Let’s make something!
2D to 3D
stretch many spirals
One interesting thing with spiral shapes is to combine them before you cut and stretch them. This can be done by drawing different spiral shapes in different places on a piece of paper, and then connecting them all.
The best way to draw many spirals in one drawing is by using a template. A template is a cutout shape that you can use to trace and cut more copies. Making a template is easy: just make a spiral shape and cut it out. Once you have a template, you can trace copies by moving or by rotating until you fill out a whole sheet of paper.
MOVING COPIES
ROTATING COPIES
This is the best method for individual freehand style. All you have to do is draw trace copies of spiral wherever you want on a piece of paper.
This method works best with a spiral that has a long ‘branch’ and is wider at one end and narrower at the other end.
You can make this more interesting by tracing spirals of different sizes next to each other.
Using a pushpin, pin down the narrow end and trace the shape. Then rotate the template around the pushpin until you have space to draw a new shape. Continue drawing copies until you have rotated a full circle around the pushpin (or yoiu can also just stop after a few copies.
You can also combine the 2 methods (rotating and moving your copies).
Once you are done with all your tracing, connect any separate spirals with flowing branches. Then you can cut it all out.
At the end of this tutorial, we designed an interesting shape that we created by first moving spirals of different sizes:
Then we connected the 3 spirals with a flowing branch.
Next we added some ‘thorn’ details so it would look a bit more like a plant:
Finally, we rotated all of it around a full circle: (copied 8 times)
drawing perfect spirals: Spirals start with small circles inside larger and larger circles:
The next step is to connect each circle with the next circle, by using a connecting circle that fits exactly between the right side of the inside circle and the left side of the outside circle:
Once you have drawn all the main circles and the connecting circles, start drawing the spiral at the interior staring point (left side of the smallest circle). Draw half a circle, then half a connecting circle, then half of the next circle and so on...
For thick spirals that you can use as templates, it’s the same idea- but skip every 2 circles to make a connecting circle (and you have 2 interior starting points):
COMPLEX SPIRALS
note: this template is best for larger paper like tabloid or 12x12 inches
SIMPLER SPIRALS
note: this template is best for larger paper like tabloid or 12x12 inches
spiral template 4
spiral template 1
spiral template 2
spiral template 3