Flat or solid: shape and volume
A circle is flat, a sphere has volume. With light, shadow and a few extra lines, you turn a flat shape into something you could almost pick up.
Why
How can a drawing on a flat sheet look as if you could take an apple out of it?
Your sheet is flat: it only has a width and a height. Yet you can draw a sphere, a box or a vase on it that seems to have depth.
That works because your eye lets itself be fooled by shadow and by lines that slant backwards.
See it
Choose a flat shape and slide towards solid. Watch which faces and which shadow are added.
Description of the picture
A flat shape, for example a circle, a square or a triangle. A slider turns it step by step into a solid shape: the circle becomes a sphere with light and shadow, the square a cube with a top face and a side face, the triangle a cone. The text says what the flat shape and the solid shape are called.
Get it
A flat shape (2D) has two measurements: width and height. Circle, square, rectangle and triangle are flat shapes. You draw them with a contour line or fill them with a single colour.
A solid shape (3D) has one more measurement: depth. Sphere, cube, cuboid, cylinder, cone and pyramid are solid shapes. In art we also call that volume.
Every flat shape has a solid partner: from a circle you make a sphere, from a square a cube, from a rectangle a cuboid or a cylinder, from a triangle a cone or a pyramid.
To draw volume you have two tools. Extra faces: for a cube you also draw the top face and a side face, slanting backwards. And shadow: the side away from the light is darker, and a round shape goes gradually from light to dark.
Flat (2D) = width and height. Solid (3D) = width, height and depth. You show volume with extra faces and with shadow.
Worked example
You have drawn a square. How do you turn it into a cube?
From three corners of the square, draw short slanting lines backwards, all in the same direction and the same length.
Join up the ends: that gives you a top face and a side face.
Decide where the light comes from. Leave the front face light, make the side face darker and the top face half dark.
- Answer
A cube with three visible faces, each with its own tone.
Do it
Choose a level. You get a new exercise every time, checked straight away.
Make it
A task on paper, in class or at home.
From flat shapes to a still life
30 to 45 minutes
What you need
- drawing paper
- an HB pencil and a soft pencil (4B)
- a rubber
- three objects from home or the classroom: something round, something angular and something with a point
How to go about it
- Put the three objects next to each other on the table, with light from one side (a window or a lamp).
- First draw only their flat shape: a circle, a rectangle, a triangle. Very lightly.
- Turn them into solid shapes: add faces and rounded edges where needed.
- See where the light comes from and hatch the dark sides with the soft pencil.
- Under each object, draw a shadow on the table, on the side away from the light.
Look back: Which object looks most solid? Was it the shadow or the extra faces?
Pitfalls
Wrong: A circle and a sphere are the same thing.
A circle is flat. A sphere has depth: you show that with light and shadow.
Right: If you want a sphere, let the light fall on one spot and make the edge on the other side gradually darker.
Wrong: For a cube, you draw the slanting lines in all directions.
Then the cube no longer works: the faces seem to tip over.
Right: The lines going backwards run parallel and are the same length, or they meet at one point (see perspective).
Wrong: You make volume with a thick contour line.
A thick outline actually makes a shape flatter, as in a comic or a colouring page.
Right: Use shadow inside the shape, not just an outline around it.
In real life
- A road sign is flat, a traffic cone on the road is a cone.
- A sculptor works with real volume: you can walk around a sculpture and see it from every side.
- In video games and animated films, characters are built as solid shapes, with light that decides the shadow.
History
In the Renaissance, painters in Italy used strong light and dark to make shapes look round. That is where the word chiaroscuro comes from, Italian for light-dark.
At the table
Find an object at home together for each solid shape: a sphere, a cube, a cylinder and a cone. Which was hardest to find?
A question to talk about together, for parents and children. There is no wrong answer.