Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction

2:58 PM, Tuesday September 29th 2020

Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/BGXktpz.jpg

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Here is my lesson 2 submission. I'm excited to move forward continuing with construciton and created new shapes in 3D space!

Let me know what you think.

-G

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9:51 PM, Thursday October 1st 2020

Starting with your arrows, you're doing a great job capturing how these move fluidly and confidently through space. You're also definitely pushing the foreshortening on the arrows themselves quite a bit, although you should try and exaggerate how this impacts the gaps between the zigzagging sections as well, getting them to tighten up more as we look farther back as shown here.

Initially I thought you hadn't submitted the organic forms with contour lines - while you're allowed to use them like this, I did mention in the instructions that you should have taken pictures of them before adding the dissections.

Overall you've done a good job of sticking to the characteristics of simple sausages forms as mentioned in the instructions. Your contour ellipses are admittedly a little stiff - be sure to execute these with more confidence, using the ghosting method to avoid any hesitation when you actually make the marks, so as to keep them as evenly shaped as possible. You're not far off from this, but it was a bit of a noticeable concern. Your contour curves are generally drawn more confidently, and that's good to see. Also, especially in the contour curves, you appear to be demonstrating an understanding of how the contour curves' degree is to shift wider/narrower as we slide along the length of the sausage form. Well done.

Continuing onto your texture analyses, I think you've largely done a pretty good job of pinning down the main focus of these exercises here. You're focusing on the use of clearly defined shadow shapes, and are using them to control the density of your textures as you slide from left to right. You're also generally thinking in terms of how those shapes are the result of actual forms casting shadows.

One thing to keep in mind is that since these marks are all shadows, the as we get into the sparser area of your textures, there is logic to be applied, in order to determine which shadows will dissolve sooner and as they get closer to the light source. This is explained in this section, specifically in the bottom of the diagram where I talk about how the shadows that get caught in the cracks where multiple forms meet are the ones that are going to last the longest. Those that are more "out in the open" however will get blasted away more quickly.

Right now, it seems like you went the opposite route - having the shadows where forms meet disappear first, resulting in a seemingly random arrangement of little shadows.

Admittedly I did find your dissections to be somewhat lacking, in that you only chose to cover some of your sections with textures. Compared to your texture analyses, you also tended to rely less on direct observation and more on memory (meaning you didn't spend as much time as you should have looking at your reference almost constantly - you should really only be looking away from them to make a specific mark, before looking at your reference again). This resulted in your textures here coming out more oversimplified and somewhat more cartoony.

Now, I know that you are capable of doing better than this - keep in mind that when you're doing these lessons, your job is to complete it to the best of your ability. It may take you much longer than you'd like to achieve that, but you should be able to muster the discipline and patience necessary to give us your best. Skipping areas to reduce your workload does not align with that goal.

Moving onto your form intersections, this exercise has two separate elements to it. First and foremost, I'm interested in your linework and your ability to construct the forms such that they feel cohesive and consistent within the same space. At this, you've done a great job. Your linework is crisp, clean and precise, and you're showing solid use of the ghosting method throughout.

The second part is ensuring that the student has made adequate attempt at actually pinning down the intersections between their forms. We're not concerned with whether or not the intersections themselves are correct - this part of the exercise serves primarily as an introduction to thinking about how the forms relate to one another in space, and how to define those relationships on the page. This is something we'll explore throughout the entirety of this course, and this marks a starting point.

At this, I'm again a little disappointed. You had a great start on thinking about the intersections between your boxes page, but you appear not to have made any attempts on the others.

Lastly you've got a good start on the organic intersections, especially into the second page. You're doing a good job of pinning down how these forms relate to one another in 3D space - not just the flat two dimensions of the page itself, where they stack atop one another as 2D shapes. You're also developing a strong illusion of gravity, most of all in the second page where the pile appears to be much more stable.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I'm going to ask for two more pages of form intersections involving a variety of forms - I'd like to see you try your hand at the intersections on more than just boxes. Again - it's not about you doing it correctly, it's about you making the attempt so the gears in your brain can start turning towards this particular kind of problem.

One additional point - make sure you use the same black pen when drawing the intersection lines. I know that my demonstration may have been a little unclear on this front (I marked them in red to draw attention to them for the viewer). It is best in this lesson to draw the intersections with the same colour as the rest, because it reminds us that these intersections are an integral part of how the forms are being depicted, rather than some sort of separate analysis done after the fact.

Next Steps:

Please submit two more pages of form intersections as explained at the end of the critique.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
9:59 PM, Thursday October 1st 2020

Wow a critique from the real Uncomfortable.. I'm honored. I'll have those pages back to you soon!

4:18 PM, Tuesday October 13th 2020

Here is the link for the extra form intersections you asked for!

https://imgur.com/a/eDGgWzM

2:08 PM, Wednesday October 14th 2020

Much better! The intersections themselves aren't all correct, but as explained previously they aren't expected to be. This is about taking a first step into thinking about those relationships in space, so that as we continue to explore this topic through the rest of the course, your brain's gears will continue turning, trying to figure them out as we go. Admittedly the intersections we use throughout the rest of the course are generally much easier than the ones we tackle in this exercise.

So! I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.

Next Steps:

Feel free to move onto lesson 3.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
7:30 PM, Wednesday October 14th 2020

Thanks!

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