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Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

Ellipses   

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 What is an ellipse?  

Ellipses are extremely important and

notoriously annoying to draw. You'll
find them all over the place in
mechanical drawings. Cars, space
ships, tanks, machines - anything man
made will probably make extensive use
of ellipses.

They also tend to feature prominently in organic drawings, especially as we look at

the cross-sections of sausage-like forms.
Let's take some time to explore what they are, how they behave, and how they can
be used.
 2D vs 3D  

So before we get into the complicated stuff,

remember: drawing is (at least within this course)
about taking things that are three dimensional
(like the world we live in) and capturing it on a
two dimensional surface, be it a piece of paper, a
canvas, or my friend's back who was stupid enough to have 16 year old me
design a tattoo for him that is basically stuck on his body forever.

That means that drawing is really about figuring out how to represent 3D
objects, and to understand how the lines and shapes we use to capture them
change depending on how those 3D forms move around and rotate in space.

Throughout this course, I'm going to phrase things as this in 3D space, or that in
2D space. Pay attention to which I use in a given situation, because this stuff
matters.
 Circles in 3D space  

For our purposes here in this course,

we're going to be using ellipses in 2D
space (drawn on the page) to represent
circles that exist in 3D space.

Depending on whether you look at it as

being two dimensional or three
dimensional, this animated diagram
depicts one of two things:

In 2D space, it's a series of ellipses,

from the widest to the narrowest.

In 3D space, it's a circle being

rotated, from facing towards the viewer, to facing away.
 Degree  

How our circle (in 3D space) is rotated relative to the viewer will determine just how
wide our ellipse is going to be drawn. This width (always measured across the
narrowest span that passes through the center of the ellipse) is referred to as the
"degree" - because it is tied to the angle of rotation (in degrees) of the circle itself,
relative to the viewer.

When the circle (in 3D space) is facing the viewer, it's going to be at its widest - 90
degrees. This is the same as drawing a circle on the page. As the 3D circle turns
away from the viewer, the ellipse representing it will get narrower, until finally it
reaches a degree of 0, when the ellipse is facing away.
 Degree shift  

Keep in mind that since this is based

on the angle between the direction the
circle is facing and the direction the
viewer is facing, the degree will actually
change just by moving the circle
around in space, without necessarily
having to rotate it.
This diagram demonstrates how the
further to the right a circle moves
relative to the viewer, the more its face
becomes visible, resulting in a wider
ellipse representing it on the page,
even without that circle rotating in
space.
Throughout this course, we'll refer to
this concept as the "degree shift" -
basically the idea that the degree of our ellipse will shift wider or narrower,
depending on how it moves in space.
 Minor axis  

We call the line that passes across the

ellipse's narrowest span, and through
its center, its minor axis. This minor
axis line will cut the ellipse into two
equal, symmetrical halves, so if it were
to be cut out of the page and folded in
half across this line, it would match up
perfectly.
There's a major axis as well which runs
perpendicular to it (across the widest
span), but it's the minor axis that is
actually the useful component.
 Normal vector  

Just as the 2D ellipse represents a 3D

circle, the minor axis is extremely
useful to us because of how that minor
axis line coincides with and aligns with
the normal vector - the 3D line that
shoots straight off the surface of the
3D circle, completely perpendicular to
that surface.
This means that we've got two ways of
establishing the orientation of our
circle in 3D space, as we draw it on our
2D page:

The degree (width) of the ellipse

controlling the circle's rotation
The minor axis of the ellipse controlling the orientation of the circle's normal
vector - basically the direction that the circle is facing.

If we need our circle to be oriented in a specific way in a more complicated scene,

we will actually be able to start out with a normal vector line, then use it as the
minor axis for our ellipse, drawing the ellipse around it so the line splits it into two
equal, symmetrical halves, down its narrowest span.
 Cylinders  

Taking it further, the minor

axis/normal vector is also extremely
useful when we get into cylindrical
forms. Here it serves as the "spine" to
our form.

The ends of the cylinder share the

same normal vector (in 3D) and minor
axis (in 2D) - but more than just the
ends, if you sample any cross-sectional
slice along the length of the cylinder,
it'll also align to the same minor
axis/normal vector.

Fortunately for you, we don't need to worry about this right now - they won't come
into play until Lesson 2. It's just useful to see how valuable the minor axis of an
ellipse can be, specifically as we try to figure out all the ways in which we can
represent different properties of a circle in 3D space.
 Homework and exercises  

The homework assignment for this section is as follows:

2 filled pages of the Tables of Ellipses exercise

2 filled pages of the Ellipses in Planes exercise

1 filled page of the Funnels exercise

All the assigned work for this section should be done in ink, using
fineliners/felt tip pens as described here. In a pinch, I will accept work done in
ballpoint, but only if the situation is dire. This is an exception only for this lesson as
students get started.
<<< Lines: Homework Boxes: The Basics of Perspective and Projection >>>

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