Drawing Ellipses on Cups, Plates and Wheels

A circle seen at an angle is an ellipse. Cup rims, plates, wheels and clock faces all become this curve, and it is the shape beginners pinch into a lemon. The ends of an ellipse are not points. They are the tightest part of a continuous turn. Once you can draw that turn, a surprising number of still-life objects stop looking homemade.

Axes before the curve

Lightly mark the centre. One axis runs across the widest part. The other runs from front to back, through the middle, at a right angle to the first. On a cup sitting upright, the long axis is horizontal and the short axis is vertical. If the cup is tipped, the axes tip with it. The short axis aims the way the cylinder aims.

Sketch a rectangle around those axes if it helps, and draw the curve to touch the middle of each side. A pencil at arm's length will tell you how wide the ellipse is compared with its height. Drawing Aids, from the Grid to the Prism is the longer history of that kind of measuring. Do not start with the outline and hope the centre appears. The centre is the part you cannot fake.

No points, no flat lids

The left and right ends should be rounded, as if the line changed direction smoothly. A pointed end means you drew two arcs and joined them with a corner. A flat top or bottom means you were afraid of the curve and inserted a straight. Draw through the end in one motion, even if you have to ghost it several times first.

Both halves mirror each other. If the near half is fat and the far half is a different animal, the rim will not sit on the cup. Check by turning the page upside down. The error becomes obvious when the object no longer distracts you. Using Negative Space to Make Stronger Drawings and Designs helps at the gaps inside a handle, but the ellipse itself is a symmetry problem.

How open the curve should be

A circle at your exact eye level is a horizontal line. As it drops below the eye, or rises above it, it opens into a fatter ellipse. On a cup you look down into, the rim is closer to eye level and therefore flatter. The base is farther below the eye and therefore rounder. If you draw the base flatter than the rim, the cup will look as if it is flaring the wrong way, or as if it is seen from below.

A plate on a table is a wide, often quite open ellipse. A wheel seen almost from the front is almost a circle. A wheel seen from the side is a very flat ellipse. Say which case you are in before you draw. Eye level is the horizon of the view. Thumbnails: Planning a Painting in Small Boxes can hold a row of trial curves before you commit to the cup.

A page of quiet repeats

Draw eight ellipses of different openings, from a line to a near-circle, for their own sake. Then draw one cup from life and compare its rim with the nearest ellipse on that page. Correct the cup. Pencil Grades from H to B, in Plain Terms suggests a light pencil for this. A heavy line hides the axes you still need.

Leave the construction lines until the curve is right. They are not a mess. They are the reason the next cup will be less of a lemon.

Frequently asked questions

Why is my ellipse always too round? You are probably drawing the idea of a circle, or looking from higher above the cup than you think. Check eye level. A rim only a little below the eye is flatter than pride expects.

Should I use a stencil? A stencil can show you a clean curve once. It will not place the axis on a tipped bottle. Draw freehand from the axes, and use a stencil only as a check.

Do glasses and bowls follow the same rule? Yes. Any circular rim seen at an angle is an ellipse, symmetrical about its axes, rounder as it leaves eye level. The thickness of the rim is a second, slightly larger ellipse around the first, sharing the same centre.