• Turning a piece of wood round very quickly on a lathe has, for a very long time, been been a simple way to add style, shape and decoration to what would otherwise look like a stick!

    Chairs and table legs, candlesticks and wooden bowls have all been made in this way, so it is good to understand the method of manufacture if you want to draw objects that have been made this way. Pottery is made in the same way.

    With a lathe, wood or metal is removed as the source material is spun around, revealing the finished object that was “inside” all along! A potter spins the clay around and shapes it into an object that is uniform around it’s central axis. In the next lesson we will put this idea to work as we start to combine all the simple shapes you have learned, to create more complex drawings.

    The index for this course is at http://www.shooraynerdrawing.com/..

  • Why are spheres so useful when drawing? Well… many objects, people’s heads for instance, are basically spheres. If you fix in your mind, those three lines, that encircle a sphere at 90 degrees to each other, then you are well on the way to drawing 3D representations of almost any object you will ever want to draw from any angle you wish.

    Task: Get yourself a ball and draw the three lines at 90 to degrees to each other onto it with an indelible pen or something similar. Use this model, and the sphere in a cube idea, to draw lots of wireframe drawings of spheres. Really get this idea clear in your head. Soon you will be able to imagine a sphere, turn it inside your head and draw what you see. It’s all practice and brain training.

    The index for this course is at http://www.shooraynerdrawing.com/..


  • A sphere is made from millions of circles that all share the same diameter or central axis line. This is how the world spins on it’s axis and how we separate the world into lines of longitude and latitude.
    Imagine the Earth, spinning in space, and draw an imaginary line all the way around from the North Pole to the South Pole and back to North Pole again on the other side. Now draw another, imaginary, line at 90 degrees to the first, from the North Pole to the South Pole and back to North Pole again on the other side.

    Finally draw an imaginary line around the equator. This line will be at 90 degrees to the first two lines. There will be 6 points where the lines cross each other. Just as a circle fits perfectly inside a square, a sphere fits perfectly inside a cube.

    The six points – where the lines we drew crossed each other – touch the outsides of the cube at the centre of each of it’s faces.

    We can find the centres of each face, by drawing lines from corner to corner on a wireframe drawing of a cube. Then we use those six points as guides to let us draw three ellipses each at right angles to each other, creating the wireframe drawing of a sphere inside a box.

    Now – can you see how everything we have done so far has led us to this point? If so, your task is to take a deep breath and have a rest – but only for a minute! There’s work to be done in the next lesson! The index for this course is at http://www.shooraynerdrawing.com/..