Key ideas about cylinders:

  • Two ellipses for top and bottom
  • If viewing from above, the top ellipse will be more closed; bottom will be more open (i.e. wider vertically).
  • Bottom of cylinder is further away if viewing from above – so will appear more narrow horizontally; i.e. sides of cylinder will appear to tilt inwards going from top to bottom.
  • Start with construction lines then add ellipses and edges
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Things to practice for me:

  • Getting the right alignment of shapes when building up the pieces – making good choices about when to move faster vs slow – faster lines but slower darkerning, more time with alignment.
  • Darkening one side of the bottom while retaining the full elliptical motion, or at least the correct curvature through the full shape. Vs. making more of a half eye shape.
  • Experimenting with the amount of inward tilting from top to bottom – I guess this has the effect of making the cylinder appear longer if there is more dramatic tilting (which would only happen over a long distance).
  • Practice vertical lines at different angles – not sure how much to focus on this vs. tilting paper; there’s definitely more comfort making lines horizontally for me.

cylinder practice