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.
E tātuhi ana ki runga pepa?
Ka whakatūtū, ka whakamātauria e tātau te whakaahua mō koe. He ōrite tonu te tatau pepa.
Mo tēnei tātuhi
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.
He hipanga ki te hipanga
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Ka taea te whakahau 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.
Whakawhanake Not deciding, then drawing a rim that contradicts the base.
Whakamātautau You should be able to say whether you are looking down into this mug or across at it.
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Ka taea te whakahau 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.
Whakawhanake Building it out of short careful arcs.
Whakamātautau It should be symmetrical about its own long axis.
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Ka taea te whakahau 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.
Whakawhanake Starting the sides inside or outside the rim, which leaves a visible step.
Whakamātautau Each side should begin exactly at the widest point of the rim.
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Ka taea te whakahau 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.
Whakawhanake Drawing the base flatter than the rim, or as a straight line.
Whakamātautau Rounder than the rim, and exactly the same width.
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Ka taea te whakahau 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.
Whakawhanake Drawing it parallel all the way round instead of following the ellipse.
Whakamātautau There should be a visible band between the two curves at the front.
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Ka taea te whakahau 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.
Whakawhanake Leaving a gap where the handle meets the mug.
Whakamātautau Both ends of the curve should touch the side of the mug.
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Ka taea te whakahau 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.
Whakawhanake Drawing the handle as a single line.
Whakamātautau There should be a visible gap between the two handle curves.
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Ka taea te whakahau 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.
Whakawhanake Shading the very edge darkest, which makes the mug look flat.
Whakamātautau You should be able to say which side is lit.
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Ka taea te whakahau 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.
Whakawhanake Being too timid. Beginners routinely stop two or three steps short of dark enough.
Whakamātautau The dark side should be clearly darker than the mid tone, not slightly.
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Ka taea te whakahau 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.
Whakawhanake Running the shading right up to the outline.
Whakamātautau There should be a thin lighter line between your shading and the edge.
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Ka taea te whakahau 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.
Whakawhanake Drawing it as an even grey blob detached from the object.
Whakamātautau It should touch the object and be darkest at that contact point.
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Ka taea te whakahau 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.
Whakawhanake Going over everything at the same weight, which flattens the drawing back out.
Whakamātautau The outline should be clearly darker than the smallest details.
He pēhea te āhua o te whakamutua
Ko te tātuhi ōrite me ia kaiārahi i whakakoretia, ā, ko ngā raina anake i hiahiatia e koe kia pupuri, i te taumahatanga i hiahiatia e koe kia pupuri. Mēnā kei roto tonu i ōna raina pū me ngā hanga ārai-i roto, ko tēnei te hipanga kāore i mahia e koe - ā, tata ki te toru tekau mā rua ngā taki.
Kāore e āhua nei a koe, ā, kāore e hiahiatia kia. Ko tēnei te hanganga me te whakawhāiti i te whakawhāiti, ehara i te tātuhi i hangaia e tētahi tangata hei whakamātautau - ko te take kia whakaaturia ki a koe he aha o o koe ngā raina kaiārahi.
Ko te mea e whakaako ana tēnei i a koe
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.
Whakamātautau i ēnei: Line confidence Proportion Corners and joins
Ko te mea e hiahiatia ana e koe
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.
Mēnā he hē te haere
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.
Pānuitia nga hipanga
E tangohia ana i te mata. Ka tātuhia te pepa hipanga ki runga i tētahi pātaka.
Ko nga pātai e pā ana te tangata
- 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.