Forms Project

Learning how to draw forms is a basic skill needed in painting. The three main forms to know about are the cube, cylinder, and sphere. These three forms are found the most in pictures. There are other forms such as pyramid and trapizoid. You can practice drawing the forms and then try to paint them using only gray tones. You can mix these grays up using black and white to get various shades you need.

Step 1
I used a photograph from a book to use as a reference for this exercise. Below is the example photo:



I gathered some real forms and set them up under a lamp to get some good light and dark shadows for the still life painting.



The first step is to prepare something to paint on such as a canvas pad sheet, or a canvas board, or stretched canvas. I toned this canvas board with a light yellow ochre colour acrylic paint then let it dry.Here is my toned canvas board:



Step 2
You will need to make a rough drawing on your toned canvas to give you a guide for your painting. I used a charcoal stick to roughly draw my forms in..




Step 3
The next step is to begin painting. I used black and white to mix up various gray tones to paint this forms exercise. Start with your darkest colour and gradually paint your middle values, then your lighter tones, leaving the lightest colour for last.



Step 4
Keep painting your forms until you have painted everything including a shadow area underneath. This exercise is good for learning to see your different values or tones of a colour.