Angles Building shapes with directional lines

Drawing with angles allows you to break complex forms into simple directional lines. Drawing with angled lines allows the artist to break down complex forms into simple directional lines. Artists like to start with angular lines because it is an easy and efficient way to build an accurate foundation for the drawing. The resulting blocky quality of a drawing done with angular lines is the reason the first stage is known as “blocking”. Before you can start drawing with angles you must learn how to see angles. In other words how to “sight an angle.” There are two methods for sighting angles: the clock method, and the gap method. I will explain both.

First, you can think of any angle as pointing to a time on a clock face. For beginners imagining an angle as a hand on a clock face can be very helpful. Imagine that the clock only has one hand. There are always two possible times any angle could make, use the one that is most convenient for you. If its vertical it would be 12 or 6 o'clock. If its horizontal it would be 3 or 9 o'clock. If the angle is half way between 12 and 3 then it would be 1:30 and so on. The key concept here is that you want to be able to think of an angle as having a definite value. For example the sword in the picture is pointing to approximately 5 o’clock. Having a definite value in your head will make it much easier to reproduce the same angle in your drawing. 5 o’clock

Second, you can think of the difference between any angle and an orthogonal line The other method of angle measuring is a little more intuitive. Look at the angle and decide if it is closer to horizontal or vertical. Hold pencil or edge against the angle and try to hold the difference in your mind. On your drawing paper, lightly draw a horizontal or vertical line then draw the angle, try to match the gap you saw. Was it a thin wedge or almost 45 degree angle?

Remember when you draw angles that you are in the blocking stage. It is critical to remember that all parts of the drawing must be continually adjusted until every part is in the right relationship with every other part. With either of these methods it is important to look at your paper, and look at the angle again after you have drawn it. If it needs adjusting fix it. Tweak it till it feels right. Do not just assume you got it right on your first try. In most cases the angled lines will disappear from the final drawing. These lines are like scaffolding around a building. The scaffolding helps you to construct the building but are meant to be removed once they have served their purpose.

Draw complex objects by moving from points to lines to shapes. Start out by locating a few key points and connect the points with straight lines, until you have a simple angular version of the object you are drawing. When you are breaking objects into angled lines you have to average what the line is doing; ignore small details and try to capture the general direction of the line. Look for major changes in direction as places where your line direction should change. As you build your shapes using points and angles, the picture will begin to make sense, at which point you can just draw.

You can use angles to draw edges or axis lines. There are two kinds of lines that you sight for, edges or axis lines. Edges are the obvious lines that make up the outlines of the object you are drawing. Axis lines are imaginary lines that capture the general direct of a form. Think of the bone in your arm, it is invisible but it gives direction and shape to the arm. In the same way you can sight for and draw a line that is invisible in the final drawing but gives your forms shape and direction. Edge Axis

Sighting for angles is a useful technique to simplify and draw complex shapes. Our eyes see in two dimensions and our brain thinks in three dimensions. This is often the source of difficulty for a beginning student. In order to flatten the image and therefore make drawing possible, it is very useful to break an object down into points and lines. Sighting for angles helps you to build simple shapes that can be used as a springboard to help you render complex shapes.