Thursday, June 14, 2012

Bracelet Shading

Sarah Simblet, author of Botany for the Artist, uses "bracelet shading" to suggest how branches come forward or go back in the z-dimension.


She writes: "You can add contours to stems and roots by drawing smaller stacked cylinders like bracelets....Imagine your lines join up around the back of each stem, as they would if you were drawing the rim of a cylinder."


Botany for the Artist: An Inspirational Guide to Drawing Plants




7 comments:

T. Arispe said...

This is a very helpful tip--I can't draw plants as well as I would like, maybe I should check out that book.

Emanuele Sangregorio said...

this reminded me of davinci's studies on trees, and about this book, downloadable for free by a botanic/mathematic man i bumped into a few years ago, when i was graduating computer science: "the algoritmic beauty of plants" .http://algorithmicbotany.org/papers/#abop

I bought your book, Color and light . I found it in the largest bookstore here!! after reading it (as well as your blog), i feel i have to thank you for your generosity. The price of the book doesn't even barely match the value of the information contained in it.

Julia Lundman said...

This book is high on my list of recommendations to anyone who desires to draw organic material. It is a fascinating read both for the structural aspect of botanical subjects, technical insight, as well as history of scientific illustration. Great book!

Amber said...

Oh WOW what a great technique!

I can't wait to apply it in my creature/character designs! Mm, tentacles!

stefan marjoram said...

I always liked the way Bill Waterson did this in Calvin and Hobbes

Heidi said...

This technique is also handy to the medical illustrator. We are constantly drawing tubes heading in all sorts of directions (arteries, veins, intestines, etc). I like to use bracelet highlights, actually.

jeff said...

Sarah Simblet is also the author of a very good anatomy for artist book.

A little pricey but worth it.

Her own figure drawings are quite amazing.