Mastering Cross Contour Lines - the Laser Beam Method!

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You can choose from two timeslots - either Tuesday 15th September at 3pm UK time or Wednesday 16th September at 9pm UK time. The workshop will cover a strategy for simplifying the figure to more easily understand the gesture, construction and proportions all at once. We’ll also look at the best strategy for learning life drawing, and we’ll look at our new upcoming course!

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This video is all about one of my favourite tools for giving the figure form and making it 3D - cross contour lines. They are more intuitive than using boxes and cylinders because you can feel them wrapping around the form you are seeing. In fact, they are also often called wrapping lines.

One of the most common errors I see with cross contours is to draw them curving the wrong way. The way they curve is the most important thing because it tells us how the form is receding or coming towards us. To make sense of this, I’ve come up with the laser beam method! At first I think my idea is a little bit confusing but soon becomes intuitive and simple.

Sometimes I’ve seen this explained based on the horizon line or eye level line, with objects above that line having cross contours curving one way and objects below it curving the other way. We saw this with the lamppost example in the eye level video. However, that applies to things perpendicular or parallel to the ground. With figures, body parts are held at all sorts of angles to the ground. So instead, we need to just think about the angle of our eyes to each form - that’s what determines the cross contour.

The horizon / eye level video is here:    • Eye Level - An Essential Perspective ...  

Please let me know if it makes sense to you and if you have questions about it in the comments. I don’t know if anyone else has come up with another explanation which might be clearer, so if you know of anything better please let me know.

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