Term: Big Form Modeling

Simplifying a form to its most basic geometric shape. For example, a head becomes an elongated sphere and an arm becomes a cylinder. These big forms are typically modeled first to depict the overall tonal landscape. Only then are surface details, such as little bumps and irregularities, added within each big form.

Noted teacher and illustrator Frank Reilly once stated, “What you will learn on a simple form like a cube or sphere can be applied to a head, figure, or landscape. It will help you see the three-dimensional reasoning of nature. It will help you draw from memory and your purely creative attempts.”

Speaking of John Singer Sargent's approach to painting, Julie Helen Heyneman said "At first he worked only for the middle tones, to model in large planes, as he would have done had the head been an apple. In short, he painted, as a sculptor models, for the great masses first, but with this difference that the sculptor can roughly lump in his head and cut it down afterwards, while the painter, by the limitations of his material, is bound to work instantly for an absolute precision of mass, in the colour and outline he intends to preserve."