Drawing Angles and Folds | Learn beginner's drawing skills

1. Intro & tools: Hi, my name is Jenna low. I'm a watercolor nature artists and sketch for this class is about lines, angles, and folds. This is part two, a beginner series that I have created for beginner artists who are just learning how to draw it. It's series that I've developed for teaching students in-person one-on-one. I will leave a link below to part one of this series. Now before we get started, I want to point out that this is a sketch in class. This is not about drawing every single tiny detail and creating really realistic drawings. To me, sketching is more about observing what you're drawing. I really tried to understand how to draw that object to sketching is a really great way to quickly build up your library, improve your understanding of the object that you're drawing and just have a little bit of fun. Now let me tell you how this course is laid out in the beginning, there are a few warm up exercises that you can do to help you loosen up your hand or help you to learn how to control your pencil better. Then we're going to do several drawings that are focused on straight lines. This will help you to understand angles. After that, we're going to get into fourths. We're going to do a few demos talking about a few very common folds. And each demo is going to slowly progress upon each other, each getting a little bit harder. This lesson is meant to be a follow along, and that is how I would like you to approach the class project. I will also add a few extra reference photos in the project files. If you want to draw something a little bit different from me, some of the photos I've taken personally and some of them are found on public websites. The ones that are found on public websites. I will leave links to them down below in the description. Now the last part of this introduction is all about the tools that we'll be using. 3. Pencil Control: This video is all about pensequential. The first exercise is pencil gradients. I've drawn out these bars, or these rows now bling one side. I'm going to draw a gradient starting from dark to light. Start by pushing down on your pencil. Try to fill up this bar with a nice shade. As we go further down the bar, we're going to ease up on that pressure and start to make it a little bit lighter. You can see it's lighter, but it's still very obvious that line is where it gets lighter. What I'm going to do is go back and forth over that line to smooth it out. You're going to be going back and forth over the pencil that you have. Withdrawn. Don't push too hard, because if you push too hard, it's going to make marks into the paper. And then I do the same for 4b2b and H. What you'll start to notice is that the higher number pencils are a lot softer and not quite as sharp. You can see this two B is quite sharp and it's a lot thinner than the HB or the four B. Here's another exercise that I like to do using gradients in different shapes. So I'll draw out a rectangle, a circle or a cone or whatever. And I'll draw an arrow that indicates where the light source. And then I'll shade it from dark to light. For these next couple of exercises, we're going to draw some boxes. The first is called the pencil click. I'm using the four B. It's a little bit soft, but it's not too soft. Start by putting the pressure down and then letting it go a little bit. This makes the side of the line thick and then it tapers off and gets thin at the end. The next exercise is light too heavy. Starting very light, or starting heavy, whichever one you want to start first, draw the line softly and then start to put down the pressure. Every time I move over to the left side, the line is very soft and light. Any time I move over to the right side, it's heavier and darker. Next are little spirals. We're going to start by putting these small, little spirals closer together. Then they're going to get bigger and further apart, filling up the entire box. We're going to do the same thing, but now with short lines. This is practice for different ways that you can shade. Sometimes to create an interesting texture, you might need a spiral line, or sometimes you might just need a straight line. Or maybe to make freckles on the skin, you would put in little dots. We're doing the same thing, starting with small dots and then moving on to bigger dots and filling up this entire square. The next one is drawing various lines at different angles. Now for this one, the line is a bit longer. I'm holding the pencil further to the back so that I have more range of motion in my arm rather than my wrist. The motion of these lines is coming from my arm rather than my wrist. It takes a bit of time to control, to make sure that you don't go out of the box. Sometimes you'll go over, this is a good exercise to control your arm when you are drawing longer lines o. 4. Lines And Angles: In this video, I'm going to give you an example of how I use the pens and edges of the page to check my angle. The biggest thing that beginner students have a problem with is using their pen to check the angle on the page or on the reference photo, and then putting it back on the page and getting scared that they have messed it up or something. This is based on reference photos. In real life, it might be a little bit different, but for beginners, this is a good way to practice getting better at looking at angles. So what you can do, I'll give you an example. Say there is something that is slanted in this direction. I will check to see where the point is on the edge of the page. Now that I have those two markers, can draw a line angle. So say for example, I draw something at this angle. Okay, When I check my reference photo, I noticed that perhaps the way it's pointed, it's after the corner of the page, not before it. So what I can do then is this side is correct, but this side is incorrect. You know, maybe it's just a little bit over here, right? Okay. So now say we have lines going out this way from this point. How do I know that correct Or what size should be? So what I would do is I would use this line as my reference and I would measure it out to it's like half the size. So I would go half the size. Maybe the point is over here or something. I would check, does this point go above this point, or does this point go below the point? Okay, so we can use this as a ruler. Now let's check the length to make sure this way should be about here. Then it matches up with that line. Close it, Just draw a line. Okay, that's just a quick overview power use the edge of the page to check my angle. And using that line to get the length and the angle of the next line. Of course, it's always good to quickly go back and check with your reference photo just to double check and make sure that everything is sound. This is a really quick and easy cheap that you can use when you're drawing from reference photos. 5. Paper Folds 1: In this demo we're going to be drawing paper folds. This is a white piece of paper that has been folded to make two triangles or maybe two tints. But in this case, I'm simply going to call them triangles to make it easier to understand. This is the first most basic drawing and this will give us a chance to get confident on drawing angles. The objective of this demo is to use the edges of the paper to check our angles and make sure that they are correct. Start by using my pencil to check the angle of the most left side, making markers on the edge of the page. I can use it as a reference. From here I measure the bottom line. The next line I'm going to draw out with the line that I have just drawn at first. You may not be sure how long to draw the line. Once you have two lines drawn out, then you can use them as reference to measure each other and see how long each line should be. Then doing the same, I use the pencil to check the angle, make markers on the edge of the page, and then draw a line. I do the same for the top after I can just close the shape. This is the first draft. Now it's important to go back and forth between the reference photo and your drawing to make sure that you have the correct angles and the correct lengths. Use what you've already drawn as a reference point to see what is wrong and make the right corrections. The markers at the edge of the page really help. It will be hard to draw out the rest of this triangle because we cannot see the back. Instead, I draw out the back of the right triangle first. This will give me a better idea of where that point should be the follow the same for the rest of the folded paper. Once I have the general rough outline, I erase everything and make clean lights. After cleaning up the outline, I noticed that the back angle looked a little bit wrong. I fixed it up. Now I can draw the lines of the cache shadow. There are two cache shadows, one that the entire folded paper is casting on the ground, and one that is underneath the triangles. Using the two B, I do the base shade shading everything in. Then I notice a cache shadow from the left triangle onto the right. I add that in and use H B to fill in the larger shadow because it's very, very light. After the base shade is done, I go in four B to make those shadows on the ground just a little bit darker and blend some of the cast shadows. Finally, using the eight to make the small details and do a little bit of touch ups. 6. Paper Folds 2: In this demo, we're going to be drawing another folded paper that is slightly more complex. This will help us to practice what we have just learned in the previous demo. However, the objectives of this demo are to see where the darks and lights are. Because the shadows that are being created are a lot more complex, I've added a value scale here. You can use this value scale to measure where the darks and lights should be, and of course, where are the mid tones? Before we start drawing, let's just go over and see where the lights, mid tones, and darks are. First of all, usually the shadows that are being cast on the ground, where the object is very close to the ground, are going to be quite dark. The shadow that is being cast on the right side is quite dark. However, the shadow that is under the left side is closer to the light and further from the ground. Although it's a quite dark shadow, it's not as dark as the one on the right. Then let's talk about the shadows that are being cast onto the piece of paper, not the ground. We can see that the shadow that is being cast on the piece of paper is in the mid tone range. That is because they are quite close to each other, but they are both white. The left side is not catching any light and it's casting a shadow onto the right side. It's being lit by a ring light. Part of the light source is closer creating that sharper shadow. And one of the light sources is further away, which is creating that light, longer shadow. Then as you can see on the left side, there's a little bright spot and that is because the white paper is reflecting the light. Back onto the left side, you have that little tiny bright spot. Then let's talk about the most right side. It is dipping down. Part of it is not catching any light. The further out it goes, it's able to catch a little bit of light. You can see that it's making a gradient from dark to light. Okay. So now that we've identified what values each shadow should be, let's get into the drawing using my pencil to check the angle I draw a line from here. I'm going to use this line to measure the other lines. This line coming out from the top right is almost half of first line that I've drawn. Then I pose the triangle. It seems like this angle is wrong. I use the vertical line on the edge of the page. Move my pencil a little bit just to compare it, to see how steep this line really should be. As it's not as angled as I think it's actually more vertical. Now that this triangle is correct, I can use this to measure the next line. To make sure that this line is correct, I check the angle or the shape that it's making in the empty space. It seems like it should be a little bit further down. I just move that point over a little bit. Then the back line is almost as long as the top line. I use it to measure and draw it out from there. If everything is correct, then I don't need to measure this line. I just need to close the shape. I quickly notice that the angle of this line is wrong when I measure it out, and that actually this point should be higher than the other. Draw out again, and now it's correct. Now I use this line to draw out where the point should be. This line is curving a little bit at this point. I'm just eyeballing it and then closing the shape. Now it's time to draw the shadows on the ground. I draw two lines here to represent the reflection that is being made by the paper. I noticed that I forgot to draw this part of the paper. I quickly draw that in because that point will tell me where the shadow should be. Then I draw the Casado on the table. Our outline is done. I start off with the two B pencil and do a base shade. I leave that part out because that is a reflection. Making a few spots if needed so that I do not lose that line. I'm not going to fill out this part because it's a lot lighter than two B. Then I'm going to use the two B for the right part of the paper. So now that the base shade is done, we're going to start going a little bit using the four B. I fill in the shadow that is under the left side, just using the four B a little bit to make this part tiny bit darker. Because these two areas are quite close together, it's almost making a contact shadow that just shows that these two points are a little bit closer than the top parts, filling out the darks, filling in some of the context shadow, but don't draw the entire line, or it will look a little bit flat. Now I'm going to make a gradient by using the four B over the two B. I'm only going to fill in the part. So you can see a nice gradient is being created. I use the eraser to erase out a little bit. Now here I have the eight B, and I'm going to make some of those lines a little bit darker at the finishing touches. And then filling in the cast shadow down here, because it is a lot very lightly. Go over here, but not make it too dark at all. Use the eraser to erase it out a little bit more. So it looks like there's more of a gradient going from dark to light. I'm going over with the two H, which is lighter than the H B, and filling in that shadow, using my hand to smudge it a bit, and then just erasing any smudges to clean up. 7. Paper Airplane: In this demo, we're going to be drawing a paper airplane. Now the objectives of this sketch are really just to go over the things that we have learned and put them into practice. Once again, the form shadow on this paper airplane is quite light. I will be using the HB as an outline pencil as well as the pencil to do the base shade. I start by checking the angle and making sure that everything is correct with the reference photo. In this case, I'm using a ruler because these lines are a lot longer and it would take less time For this sketch, I decide to draw out the overall shape first before going into the tiny details. Now just to check and make sure things are correct, I use the ruler to measure each line and then measure the length across with my drawing and my reference photo. Now that I establish that this is correct, I can continue drawing out the outline. I only draw half of this line because we can see that the paper is folded over. So I decided to leave that space open. I quickly measure to make sure that I have the correct size. Before moving on to the next couple of lines, I realized that this line is at a bit of an angle so that it looks like it's being folded. Now it's time to finish this side. I leave a little bit of space here because I want it to be clear that this line is underneath the folds that are folded over. Now, drawing out the cast shadows and the shadows that are on the form, because the form shatter is very light, everything is quite flat. I use the HB to also do the base shade, filling up all the areas on the. Now, in this section, you can see there are some light spots, so I'm going to leave those out. And you'll see that I start to shade it in different directions. Because I want to give the impression that even though the paper is smooth, it does have a little bit of texture. The light spots help to sell the look now going over the shadow in the inner case. For this. I put a tissue underneath my hand so that I won't smudge. Now, the base shade on the form is done. You've noticed that I did not use the HB on the cache shadow, and that's because it is a lot darker than HB. So, I don't need to use it now to build up the second shade, I use the two H. I'm just going over and looking where are some of the darker spots, some of the contact shadows, and filling those in. Then here on this particular one, I want to give the impression of a bit of texture. I put a little bit of darks here and there with different pencil strokes like cross hatching. Just to show that this is a piece of paper that has made, been wrinkled a little bit and the way the light is catching it is giving it that texture. Now using the two B to go a little bit darker because once again, a lot of the shades are not that dark. It's not really pushing all the way into the dark. I use the two pencil to do the darks on the form. Now getting into the cast shadow, I use the four B pencil to do the base shade, and I will go over it with the eight B pencil. Here we are doing a few touch up with the 82h and eraser. Taking the eight to add in a little bit of those context shadows will really help your drawing to just adding a few little lines here and there. Take the eraser and erase out any of those pencil lines that you don't need. And then using the two, again, just to add in a little bit of detail, sharpen up any shadows that could be a little bit darker. 8. All About Folds: Okay, in this video, we're going to go over a few different basic folds. Just a quick overview so that you can understand before we start to draw the actual sketches and drawings. The first one that I want to show you is called a pipe fold. This is usually used for dresses, curtains, anything that's hanging and being held up by several points. Say for example, it's held up. All of these points here say this is a curtain. Maybe it will have a couple of lines coming down. It will start to create this Piping looks a lot like a pipe. Where would we shade something like this? Same as a cylinder. We would she the side, these are the cylinders we shade on the side. Say the light is coming from this direction, maybe a little bit over here because it doesn't have a light. Now the next one we're going to do is a drop fold. This is usually a fold that is created by one point, possibly there's a tow wall that's hung up on a hook. This type of fold will create a drop fold. It looks like an S or a zigzag. And here's the top. Now remember it needs to come from the same point. Here's the top side that we can see. And then the back side would be here, also originating from this point. Okay, so this is mimicking a cone, right? How would you shade a cone? Let's say the lights this direction, it would be the same shape here. The whole back side we would shade. It really depends where the light is coming from. If it's super bright light, light is coming from here. But then it's also bouncing back, perhaps the form shadow would be somewhere in the middle and we would still see light on either side. Okay, the next one I want to show you is called a spiral. This is something that you would find on people's clothes, or maybe like a towel is folded. Let's imagine we have some pants, and the pants are a little bit baggy. Could be better. But let's just say this is person's pants. Where would you shade something like this? Well, usually it would start from where the contact shadow is, points where the cloth is compressed together. 9. Hanging Towel: In this demo, we'll be drawing a hanging towel. It has a one point tension which is creating a drop fold. This is the most basic fold where you'll have a piece of cloth hanging from a single point and gravity does the work to pull it down, making some basic folds. That is what we'll be practicing in this demo. Just getting the folds right. In the reference photo, the light is coming from the right, probably from a big window. That's why there are some shadows, but they are quite light and soft. Nothing very sharp or clear. The part of the towel in the center is like a cone shape. The middle part is where we see the form shadow. And since the light is bouncing from the right onto the left, we get this lighter spot on both sides. You will see it with every single fold. On the left side, we have a shadow in the center and bright on both sides. Starting off with the HB pencil, I draw out the outline first drawing the hook that the towel will be hanging from. Then I draw out the two sides and a line in between them. These sides look almost equal, but I just measure very quickly to make sure that it's I drew one side a little bit wider than the other, so I quickly correct that. Now I can start drawing in the details of the outline on the bottom. This first fold is a common fold, you'll see all the time, it looks like an S. The important part here is making sure that the vertical lines are meeting at the point at the top where they are hanging from. That is why it is called one point tension. Then I draw the other fold underneath and some other little details like the edges of the car. For this entire demo, I will only be using 2.4 B to shade the towel. Starting with two to do the base shade, start very light shake downward, or follow the outline to show that gravity is pulling the towel downward. Make sure you leave out those little bright spots for the reflection here. Twist the bottom. I use a horizontal light because I'm following the form and the outline. Then I quickly and loosely make a cast shadow. Now I move on to the four B pencil to put in the dark. Still going very, so I sharpen up a few edges here and there to make sure it's clear where the context shadows are. I also fill in the cache shadow to make it clear which part is the wall and which part is the towel. Then I use the eraser to erase out some of the outline that makes it look like the light here is really bright. It's so bright that you cannot see some of the outline. Last during the finishing touch ups with two B on the right side where there's a tiny cache shadow and now we're finished. 10. Hanging T Shirt: Mis nemo will be drawing a T shirt hanging from a hanger. Now that we understand one point tension, we're going to do a drawing that has multiple points. The two most obvious points are the sleeves, where they come off the hanger. The less obvious points are at the collar and the cloth hanging over the sides. As we go through this demo, be aware of where each line or drape is coming from. That is the objective of this demo. The sleeve on the right is also making a drop fold, as well as some parts of the bottom, but they are less obvious. The shot also has a color, but we will not be shading it in. We will assume that the default color is white and just shade on top of. Let's get started, because it's more complex, I will be doing a rough sketch first using the HP pencil. I start by drawing the hanger. Once the hanger is correct, I can start to draw the T shirt over the hanger. Most of the detail is on the right, so I start with that side. I start by drawing out the collar and use it as a measuring point to draw out the sleeve. As I'm drawing out the drop fold, I need to make sure that each line connects back to the point of tension, which is the edge of the hanger. It takes a few tries to get this right, then I use the entire sleeve to measure the rest of the T shirt. I also check with the width of the T shirt from shoulder to shoulder against the length under the sleeve. Sometimes it's good to have different comparisons to ensure that you have the correct measurements. When I'm happy with the right side, I move on to the left side using the part that sticks out on the right side. With the part that sticks out on the left side, I take my pencil and see if it's a perfect vertical line across. Or if one side is higher than the other, then I do the same for the right left. This line that comes down the middle starts from almost the middle side of the left shoulder. Its point of tension is from the left side of the hanger, but not the part where the sleeve falls off the edge. Now once the rough drap is done, I go over with clean lines and draw in the little details like the curves of the cloth. Now that the outline is done, I'll go over with the two B pencil to do the base shade. If you look at the reference photo, you'll notice that the darkest starks are around the underneath of the sleeves and the drape on the left side. However, there are still a few wrinkles and drapes that are around mid twin range. I will go over with the two B pencil again to add a little bit of contrast before doing the darkest starks. With four, I go over very lightly and start adding in some texture of the cloth on the T shirt. Look closely at your reference photo to notice if there are any small changes in shade that can give you an idea of where you can add the little marks to make it look like the T shirt has a little bit of texture. Not doing the second shade with a two be pencil, I go over the contact shadows or any cache shadows that are in the mid town range. Some of these shadows are very small, so it would be best to have a dull sight and a sharp sight of your pencil so that you can switch back and forth. Moving on to the four B pencil. I do the darks on the left side color and underneath the sleeve anywhere that's a little bit darker than our second shade. Finally, using the eight B to do any finishing touches. Just pushing the contrasts a little bit. Now we're done. 11. Jeans: In this demo, we'll be drawing some genes that are creating a spiral fold. This fold is created when cloth is wrapped around a tube, or maybe an arm or a leg. The sides are slightly compressed, creating these folds that look like they're wrapping around an object. To simplify, I will only be drawing one side of the genes. Notice where each line wraps around and draw your folds as if they are curving around rather than straight lines. The objective of this demo is to understand spiral folds. To start lightly, draw out the leg and the shoe outline. These do not need to be dark, they are simply the base for your jeeves. Then start to draw out the curves over the outline. They will not stick exactly to the outline you have drawn. Leave a little space for curves and S shapes where the bottom of the leg, the ankle gets smaller. So it makes sense that some of the curves would curve even further. And concave more than the top part of the gene. Now drawing out some of the other folds that are between. Once everything is in the right place, I erase and draw out a clean outline. Start with two B for the base shade. The light is coming from the right. But any place the cloth is compressed together will create a shadow shade in between the folds where the clock is compressed. They are creating context shadows. And cast shadows, generally shading downward to show that gravity is pulling the genes down. When I'm shading the genes, I am showing a little bit of my pencil strokes because I want to show that there is some texture to the genes. And sometimes the shadow is starting from the other side that you can't see. You also want to make sure that your shadow looks like it's wrapping around. Once the base shade is done, I go in with the four B, making those contact shadows just a little bit darker. Mainly on the left side where there's less light, but a little bit here and there on the right, and leaving the base shade visible. Finally, I use the eight to outline and fill in some of the other just to make it clear between the left and right. This also looks kind of like a cast shadow. It helps to make your drawing. Then I use eight to roughly shade in the shoe. These are some small little details that you don't really need to put in, but it helps the viewer to understand what's going on. 12. Final thoughts: Congratulations, you've made it to the end of the class. I hope you had a great time learning a little bit about drawing angles and folds. Now remember that this is a follow along, so please drop your projects into the project section. I look forward to seeing them. All the files will be in the project tab, including extra reference photos. And of course, if you have any questions, please leave them in the discussion section. If you would like more classes from me, please go onto my profile. You will see all the classes that I've put out on watercolor and sketchy. See you in the next class.