Chapter 5, Ellipses

From My Upcoming Book: Energize Your Art

Don’t Start a Still Life Without ‘Em

Drawing flawless ellipses is an essential skill that can transport your viewers to a world of harmony and serenity. From the rim of a plate, to the curve of a glass, or the outline of a bottle, perfectly drawn ellipses can take your artwork to a whole new level. Though it takes technical precision, it will exude confidence and give your artistic expression wings.

39 Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, detail, 1498. Wikipedia Commons.

Da Vinci painted and drew sublime ellipses. This detail shows the plate that’s in front of Christ in The Last Supper.

For this tutorial, I am only discussing an object lying flat on the table. Below, I overlaid the plate with a “+” in purple. Most artists fail to make the right and left sides equally distant.

40 Mark up on da Vinci's plate 1

A tricky part about ellipses is that there is a slight discrepancy in size between the back half of the plate and the front half. Notice that the top half of the green box is slightly thinner than the bottom half.

41 Mark up on da Vinci plate 2

This is because, in perspective, objects further away from us appear to shrink, and objects closer to us appear to expand. Hence, the difference between the front and back halves of the plate.

In The Last Supper, the edge of the table is also horizontal, which might confuse us about the ellipse’s horizontality. But, if the plate is on a flat surface and not tilted, the plate would always be perfectly horizontal. For example, the plate would be the same no matter if it is the corner or edge of the table facing you.

42 Mark up on da Vinci plate 3

Here, I marked a different angle of the table, but the plate will remain horizontal.

43 Michael Newberry, demo of ellipses above and below our eye level.

The last important thing about ellipses is that the rim gets progressively rounder, more circular, the further they are above or below our eye level. “Eye level” is literally the same height as our eye. Think of your eye’s height as a waterline: above it, the ellipses curve over; under it, they dip like a “U” or a smiley face.

In the preceding diagram, the blue line represents our eye level. The lower green and the upper orange ellipses get progressively rounder and more open as they get farther away from eye level. And, importantly, at eye level, the ellipse would simply be a horizontal line.

For example, if we are looking at a very large tubular vase with its center on our eye level, the top would be curving like an arch, and the bottom would be curving like a dip or, more simply, like a frown above and a smile below.

44 Michael Newberry, Himalayan Flight, 2006, charcoal on Rives BFK, 19x26".

In my symbolic charcoal drawing, Himalayan Flight, the white silk is a prayer scarf from a friend who had gotten it while climbing in the Himalayas. I incorporated the idea of ascending to the heavens, while the ellipses of the bowls resembled the orbits of planets. This technique was instrumental in creating the rims. You may notice that the lower the ellipses are on the page, the wider their curve; conversely, the higher they are, the narrower the band of the ellipse. Once I established the correct width, I had a great time drawing the rest of the still-life.

In closing, the best way to consistently evolve and grow as an artist is to focus on improving your weakest skills. With time and dedication, it's possible to turn them into your greatest strengths. The reward is well worth the effort.

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