Sketching-People

FORMS & GESTALT
Gestalt is a psychological term that basically means that the
mind will make a connection between separate parts and
formulate a unified idea out of them because they
seem to go together. In art, the gestalt principle
means that a viewer sees a drawing as an object,
even though not every line is present. This
means that when you draw, you don’t have
to delineate the whole form; just by drawing
part of it, the viewer sees the whole thing.
GESTALT ILLUSION
Even though no lines are touching and the
outside contour lines aren’t there, the mind
completes the image of the zebra. The drawing
becomes more than just the sum of its parts.
Notice how much you can leave out of a
drawing and still have it recognizable.
GAPS IN THE FORM
On a more basic level, you can see the
spheres even though the lines don’t fully
encapsulate the whole form. We still
perceive all of them as round objects.
But by not completing the whole form,
the eye is guided through the space
and on to a connected shape.
GESTALT AND BASIC FORMS
In this example, you can see how the box form
passes through the sphere. Neither the box nor the
sphere is drawn in total, but we can still clearly see the two
forms. The arm is based on the box and sphere shapes, but
we don’t notice them because of the gestalt principle.