The Mystery Of The Ellipse

Last night, while I was feeding the cats, I browsed through one of my beginning drawing books. The page I landed on happened to show a bunch of drawings of ellipses. Something clicked in my brain.  I realized that I tend to either draw an elliptical shape more like an oval than an ellipse or I tend to draw them like a long rectangle with the corners made into curves.

When I got home tonight, my brain was fried, but I really felt the desire to draw something. Out came one of my favorite mug from the cupboard and I thought about, drew, and played with the idea of ellipses. On purpose, I started with trying to draw the basic shape of the mug, prior to measuring the depth versus length of the ellipse.

As usual, my initial drawing turned out more oval than reality.  The width of the ellipse was actually about 2-1/2 times longer than the depth and I drew it more with a relationship closer to 1-1/2 times. I slowed down and really tried to see the actual proportion and, honestly, I could not. I could see it when I took a picture, but I just could not see it in real life. While it's frustrating, it's useful to know (and hopefully remember) that I should do a simple check of the proportions prior to drawing elliptical shapes.

On several sheets of paper, I played around with drawing an elliptical shape with the general proportions of the top of my mug. I also discovered that my ability to draw the changing angles of an ellipse could use some work. From the angle I was working the angles are more severe on the outer edges than towards the middle. If I drew slowly, my shapes looked goofy. If I just tried to draw a quick upper arc and lower arc and attached them, it went much better.  Another option would be to do an initial light under-drawing in the form of dashed lines. For some reason, it's easier to draw the change in angles in dashes rather than a continual line.

While this post may sound critical, this evening's experiments with ellipses were enjoyable, instructive, and fun.