Part of the challenge of drawing an image in black and white is to capture the viewers interest. One of techniques that you can use is to draw a variety of line types showing a change of texture and pattern. The title of the still life image above is “Good to the Last Drop”. There is a variety of line patterns, stippling and geometric shapes which provides interest and visually distinguishes each item uniquely. Notice the following details:
- The milk carton image has vertical lines with different values along with a drawing of a barn shape.
- The grinder image is rendered with stippling to imply a shiny surface.
- The ceramic mug is rendered with a textured geometric pattern that is actually on the mug surface.
- The spoon is drawn with parallel lines of varying values.
Interested in learning more about hand drawing techniques? You can find drawing video demonstrations, step by step illustrations and practice activities in my “Exploring Perspective Hand Drawing, Fundamentals of Interior Design” book. Check it out!
This is a great example of what we were working on in class today–adding texture and value to a rendering with many different surfaces, etc. I really liked how you described “stippling” to be used to distinguish a shiny surface. I’m really interested in exploring more hatching patterns to help add interest to a variety of surfaces and materials. I bet once you can really learn to add interest and texture to a perspective drawing with using just black and white first, the addition of color would really take the drawing to the next level. Excited to try some of this in my sketchbook!
Hello Lindsey,
Glad you are jazzed up about practicing line drawing. Plan to play around with different ways to show pattern and texture. Take time to do some exploring. Enjoy – Prof. Stephanie
I’ve always known that interior design is typically included in the Fine Arts disciplines, but I hadn’t thought that much about how the interior designer is another form of artist. I think that I always thought about the decorating aspect of design. I enjoy ‘drawing’ and am happy to begin my interior design study with this aspect. It’s always neat to see how adding just a few lines or dots can really enhance a drawing.
Glad you are open to learning the skill of drawing and it will be exciting to use this skill to communicate your design ideas. Prof. Stephanie