structure shape and form

What is the difference between structure shape and form?

Structure is the underlying building blocks of the object it can be an object, a still life, a figure, something organic or inorganic any structure in fact. Artists try to understand the structure of what they are trying to reproduce or create if you are drawing a face it makes sense to understand the bone structure and muscles which make up the structure of the face.

shape is the physical shape of what you are drawing when working with shape we will use the example of our apple again the basic shape of the apple is round so if you were to describe the shape a circle would be the closest thing to describing the apple.

Form has to do with light and shading it is what turns our apple into a round three dimensional object i.e. you would start with a line a circle which is one dimensional a two dimensional apple has more shading and detail but is still fairly flat. A three dimensional apple has all of the highlights and shading that gives it its true form and makes it jump out of the page at you.

Let’s not worry too much about structure at this stage as this is a more advanced lesson let’s start with shape everything that you see around you has a shape and artists use basic shapes to make up objects that they are drawing they use these shapes to help them with perspective and dimensions and the overall placement of items in the drawing. Start with a face if you were going to draw a face using shape we would break it up into a circle for the outline of the face circles for each eye and a triangle for the nose possibly smaller square shapes for each ear. Very quickly you will have a basic structure or shape of the face which you can work off .if you look at any object that you want to draw the object or landscape still life can be broken up into the basic shapes of a square rectangle circle and triangle.

Try and draw different things around you using this technique don’t worry about the detail at this stage all you should be doing is ;looking at the basic shapes that make up the drawing. The next lesson will deal with form and we will have a look at light and shading to create form.

Have fun