ART GUIDE - Tips on drawing flowing shapes 🎗️

Hi everyone! 

Here are some tips on drawing curved forms 😊🌸

1. IMPORTANCE OF SHAPES IN ART:

Shapes are a very important element of art. You can express a lot with it. Here you can see that soft shapes such as a circle will be used to show cuteness. Sharp and angular to show more agression and strength, while soft and flowing shapes are light, elegant and a bit "divine". Think about what you want to show and use appropriate shapes to express it.

2. INSPIRATIONS

A beautiful example of flowing forms in art history is the Art Nouveau movement. It was characterized by asymmetric shapes, the use of arcs and curved forms and flowing, plant-like embellishments. 

One of the leading representatives was the Czech graphic artist and painter Alphonse Mucha.  If you're interested in the topic of flowing, curved shapes, be sure to check out more of Art Nouveau art and architecture.

Today, art very often uses these inspirations. They are seen in comics and the art of illustration. For me, the first contact with drawing curved, flowing shapes was the hair of "My little pony" characters and "The Little Mermaid".

Be sure to analyse your favorite artists and their approaches. Take what you like from them and put it into your art 🥨

3. CONFIDENT LINES

The essential feature of curved, flowing shapes (and any good lineart) is the confidence with which the artist creates lines. The line is the primary mean of expression. If your lines are "hairy" and not confident, the entire energy flow will also be disturbed. Practice your hand with these simple lines. It's a good warm up exercise.

4. ANGULARITY

In this example, I smoothed and unified the hair in Gretel Lusky's drawing. As you can see - although still beautiful, it became monotonous and lost some character. Remember about the dynamics of the shape. The ones with sharp turns contrasted to smooth curves will be much more interesting. 

5. SIMPLE RIBBON - STEP BY STEP

Most of the flowing shapes contain a simple drawing of a ribbon. If you draw hair - I recommend that you create the entire outline first, but then add details in the form of ribbons. Here is a simple rule of thumb to draw them:

1. Draw one line.

2. Draw a second line next to it - it might be the same as the first to begin with.

3. Connect them with transverse lines.

4. Remove whatever will be covered by the plane of the ribbon.

5. Add shading to give form.

6. SHOWING THE VOLUME

I like to give form to flowing shapes by emphasizing their volume - for this you can see how I drew cross contour lines on the trees studies. It's like you decided to cut them in few places and show the planes of cutting (I hope it makes sense 😅):

7. FEW LAST TIPS

Almost everything can be shown as a flowing shape: hair, eyebrows, smoke, trees, leafs, fingers, ghosts, ornaments, clouds, clothing - you decide how you wanna show them.

You can see some comparisons here. On the left, more monotonous shapes, on the right, those that I find much more interesting 😉

👉 Try to draw a soft sketch first and then build clean, firm lines on it

👉 Don't close all shapes

👉 Notice the rule: large, medium, small. Drawing one width along the entire length will be monotonous

👉 Use smooth and sharp angles - it's more interesting than just smooth shapes

👉 Use different line thicknesses to emphasize the flow of force

👉 Use cross contour lines to emphasize volume

👉 If you show the curve on one side, show more straight line on the opposite - assymetry shows much more force flow.

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That's all for now! I hope it was helpful 😊🍀 Remember to practice curved forms from the artists that inspire you in this particular theme 🌸

Hugs 🧡 Gaby