The best art exercise ever: Form and Construction (Art Journal #9 | part 1)
The number one art exercise I recommend to every beginner artist! Tips and techniques to draw 3D shapes.
Hey there!
Welcome to the 9th episode of the Art Journal series!
In this newsletter series, you get to see my recent drawings, the process of creating a digital illustration, art tutorials, and some tips as well.
The previous episode:
The number one art skill for beginners
Have you ever seen an illustration drawn by a professional artist and thought to yourself, “Man… how the heck are they even drawing such complicated things??”
How can you get good at drawing, so that one day, you can create amazing pieces like them?
To be honest, I don't know how many months— or even years it will take for you to be able to get as good as the artists you admire.
But! I can teach you a fundamental art skill that every professional artist has mastered. It's what I recommend every beginner artist to start learning, as it will drastically level up your art. Mastering that skill will let you draw almost anything from your imagination.
Are you ready? Here we go!
Form and construction
We're going to learn one of the basic art fundamentals: Form and construction. This article is just part one, and we will focus only on the “Form” part today.
Now, there are actually more names to this: Form, structure, construction, 3D shapes. Many artists refer to this differently, but they are usually referring to the same art technique.
I'm just going to call it “Form and Construction”.
It's the ability to draw 3D shapes and forms like this:
If you're a beginner, drawing these shapes might seem difficult at first. But they're actually pretty fun once you understand them and practice drawing them frequently.
I'll introduce you to some really effective drawing exercises, and I'll also give you some beginner-friendly assignments, so you can follow along.
Exercise #1: Draw boxes
The first exercise is to draw boxes. A lot of boxes!
If you’re a beginner, your boxes may look wonky and not like boxes, but trust the process and keep practicing. You will definitely get better at it over time.
There are many ways to draw a cube, and I usually start by drawing a Plane, then I draw the rest. (A plane is just the flat side of any shape). It's also a good exercise to fill a page with just planes.
Now back to drawing boxes! Make some boxes taller, make some boxes flatter, just try to draw good boxes, and fill your page with them.
Draw boxes in different angles:
Add some variety! Different shapes, sizes, and angles:
I recommend using references for all the exercises in this article, so you can build a solid visual library, which will later help you draw from imagination.
You can find some box references on Pinterest, or you can also find 3D models on the internet that you can rotate to observe and use as references. Sketchfab is my go-to website for finding 3D models that are free to view.
Assignment #1:
The first assignment is to draw boxes in different angles by using the 3D models linked below as references.
You can rotate those 3D models, zoom in, or zoom out. Just observe and quickly sketch them in different angles. Try to fill 2 pages, one for cubes and one for cuboids.
In this assignment, you should focus on the quantity more than the quality. So sketch as many boxes as you can, and have fun.
Exercise #2: Draw Spheres, cylinders, and cones
This exercise is just like the first one, but instead of boxes, this time, you’re going to draw spheres, cylinders, and cones:
Wait– these look kinda bland. And look at that sphere— It just looks like a circle and not like a sphere at all! How can we make them look good like the 3D shapes we saw at the beginning?
Well, that’s exactly what we’re learning next!
What are contour lines?
Contour lines are lines that follow the shape of the object you’re drawing.
The shapes you saw at the beginning had a lot of contour lines. Here, I made just the contour lines red so you can see them separately:
I always draw spheres with at least one contour line, so that it actually looks like a sphere. For real-life reference, you can get a ball and use a marker to draw a line around it in the middle, and observe how the line curves as you rotate the ball.
You can add as many contour lines to a shape as you’d like.
Now that you know what a contour line is, let’s add them to the plain-looking shapes we saw earlier:
See? Now they don’t look boring anymore. The benefit of sketching shapes with contour lines is that it forces you to think in 3D. You have to get good at seeing these as 3D shapes in space, rather than just lines. So, contour lines are perfect for these exercises.
Assignment #2:
Draw spheres, cylinders, and cones in different angles using these 3D models as references:
You can also add contour lines, or experiment by drawing them in different angles, and modifying their shapes. Try to fill 3 pages, one for each shape.
To master Form, you have to draw a lot of 3D shapes. Rotate them, shorten them, extend them, make them smaller, make them bigger, etc. Think of them like clay, and you can shape them however you want.
(You don’t have to strictly use the models I linked; you can also look for other shape models on Sketchfab or a different platform).
You can also submit the 3D shapes you sketched through one the below links (I’d love to see your art!):
Link to submit on my Discord art club: https://discord.gg/TDrygnC3j8
Link to submit on my Substack thread:
Thank you for reading! I hope you liked reading this article, and I hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨
- Harshini
I like the basis of this! Form is truly the key fundamental for drawing anything in space :) Have you heard of drawabox.com? It's an amazing free course that reminds me of what you're trying to teach - maybe you could take some inspiration/ideas from it
This is so useful! I'm definitely going to start here with my drawing learning. Thank you for sharing this!