Cross Contour

This lesson for the animation students at RITCS taught them about cross-contouring and volume - in other words, the illusion of depth in a two-dimensional drawing. After a group warm-up exercise focusing on lines and shading, each student was asked to choose a piece of fruit and draw its contour lines. This was followed by the amusing challenge of drawing the piece of fruit from different angles using only these lines. Students spontaneously added faces to their pieces of fruit and gave them character, which added to the challenge. Finally, they were given photos of other objects, body parts, and spaces and asked to apply the same techniques to them. 2D became 3D.