Thank you! I’m so glad to hear that ????
Also congrats on the gold medal,
Cheers!
We’ll be drawing :)
Scary! Was that intended?
Looks really cool!
This is so cuteee ????
thanks!
Thank you so much for taking a look, and suggesting I do this!
I must admit, although it made me very frustrated, I've learned a lot trying to draw this properly!
Cheers!
Hey!
Nice work :)
This is much better and you have shown construction steps I wanted to see.
Now it's a matter of observing your reference and working on detail, for example, adding these edges and whatever else you see fit to imitate your reference.
I would personally approach the umbrella plant similarly how you approached the oak (bunching "component" leaves), but this works too.
Good job and I wish you luck in the later lessons!
One Eternity Later:
Hi, I have a new construction!
It made my brain hurt and took so much time I'd rather not think about it.
Thank you so much for your critique!
I will try to do a couple of constructions taking what you’ve said into consideration. I will post them here when I finish, but it will probably take a while haha!
See you then, cheers!
Hello, Alek! Here’s my critique for you:
Organic arrows
Although you said it was a struggle for you, I can see some tapering on your arrows :)
All the lines are confident too and you used the shading well. I am not sure what exactly is the main difficulty, but it might be useful to know that the lines can’t be perfectly aligned if they are proportionally getting smaller (they’ll be at an angle).
Leaves
Well done with the leaves! I like that you worked additively on the compound leaves and made an envelope for the maple (or maple-looking) leaf. All the leaves are flowing and look pretty good.
Branches
The ellipses of the branches are not aligned to their minor axes (it should cut them perfectly in half) and you mostly didn’t go through them twice. I can see many compound stroke edges. Looks like you rushed this one.
Plants
Red plant and mushroom – good job using the leaves exercise on the petals and the branches on stems. I must point out that the anthers (the bud-like forms on the flower) are random, they don’t represent volumes in 3D space. These simple strokes can definitely work in some art styles, but here, we wanted to represent them as 3D forms – ellipses.
Red and purple flowers – these are pretty complex subjects and harder to draw because of that. It is good that you are thinking about the underlying structure, drawing through forms. In this case, the drawings should’ve been bigger because of the amount of detail, and the leaves exercise had to be applied for most petals. I see some attempts for the purple flower. Be careful with ultra-complex subjects like these. Drawing these takes a lot of time.
Cactus and white flower – nice job showing the forms and constructing. I think it might’ve been better to use a sphere for the heads of the cacti and then add tapering cylindrical forms to that. The white flower’s petals seem a bit rushed, but it’s nice to see you are trying to apply the leaves exercise here again.
Rose and purple group of flowers – These are pretty good considering the petals of the purple flower and stems. I would recommend drawing a center line and some additional contours (sorry about the random line on the right, I couldn't delete it in my image editing software) to help you align the features and show where they are emerging from.
Overall, you did a pretty good job! I hope this helps.
Next Steps:
Since you had a lot of issues with the branches exercise both by itself and in the plant drawings, I recommend doing half a page really thinking about the minor axis and ellipses. Don't rush this time, and let the minor axis help you place the ellipses. Go through them 2 times. Don't forget to change the degrees.
Hi, Dr Scrapjack, and congratulations on finishing lesson 3! You have an excellent showing!
Organic Arrows
Great job with the organic arrows – you showed tapering, the lines are confident, and shading appropriate. You occasionally overdid your line weight at the bends, keep it more subtle.
Leaves
Your leaves look flowing and natural. I can see that you carefully added the detail, applying the tip about cutting into forms. The only thing that might have been better was doing the right edge of the top left leaf additively as well (so we get its silhouette), the official description had a 3D example, so that was probably slightly confusing. Nice work with the textures! You really tried to focus on the shadows.
Branches
You aligned all of your ellipses to the minor axis, went through each one 2 times and even changed the degrees a bit. Excellent! You should work on ghosting more as I can see a lot of the compound stroke tails, but this mistake is expected, and will disappear with practice.
Plants
Mushroom – nice job with changing the ellipse degrees and applying what you’ve learned in the branches exercise (compounding your strokes).
Daisy – looks pretty good!
Lily flower – I like that you used an ellipse to place your petals correctly. The stem has some floating ellipses in it, try to keep the line touching them – these are its contour ellipses, they can’t be on the inside.
Oleander flower – this one is really good! You even applied the branches and contour ellipses exercise on the buds. Well done!
Horn of plenty – beautiful! Really nice texture, and three-dimensionality. You used the contour curves and ellipses really well!
Soy bean – again, I can see floating ellipses in the stems. Great job breaking the silhouette and applying the texture!
Poppy – this one has better stems, the edges are more aligned to the ellipses.
Venus fly trap – beautiful! Great use of the direction arrows and leaves exercise!
Just from this, I see you did your best on all the lessons so far! Brilliant work!
Next Steps:
You can move on to lesson 4!
This is a remarkable little pen. Technically speaking, any brush pen of reasonable quality will do, but I'm especially fond of this one. It's incredibly difficult to draw with (especially at first) due to how much your stroke varies based on how much pressure you apply, and how you use it - but at the same time despite this frustration, it's also incredibly fun.
Moreover, due to the challenge of its use, it teaches you a lot about the nuances of one's stroke. These are the kinds of skills that one can carry over to standard felt tip pens, as well as to digital media. Really great for doodling and just enjoying yourself.
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