Lesson 3: Applying Construction to Plants

7:31 PM, Tuesday March 31st 2020

Drawabox - Lesson 3 - by Reset - Album on Imgur

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Post with 44 views. Drawabox - Lesson 3 - by Reset

Hello !

Lesson 3 was very interesting. Looking forward to the critique, and hopefully to lesson 4.

Here are my references :

aloe vera :

https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/d76c2cde-8e7e-4a1c-92ce-8978b9b311f2_1.d5673e76316bf10cf58c5f5d47119aaf.jpeg

venus flytrap :

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/11/17/us/00xp-flytraps_web1/00xp-flytraps_web1-superJumbo.jpg

sunflower :

https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1548291616-bfccc8db731d?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&w=1000&q=80

polyporus squamosus (mushroom) :

https://zello.one/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/most-beautiful-mushrooms-12-1fuzz-com.jpg

mint :

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/507b480bc4aa45dec4ef6990/1463979563704-7NDCMZYT3SBLP1DM4K0M/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kBTWhAADFyS43VjaMC_Cfwd7gQa3H78H3Y0txjaiv_0fsYoZyPaX83s3Uuzi0xhFqyTcu7kKzJvFg3P9vXBMTNxpVTFuj43wYrx_0t1QTIooOqpeNLcJ80NK65_fV7S1Ubeqpt-bP3jahut7wIW_hlvyQgSQWEkYKxMhKrnSQi8sEzDpBYAkWSbbM3-8OZpI4w/Field+mint+wild+mint+Southeast+Alaska+Mentha+arvensis

rafflesia arnoldi :

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Rafflesia_arnoldi_2013-12-31_21-48.JPG

thistle :

https://img.crocdn.co.uk/images/products2/pl/20/00/01/06/pl2000010608.jpg?width=940&height=940

orchids :

https://images.homedepot-static.com/productImages/fe7c2cc3-cf39-4566-bcfb-77b9401c96f1/svn/decoblooms-orchids-db8991-64_1000.jpg

podoserpula miranda (mushroom) :

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ed/cb/fb/edcbfb69c3910b83d3b54eb72e1376ba.jpg

camellia sinensis (tea plant) :

https://fracademic.com/pictures/frwiki/67/Camellia_sinensis_Bois_Cheri_.jpg

cactus :

https://previews.123rf.com/images/aonip/aonip1802/aonip180200071/96544310-a-beautiful-cactus-in-pot-at-garden-selective-focus-of-green-round-shaped-cactus-with-yellow-flowers.jpg

dicentra spectabilis (bleeding hearts) :

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1419/7120/products/Bleeding_Hearts_Valentine.SHUT_1024x.jpg

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9:46 PM, Tuesday March 31st 2020

Nice work! Starting with your arrows, these are largely looking very well done, and convey a strong sense of fluidity and energy in how they flow through all three dimensions of space. I did notice a couple places where you seemed to redraw lines where you may have felt you'd made a mistake, which resulted in those areas getting scratchy, though for the most part you did a good job of drawing with confidence and avoiding any such habits.

Moving onto your leaves, I'm very pleased with how you largely carried over the same confidence and flow from your arrows, and also demonstrated a strong grasp of how construction is to be applied, adhering to the underlying phases when adding new detail. I did notice a couple places where you strayed from this however - specifically on these two spiky leaves, we can see where the spikes zigzag around the previous phase of construction (the simpler edge). In these cases, as shown here, it's best to either add those to the simpler form of the leaf by ensuring every spike comes off the simpler edge.

Moving onto your branches, you largely did a good job, but I did notice one common but important mistake - you only seem to extend your edges slightly past a given ellipse, rather than the full halfway towards the next ellipse. This additional extension is important because it gives us ample runway for our next segment to overlap directly before firing off towards its next goal. This in turn allows us to make the segments flow together more seamlessly, instead of having visible breaks between them.

Moving onto your plant constructions, these are largely very well done. You're demonstrating a really confident manipulation of form, both the more solid forms we see in our flower pots, and the fluid, flowing forms of the leaves and petals. I do feel that you're certainly drawing with a great deal of confidence behind your marks, which generally is a strength, though there are certainly places where this may drive you to take action a little too soon. For example, the flower pot on this page ends up being slightly haphazard. Taking the time to construct your cylindrical forms around a central minor axis line, and then ghosting through each ellipse a little more will certainly improve your results. Don't lose that confidence, just be sure to reinforce it with proper planning beforehand.

Another thing I noticed was that you usually give your drawings plenty of room for your brain to think through their spatial problems, but there were a couple exceptions. For example, the orchids are quite tall, and therefore the flowers themselves end up being cramped into a fairly small space. To top this off, it was placed in a page with another drawing, giving it only half as much space as it otherwise could have had. On top of giving such plants their own dedicated page, you may also consider just drawing the orchid flowers themselves, allowing you to focus more specifically on their forms and how they flow through space and relate to one another.

The last point I wnated to make is about this more detailed drawing. I think this was a pretty solid attempt at adding more detail and texture to your drawings, and you should be pleased with the result. I did however notice that there was a tendency to be a little more scratchy with your linework, using more hatching in certain places (likely to represent the gills of the mushrooms, which is certainly a good way of thinking). The result however is that you end up with a lot of little pockets of sharp contrast, with a lot of white/black crammed together. This kind of contrast will draw the eye due to its visual noise - and when it comes to composition, controlling where the eye goes is key. So, it's generally good to allow yourself to let these areas fuse into larger, more solid shadow shapes, filling them with black and allowing the edges of these shapes to tell us about those shapes' contents, rather than having lots of little bits of white inside. This will allow you to focus the viewer's eye where you want it to go, instead of having it get lost in the weeds, so to speak.

To that point, just one last thing - I noticed that the dirt/gravel at the base of this lovely little cactus were largely drawn with fairly complete outlines around then, then hit with little splashes of shadow. When tackling this kind of texture in the future, leave the lines out entirely. Try your best to capture the impression of the little nuggets of dirt using shadow shapes alone. I know it's difficult to do this without being able to first establish where each piece of dirt sits, but try and focus in on one individual piece at a time, placing the shadow it would reasonably cast, then moving onto its neighbours.

So! All in all, great work. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.

Next Steps:

Feel free to move onto lesson 4.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
9:05 AM, Wednesday April 1st 2020

Thank you very much, the feedback is insightful.

For the branch exercise, I thought that was the point, and thought that going halfway was too much. Oopsie.

I'll try to plan my cylinders more. Altough to be honest, I told myself that this would get my full attention during the 250 cylinders challenge and didn't want to overthink at the moment.

The spatial issue you mentioned with the orchids is something I struggle with all the time with subjects that are either too tall or too wide. It's a bit better than it used to be at first, but obviously there's still much to do.

About the detailed mushroom, yep. This was my first attempt at actually rendering something in ink, and I was happy with it overall, but I did notice that there's just way too much contrast everywhere, making it a little "heavy" to look at. I'll try what you suggested when I'll get a chance, next time I get to do something similar.

For the rocks on the cactus... well idk man, I took the idea from your potato plant demo.

Though you did say that it was an older demo with some stuff that were to be considered obsolete, I wasn't sure what you were referring to. I guess that the texture for the rocks was one of these things. Oh well, no big deal I guess, I'll adapt.

I'm very happy to see that it was overall a good job.

I'll take note of everything you said and improve on them. Thank you again.

Alright, let's go for lesson 4 !

Btw, I hate insects. I consider them a necessary evil for natural balance, but that doesn't make me hate them less.

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