The Atelier · Training Room
🎯 The Training Room
Drawing is mostly seeing. These are eye-and-hand drills from the old ateliers — Bargue, cast, and sight-size — one skill at a time. Warm up, keep score, and watch your eye get sharper.
Angle Eye
Every block-in begins by judging the slope of an edge. Study the line on the left, then set yours on the right to the same angle — by eye. No protractor.
Measure by Eye
Every landmark sits at a fraction of some length — the eyes halfway down a head, the horizon a third up the canvas. Read where the mark should fall, and place it by eye. No ruler.
The Plumb Line
Painters check the world against two truths — the plumb (straight down) and the level (straight across). Set one mark true to another, by eye. No ruler, no guide.
More levels are being built into the room — Value, Negative Space, and Steady Hand. Master one, and the next opens.
The Practice Wall
More ways to train your eye
Quick drills for seeing — value, edges, masses, and the choices behind a picture. Play a few between drawings.
Reading Edges
🟡 Form edges
The form edge is the outside edge of an object.
A sphere has a soft form edge. A cube has hard form edges.
Let's see if you can spot the difference.
🌑 Shadow edges
Think of light and shadow as two countries.
The shadow edge is the border between them — artists also call it the terminator.
A gradual turn makes the border soft. A sharp corner makes it hard.
Cast shadows are crisp where they start — and soften as they stretch away.
Every spot is in one country or the other — and however soft the border gets, you can always follow it.
🔀 Form or shadow?
Every edge you've met is one or the other.
The form edge is the outside of the object.
A shadow edge belongs to a shadow — on the form, or cast onto the ground.
Which is which?
🌗 Soft transitions
Not every soft passage is an edge.
A transition is values gliding from one to the next — most of the light side is transitions.
A shadow edge is a boundary you can follow.
Look inside the ring. Transition — or shadow edge?
👀 Find the lost edge
Some edges disappear.
When the values on both sides match, the edge is lost — but the form keeps going.
Your eye can't see it. Your mind has to draw it.
Somewhere on each form, the edge vanishes. Tap that spot.
🧩 Mixed edge challenge
Everything so far, shuffled.
Soft or hard, form or shadow, transition, found or lost — read each edge as it comes.
🎨 Master study
A full still life — several forms, one light.
Read its edges the way you would in a drawing: one at a time, all types mixed.