How to Draw a Shoe Derek Merck Spring, 2006

Derek’s first sketch of shoes in ‘98 Draw a Shoe in 25 Minutes Drawing is not just talent Observe a shoe Contour drawing Shading Evaluation Derek’s first sketch of shoes in ‘98

The Nature of the Beast How do shoes group? Purpose, terrain Owner, time, social class, wear & dirt Characteristics, material, stitching, fastenings, sole What kind of story? Blahnik Van Gogh

Observe Your Shoe Drawing is observation Take off your shoe and put it on the table How would you distinguish your particular shoe out of the entirety of shoe-space? Partner and take 2 minutes each to describe your shoes to one another DVS Westwood

Blind contours focus local detail at the expense of global structure. Draw what you see, not what you think you see – Reggie Coleman Plan to throw one away – Fred Brooks Jr. Don’t look at your paper Don’t lift your hand from the paper Hand follows your eye as you examine the object Spend 2 minutes doing a blind contour of your shoe This shoe tells the story of how bored Derek was in a meeting yesterday.

Contour Your Shoe Contours are curves where the surface normal is orthogonal to the view direction ¾ view probably easiest at first, why? Types of lines: use point or side, push hard or soft, thick usually = close Spend 5 minutes contouring Make it life sized and detailed Probably easiest to work from global to local Paul Doelman John Curtis

Tone Drawing is technique 3 Values Drawing is technique Take a minute and shade three, five, nine value scales Keep your hands out of there, gray-man – Reggie Coleman Tone from texture: cross hatching, points 5 Values 9 Values John Curtis

can have specularities John Curtis Shade Your Shoe Light usually = close or specular, toward viewer Dark usually = cast shadows Outline lightest, darkest tones on your sketch Shade from dark to light Leave lightest tone unshaded (paper tone) Shade for 5 minutes Evan black objects can have specularities Boots.com

Evaluation Scramble the shoes and pictures Can we figure out which shoe goes with which drawing? Look at line and tone in each drawing Lost Shoe Installation Still the Gray-man.

Homework Drawing is practice Find a new shoe and do a blind contour Do a double-blind contour. With your eyes closed, draw only what you feel Do two 10 minute renderings of the shoe from different views Derek’s second sketch of shoes