Put on Your Shape Glasses 🤓

Here is an exercise that many of my students find helpful. You’ll need your Sunday newspaper and a Sharpie marker (because Sharpies are fun to draw with).

Plan B is any brochure that came in the mail and any writing device, like the chalk in the flamingo above. Look at any photo in the newspaper and visualize all the different shapes that make up the subjects.  

Now take your Sharpie and draw around all the shapes. Start with the big shapes.

Then you can move into the smaller shapes within each big shape if you’d like. The most important part is to see the big shapes.

Look for squares, rectangles, triangles, circles, ovals as well as organic, free form shapes.  Those are shapes too. A shape is simply a line that connects back to itself.  You can continue throughout the newspaper and find the shapes. 

Think about doing this with all those holiday catalogs you’ll be getting in the mail.  It’s fun and eye opening. All complex subjects are made up of simple shapes.  

Soon, you’ll be looking at the world through your “shape glasses”. And guess what? Here’s the coolest part. All this is (non-painting) practice.

Yes! You are practicing for the time when you are standing in front of your easel and you need to draw your subject.  Hopefully, after all this practice, your thought at that point will be, “Easy-peasy”.