one idea and you have not learned to draw a mug - you have learned to draw wheels, tins, plates, bottles, hats and eyes, which are all the same problem at different sizes.
Paso a paso
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Paso 1
Decide your eye level and mark it.
Everything about the ellipses follows from this. If the mug is below your eye level you will see into it; if it is level you will not. Make the decision consciously now rather than letting it drift halfway through the drawing.
Coidado. Not deciding, then drawing a rim that contradicts the base.
Comprobar You should be able to say whether you are looking down into this mug or across at it.
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Paso 2
Draw the rim as one ellipse, in a single fast motion.
Go round three or four times without stopping and keep the best pass. Speed is what makes an ellipse smooth - drawn slowly it comes out lumpy on one side every single time, because your hand cannot hold a curve at low speed.
Coidado. Building it out of short careful arcs.
Comprobar It should be symmetrical about its own long axis.
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Paso 3
Draw the two sides straight down, tapering in slightly.
Start exactly at the ends of the ellipse's long axis. A slight taper inward looks more natural than perfectly parallel sides, and it is what most real mugs do.
Coidado. Starting the sides inside or outside the rim, which leaves a visible step.
Comprobar Each side should begin exactly at the widest point of the rim.
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Paso 4
Close the bottom with an ellipse slightly rounder than the top.
The base is further from your eye level than the rim, so it is rounder. Same width, more curve. Getting this relationship right is the difference between a mug that sits on the table and one that appears to be sliding off it.
Coidado. Drawing the base flatter than the rim, or as a straight line.
Comprobar Rounder than the rim, and exactly the same width.
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Paso 5
Add a second curve just inside the rim.
This thin band is the thickness of the ceramic, and it is what makes the top read as an opening rather than a painted disc. One stroke, following the rim's curve.
Coidado. Drawing it parallel all the way round instead of following the ellipse.
Comprobar There should be a visible band between the two curves at the front.
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Paso 6
Draw the outer curve of the handle.
Start just below the rim and end about two-thirds of the way down the side. Both ends must touch the mug - a handle that floats beside the body is the most common error here and it is instantly visible.
Coidado. Leaving a gap where the handle meets the mug.
Comprobar Both ends of the curve should touch the side of the mug.
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Paso 7
Give the handle thickness with a second curve inside.
A handle is a strap, not a wire. The inner curve runs parallel to the outer one and meets the mug slightly closer in at both ends. This is a small change that makes a large difference to how solid the mug looks.
Coidado. Drawing the handle as a single line.
Comprobar There should be a visible gap between the two handle curves.
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Paso 8
Mark where the light is coming from.
Pick a side and commit. A cylinder shades differently from a sphere - the darkest band sits just inside the edge on the shadow side, not at the very edge, because light bounces back up off the table onto the rim.
Coidado. Shading the very edge darkest, which makes the mug look flat.
Comprobar You should be able to say which side is lit.
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Paso 9
Shade the side of the mug away from the light.
Work in one direction rather than scrubbing back and forth. Scrubbing gives an even grey, which is exactly the thing that makes a drawing look flat, so lay the strokes the same way and build the darkness in passes.
Coidado. Being too timid. Beginners routinely stop two or three steps short of dark enough.
Comprobar The dark side should be clearly darker than the mid tone, not slightly.
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Paso 10
Add a lighter strip right at the shadow-side edge.
Light bouncing off the table catches the very edge of a cylinder, so the darkest band sits slightly INSIDE the outline. Leaving that thin lighter strip is what makes the mug read as round rather than as a shaded rectangle.
Coidado. Running the shading right up to the outline.
Comprobar There should be a thin lighter line between your shading and the edge.
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Paso 11
Add the shadow on the surface underneath.
The cast shadow is darkest where it touches the mug and softens as it moves away. It also anchors the object to a surface - without it the mug floats, however well you have shaded it.
Coidado. Drawing it as an even grey blob detached from the object.
Comprobar It should touch the object and be darkest at that contact point.
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Paso 12
Go over the lines you want to keep, and lose the guides.
This is the step that turns a construction drawing into a finished one, and it is the one most people skip. Press harder on the outline and the features; leave the small stuff light. That difference in weight is what makes a drawing look deliberate rather than traced, and it costs thirty seconds.
Coidado. Going over everything at the same weight, which flattens the drawing back out.
Comprobar The outline should be clearly darker than the smallest details.
O que parece rematado
O mesmo debuxo con todas as guías borradas e só as liñas que quería manter, co peso que quería que fosen. Se o seu aínda ten liñas centrais e formas de bloque, este é o paso que aínda non fixo - e leva uns trinta segundos.
A túa non se verá así, e non se supón que sexa así. Esta é a construción sen os andamios, non un debuxo feito por alguén para ser admirado - o obxectivo é mostrarche que liñas foron as guías.
O que este ensina realmente
This is the ellipse lesson, and an ellipse is really a lesson about drawing what is in front of you instead of what you know. You know the rim is a circle. It does not look like one from here, and the drawing has to say what it looks like.
It also drills line confidence hard: an ellipse drawn in one committed motion looks right, and the same ellipse assembled from twelve careful strokes looks wrong even when it is more accurate.
Practica isto: Line confidence Proportion Corners and joins
O que precisas
A pencil, and a real mug on the desk in front of you. This lesson is enormously easier with something to look at, because the whole point is drawing what an ellipse looks like rather than what you know a circle to be.
Se vai mal
If the ellipse is wobbly, you are drawing it slowly. Go round several times in one fast continuous motion and keep the best pass - a hand cannot hold a smooth curve at low speed.
If the mug looks like it is tipping over, the two ellipses disagree. The bottom one is always slightly rounder than the top, never flatter.
Draw the whole top ellipse including the back half you cannot see, then decide what to erase. Drawing only the visible arc gives you a rim that does not close.
Imprimir os pasos
Sácao da pantalla. A folla de pasos imprime nunha páxina.
Preguntas que a xente fai
- Why do my ellipses look wobbly?
- You are drawing them slowly. Go round several times in one fast continuous motion, then keep the best pass.
- How round should the top of the mug be?
- It depends entirely on your eye level. Look at a real mug: at eye level the rim is almost a line, from above it is almost a circle.
- Why does my mug look like it is falling over?
- The bottom ellipse disagrees with the top. The bottom is always slightly rounder, and both must be the same width.
- Where does the handle go?
- Starting just below the rim and ending around two-thirds down, attached to the side rather than floating beside it.
- Do I need to draw the inside of the mug?
- Just a second curve inside the rim. That thin band is what makes it read as an opening rather than a disc.
- Should the sides be straight?
- A slight taper looks more natural than perfectly parallel, and it is what most real mugs actually do.
- Is this useful for anything else?
- Enormously. Wheels, cans, plates, hats, bottles and eyes are all this same skill.
- What should I draw after this?
- The book. Boxes and cylinders together cover most man-made objects you will ever want to draw.