Drawing fire requires you to look at the basic shapes in the fire.
Fire is one of man's greatest discoveries. Today, you can still make fire by putting a spark to kindling, but you can also create fire by putting pencil to paper. In fact, in many artistic genres like fantasy, the visual motif of fire figures in largely --- not only from the mouths of dragons, but also in simpler formats like fire on logs. Fortunately, the skills involved to master drawing fire are simple to learn.
Instructions
1. Gather some pictures of fire. Get quite a few, because you want to have a number of different photos to draw from. Some good places to start looking are magazines that specialize in stories about the natural world. Also look in books about the subject. Finally, because learning to draw is a process, and often it's simpler to learn to draw from looking at a drawing instead of a photo, be sure to include some illustrations that include fire as well.
2. Study the images. Notice how fire and logs are shaped. As you study the images, you may notice that certain basic shapes begin to emerge if you look long enough. For example, fire basically looks like a drop of water, meaning that it's heavier and rounder on the bottom and then it tapers up into a point. Logs, on the other hand, tend to be cylinders. The embers of the fire usually take the shape of diamonds or triangles. Naturally, each has some variations that make it unique like embers that shoot up or branches that stick out, but looking for the shapes will help you train your eye.
3. Use your tracing paper to map out the basic shapes of the fire in your reference photos. You'll lose the tracing paper eventually, but for right now, it will provide the framework to allow yourself to see and draw these shapes.
4. Make practice sketches and practice often. Look at lots of different photos of fire on logs, trees on fire and even fire in other instances like a fire-breathing dragon. Start drawing them using the basic shapes.
5. Expand on your sketches by noticing the lines around your objects in your reference photos. Really notice how the lines deviate from the basic teardrop on the fire or the basic cylinder on the log. Without getting rid of your basic shapes, add detail lines to the fire and logs. One of the true keys to drawing is to draw what you see; recreate the lines as you see them in the reference photos. The more you can create this detail --- the angles of the lines and the way they intersect with each other --- the closer your drawing will look to your reference photo.
6. Get rid of the extra lines by erasing them. As you draw your detail lines onto your basic shapes, you'll notice that you'll have a few extra lines. Get rid of those and leave only the ones that your drawing needs.
Tags: basic shapes, fire logs, reference photos, your reference, basic shapes fire, detail lines, different photos