Basic 101: Class 16

FOLDS

or

Ya Gotta know How to Fold ‘em

One-day man stood erect and threw a bone in the air as he reached for the sky realizing that he
was now free of the shackles of the uncivilized animal. Coincidently, this was the same day the
man discovered the as of yet unnamed force called “gravity”—he discovered and felt gravity as
the bone fell back unceremoniously to the earth striking the naked and erect standing man on the
top of his head. This was also the moment of great revelation as man discovered that everyone
around him was naked! Thus was born the term “bone of contention”. Man, now full of
knowledge and a splitting headache began to take notice of the world around him—more
pointedly that he and the rest of his tribe, both male and female were nude, wore no clothes!. He
looked over at his mate, her beautiful hairy face, firm supple breasts and man was pleased. This
world was indeed a man’s paradise. Then he noticed his large and also naked lodge buddy and
fellow mastodon hunter—let’s call him Ralf—also staring admiringly at his mate and thus was
born the world’s first fashion designer because—something had to be DONE and with the
invention of clothes came the search for fabric—he found quickly that turtle shells did not
work—nor did sea sponges or porcupine pelts. Instead, he settled for fur and found that he could
beat skin and create leather and from the fibres of various plants, he created cloth—and man
discovered folds—and he was pleased—because he thought that he had invented it—which he
had not…

Welcome to the class on folds. There seven important words to remember when talking about
folds they are:

1. Pipe

2. zig zag

3. Spiral

4. diaper

5. Half-lock

6. drop

7. inert

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Learn what these are and what they look like and you WILL know how folds are formed and how
to apply them to your everyday drawings. Fold are found in draperies, in clothes , in ANYTHING
that is cloth—but folds can also be found in paper and even in skin—look at our friend the
elephant or look at some of the elderly and see if you can identify any of the folds listed above.
You will be surprised because you will.

Here is a basic rule to learn—DRAPERY ITSELF HAS NO FORM OR SHAPE—INSTEAD

ITS FORM OR SHAPE IS ENTIRELY DICTATED BY THE SPACE UPON WHICH ITS
RESTS BE IT A CHAIR, A BOX OR THE HUMAN BODY. FOLDS ARE A RESULT OF
ACTION AND REACTION.

If you come out of the shower and you have a towel wrapped around your body, the towel
conforms your specific body type. If you remove the towel and toss it on the chair, the towel will
give up the shape of your body and react to the shape of the chair and if you just drop the towel to
the floor, the towel will conform to the specifics of that floor. Folds are that simple.

Here are some definitions and an example of each one:

1. Pipe or drop fold—if you pick up a cloth and hold it up

with one hand or nail up one side, you will notice that
TUBE will radiate out from the epicentre. From the
epicentre a simple tube will either or break out into multiple
tubes. See the illustration.

2. Zigzag Fold—If you take the tubular fold of cloth and

bend it the outer section will become rigid but underneath
the material will become more loose. The excess on the
bottom will reshape or buckle itself into what is more or less
a zigzag pattern. See the illustration.

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3. Spiral—a cloth will follow the radius of the arm or the

leg of a shirt, for example –spiral radiates FROM the
point of support and the folds themselves rarely parallel.
See the illustration.

4. Diaper—a diaper fold is has TWO or MORE supports.

An example of this would be drapery emanating from both
shoulders and dropping downward from the shoulders
(which are the supports, remember). See the illustration as
an example.

5. Half-Lock Fold—The half lock fold occurs when a tubular or flattened

fold abruptly shifts its direction. If the shift is at the right angle then the
half lock will be sharper or angular. –if they fall in a more sweeping turn
the angles will appear to be softer. See illustration.

6. Drop Fold—This is an interesting fold because it is totally

based upon the cloth being released from the support so the
action is the release and the reaction is the drop and the
resulting folds. So an example would be like a cloth dropping
from the shoulder. Its outlines weave in and out in exact
opposite to the other folds.

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7. Inert—Understanding that cloth has no

independent form or shape and the cloth is
DEPENDENT on the kindness of supports.
When you took that towel and dropped it on
the floor, it became inert. It is shapeless and
without form or void. It is faceless and
without point. Chaos demonstrated. But that
towel that you dropped is actually alive—it
moves and reshapes itself constantly as it settles.

The Exercises:

This week’s exercises are a series of copyright free photos of statutes courtesy of Ian Britton of
Freefoto.com* Your assignment this week is to first draw the human figure as you would a nude
and then dress the figure using your knowledge of fold. This should be a very easy exercise to
undertake.

*(2) An individual teacher may make occasional us of our images in the course of their own personal teaching work.
A credit to ©) Ian Britton - FreeFoto.com is required. You may not distribute any materials that contain our images
outside your own classroom.

Field trips: This week I am sending you to visit Freefoto.com as a source for copyright free
images.

http://www.freefoto.com

(See Below: Exercise Pics at end.)

Hey JayD - are there any techniques for shadowing, shading, etc. that might be helpful with this
lesson? What is the best way to create a reasonably realistic looking fold? Do you 'map' it first,
and if so, how?

CJ--shading will depend on where the light is striking the material as you know--as for shading
technique--the technique that you choose needs to be uniform to the entire piece so you don’t
want to cross hatch in that ONE area if there is no cross hatching else where. So smudging,
blending, crosshatching, whatever--is entirely your choice. I tend to use hatching and cross
hatching a lot but my very first drawing were copies of John Tenniel's illustrations

Dave suggested this site for more info on folds:

http://www.creativespotlite.com/drawing/drapery-tutorial-1.htm

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Some additional help from Jolanta Kokot:

I am sorry to come in like this but I just want to help. I started to read this thread and realized
some of you don't even know how to start. I have a nice Leonardo drawing and I will walk you
through this and I think you can do almost as good as he did.

If you work on white paper, cover the surface of paper with charcoal powder or graphite powder
(you can scrape graphite pencil with a knife and use this) and make the medium value gray all
over just as you can see in the drawing. If you have tinted paper it will work even better but don't
use light color but medium like grey, blue, brown, green and so on.

Now take white pastel pencil or hard white pastel and have charcoal black pencil or carbon black
pencil or hard black pastel handy in another hand and draw all white highlights you see in the
drawing. Draw exact shapes of white as close as you can and draw black lines (gently) and
shadows as you go one step at the time. Be very careful and don't rush. Take your time and pay
attention to how light is hitting the folds, pretending you are looking at real fabric and try to
understand how it works. It is really simple. Light cannot bend so everything going forward will
catch it and folds turning in will be in the shadow.

Check and recheck as you go and remember to find the darkest darks and punch them with black.
Remember to separate
the folds of the fabric
from the floor with
slightly darker value.
Use the side of the
pencil and try not to
blend with your fingers
or anything. He didn't
blend it. He blended
everything with strokes
only and this way it
looks much better.

Take your time and you

will be suprised how
well you can do it.
Hope it will help
somebody. Now let's try
it.

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Hi, Here I am again. Let's talk a bit

more about folds.

When I started to draw, I did this

simple drawing of folds looking at
the curtain. To learn how to do it
correctly I believe the best is to start
very simple. You can fold the paper
towel - just few folds and draw it.
You can use a piece of fabric, some
of your clothes are great. If you want
to be challenged take something you
have with stripes - hang it over the
chair and draw it following all the
stripes. OK. don't cry - you don't
have to do the whole thing - just part
of it.

If you want to get fancy you can try

different kinds of fabric, cotton, silk,
taffeta. All of them have a bit
different look and feeling. I know
this is advanced but you can use it in the future practice. Find your evening dress -
hopefully with some shine - and see what beautiful folds you can get. I know we
all are busy. Don't do the whole thing or try to make a pretty picture. Do several
pieces, parts of different kind of textures
in folds. This way you will learn much
more in short time.

Drawing is about seeing. If you will train

your eye to see the values correctly, you
will be able to draw anything. It is all
about values and the right shapes of
values. You can start with light lines to

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see the shape and then shade over them so you will not see lines anymore. I like to
use the side of pencil because it goes much faster and gives me a better look than
working with the tip. Keep folding and drawing.

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I am attaching some examples of different

fabrics and some information about them.
If you want to draw any fabric, you must
consider its weight, reflective quality and
texture. For example, heavier cloth such as
satin will display fewer fine folds than a
light fabric like silk. The crispness and
shine of taffeta are marked by highlights and
sharp lines. Velvet, corduroy and
herringbone are relatively dull, but each has
a different texture. Lace is light, patterned
and often transparent.

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Some of you said the best way to learn is to draw from real life. I agree but since drawing is
about learning how to see sometimes it is very hard to see what we need from the real thing.
In my drawing class I start with copying great old masters drawings or today’s great artists’
drawing to teach techniques. Each drawing can be done in so many ways and using so many
different mediums. Mainly because it is much easier to see what's in the drawing of somebody
else than to figure out how to draw what I see in front of me. The next thing we do is use photos
which are more complicated but we learn to see values and how to simplify everything. Working
from black and white photo helps a lot and you can make any colors you like. Next step is
working from real life. The most important thing is to set up strong single light on still life to see
values and shadows.

Let's go back to folding. I am a big admirer of Durer. I

think he was the greatest drawer and I love to use his
work for learning purpose. I am attaching two
examples of his ink drawings. Don't worry - you don't
have to do it in ink. I recommend to use regular ball
pen you have handy or fine marker or even a
mechanical pencil. Automatic or mechanical (don't
know the name) pencil will give you consistent line
and you don't have to sharpen it. Durer's drawings are
very busy so as you see I isolated the drapery from the
rest. Your job is to draw it with lines only. Yes-no
shading any other than lines - hatching and
crosshatching. You should be able to see what he did
and do the same. Study this and notice how important
is the direction of the line. See how he did the darkest
parts.

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Now you probably wonder - why do I have to learn all these folds? Do I need it? Yes we all
need it. Why?

If you draw still life - you will need it for backgrounds fabric, tablecloths

If you draw portraits - clothing for drawing figure, head coverings, wrinkles are nothing more but
folding of the skin

If you draw landscapes - water waves

Even for flowers drawing - folded petals and leaves

Other - bed sheets

This is from the top of my head. I am sure you can come up with more use for it - so let's do it

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Pencils

GRAPHITE PENCILS (shine) come in different hardness

from 9H to 9B and are used for different values. Traditionally
several pencils are recommended for drawing - 6B for dark
areas, HB for middle value and 4H for finely detailed, lighter
areas. You can go from very dark to quite fine light detail
with only HB too. Only if you want to put things into the
distance and still have great detail in them you should use 2H
or 4H. Or, rather than changing pencils, you can vary the
pressure. I use hard 4H for shading children and babies faces.
Graphite pencils are very good for sketching.

MECHANICAL PENCILS - no need for sharpening. Great

for hatching and crosshatching just like Old Masters did but
they were using SILVERPOINT which is drawing with the
wire end.

WOODLESS PENCILS come in different hardness and are

great for sketching

GRAPHITE STICKS - to cover large areas, effective on

textured paper, they give drawing more painterely style.

GRAPHITE POWDER - for background, shading, drawing

with blender dipped in powder. You can scrape pencil or
stick to make your own.

SKETCH AND WASH PENCILS - to make washes. It is

water soluble

SKETCHING FLAT GRAPHITE PENCILS OR

CARPENTER'S PENCILS - give you wide even line, you
can notch them to get interesting effects (see attachment).
Don't use them on smooth surface, they work better on
textured paper.

EBONY PENCILS - Ebony 6325 can be as black as ink -

good for smooth surface.

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CARBON PENCILS -matte finish - dark. Come in

different hardness. Don't go easy over graphite pencils.

WATERCOLOR BLACK PENCIL - for very deep darks,

for eye pupil - hard to erase

CHARCOAL PENCILS come in soft, medium and hard.

DERWENT comes in Light and Dark. Perfect for
sketches. Charcoal comes in Sticks of different thickness
and hardiness, POWDER - for backgrounds and large
areas.

WHITE charcoal pencils is actually white pastel pencil -

perfect for highlights or drawing on tinted paper.

ERASERS - are another tool for drawing. Use them for

highlights, cut them in pieces and draw with them by
lifting or using like pencil

RAZER BLADE - another tool for drawing by scraping

away color.(see attachment)

The way you hold the pencil greatly influences the kind of
marks you can make. Practice shading not only with the
tip but with the side of the pencil. Some people have
problem holding pencil by grabbing from above and
shading with the side.

You can tie with rubber band three pencils together to

draw with them at the same time and build fast
textures,crosshatching or graceful lines (see attachment)

The surface you draw on will affect the look of strokes

(see attachment)

Here you have it. I hope you are still awake. Didn't have
time to make a poem out of it. Hope you can use it. Try and play with diff. papers and diff.
pencils and see what you like before you choose the favorite one. You never know until you try

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and they are cheap. Every time I start new drawing I need to know what kind of technique and
looks I want and what kind of paper and pencil will do the job. Takes a lot of stress away and I
can really enjoy it.

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