Lesson 6: Applying Construction to Everyday Objects
1:42 AM, Friday September 16th 2022
I finally finish this lesson. Really happy to continue learning in Drawabox!
Sigh I just wrote out the whole critique - took about 40 minutes - and just as I was going to submit it, I went to hit ctrl+f so I could search for any empty links I may have forgotten to fill in, and... hit ctrl+r instead and refreshed the page, losing everything I'd written. So, let's start over - although I will admit that while I'm going to touch on all the same points, I'm probably going to be a lot more brief in expressing it, so my apologies for that.
Starting with your form intersections, you're doing great. I noticed one little hiccup here where it looks like you were really set on having a specific kind of intersection, but drew the forms such that they were oriented in a way that this would not really be feasible, so it ended up being very forced. Everything else however suggests a very strong grasp of 3D space. Normally I would provide this diagram to help build on what students will have, by this point, developed on their own in their understanding of how to approach those intersection lines, but honestly from what I can see you understand everything shown there already.
Continuing onto your object constructions, you've by and large done a great job. There are a couple main points I want to call to your attention, but through your patience and dedication to subdivision, you've made a point of separating out the decision making process, ensuring that you establish your intentions for a given mark before you actually go to execute it - rather than making all those decisions as you execute the stroke. This is a big contrast to Lessons 3-5's more reactionary, inside-out approach, where we kind of rolled with whatever mistakes we might make in the execution of a mark in many cases. That is to say, if we draw a cranial ball too big as the base of the head, the animal's head will simply turn out... large. This on its own does not reduce the effectiveness of the exercise, which uses the reference as a source of information, not something to replicate perfectly.
Our approach here however, where we make those decisions beforehand, focuses heavily on precision. Precision is often conflated with accuracy, but they're actually two different things (at least insofar as I use the terms here). Where accuracy speaks to how close you were to executing the mark you intended to, precision actually has nothing to do with putting the mark down on the page. It's about the steps you take beforehand to declare those intentions.
So for example, if we look at the ghosting method, when going through the planning phase of a straight line, we can place a start/end point down. This increases the precision of our drawing, by declaring what we intend to do. From there the mark may miss those points, or it may nail them, it may overshoot, or whatever else - but prior to any of that, we have declared our intent, explaining our thought process, and in so doing, ensuring that we ourselves are acting on that clearly defined intent, rather than just putting marks down and then figuring things out as we go.
In our constructions here, we build up precision primarily through the use of the subdivisions. These allow us to meaningfully study the proportions of our intended object in two dimensions with an orthographic study, then apply those same proportions to the object in three dimensions.
Now, onto the two main points I wanted to call out. The first of these is not a correction, but rather an explanation of how we can take what you've already done well here, even further. In your constructions here, you're making those decisions and choices through the use of subdivision. So for example, you're identifying where along a given dimension the start/end of a given structure should be - like identifying that when drawing a drawer, the handle should be situated between the 2/5ths and 3/5ths positions along the width of the object - using subdivision, in your 3D construction.
This still does require us to both consider how we want to approach breaking the object down, and how this is happening in three dimensions, simultaneously. Not a huge task, but throughout this course our focus is all on breaking things down into smaller, more bite-sized steps.
Alternatively, we can take the orthographic plans introduced here and leverage them as an opportunity to make those decisions earlier on, separately from any added complexity from working in 3D space, and by only looking at two dimensions at a time. We still use the same techniques - subdivision - which can be applied equally whether in 2D or in 3D, but it allows us to make choices without unnecessary distraction.
To that point, I should clarify that this is less about identifying the "correct" and "accurate" proportional position for a given landmark, but more about actually deciding where they'll fall. So for example, that drawer handle might be positioned between 19/50ths and 31/50ths to be perfectly correct. In such a case, unless there are other small elements situated closely together, you can round up to 2/5ths and 3/5ths instead, which of course would be a hell of a lot more straight forward to achieve.
Keep in mind I'm not saying you have to do it this way - just that it's another tool you have in your belt (although it will definitely be very useful in Lesson 7). Some choices you'll make on the orthographic plans, some you'll make on the construction as you build it up - just make sure you're not making decisions at the same time as making marks, which you generally don't, though I did see such a case with the curve you added towards the top of this cylindrical bottle cap. As a result, it came out quite wonky, whereas establishing a plane for that cross-sectional cut first would have given you a clearer footprint to fill.
The second point I wanted to mention has to do with curving structures, and relates to these notes which explain that curves generally aren't specific enough to give us solid structures (aside from the most basic primitives, where we can use circles/ellipses), and so we need to start boxier and then round things out later on. You do demonstrate this here, although there are other structures like this tea pot spout where you dive right into the more organic, curving structure.
Here's a demo showing how more complex curving structures can be approached.
With that, I'll (technically for the second time) mark this lesson as complete. It seems my critique wasn't actually any more brief than the last time. Oh well!
Next Steps:
Feel free to move onto the 25 wheel challenge, which is a prerequisite for lesson 7.
I'd been drawing as a hobby for a solid 10 years at least before I finally had the concept of composition explained to me by a friend.
Unlike the spatial reasoning we delve into here, where it's all about understanding the relationships between things in three dimensions, composition is all about understanding what you're drawing as it exists in two dimensions. It's about the silhouettes that are used to represent objects, without concern for what those objects are. It's all just shapes, how those shapes balance against one another, and how their arrangement encourages the viewer's eye to follow a specific path. When it comes to illustration, composition is extremely important, and coming to understand it fundamentally changed how I approached my own work.
Marcos Mateu-Mestre's Framed Ink is among the best books out there on explaining composition, and how to think through the way in which you lay out your work.
Illustration is, at its core, storytelling, and understanding composition will arm you with the tools you'll need to tell stories that occur across a span of time, within the confines of a single frame.
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