Lesson 2 Dissections Exercise

5:11 PM, Tuesday January 9th 2024

Good afternoon (or whatever time it is you are reading this question),

When doing the Dissections exercise, there is a note stating to make sure we are applying what we learned and did in the Texture Analysis excersie, in regard to not drawing forms and only drawing cast shadows. My question lies mainly with the instructions to ensure the texture we draw is wrapping around the form and if applicable, breaks the sillouhette.

Because we are focusing on not drawing forms and only on cast shadows, even if I had a texture that would break the sillhoutte, I would avoid drawing the sillhoutte breaking form, and thus only draw the cast shadows? Would i draw cast shadows outside of the sillhoutte to try and express the lit side of the texture I am drawing?

Another question I have is with a specific texture I was thinking about using, but I think I'm getting confused about what counts as a texture and what doesn't based on the example homework shown on the Dissections exercise page. For example, cobblestones are shown in the homework example, but the full forms are drawn. Is the texture the surface of the cobblestones, or that cobblestones make up a road? I hope that question makes sense. I think the video for the exercise stated bricks were not a texture, and a pattern, and the texture itself is on the bricks. I think that's where I'm getting confused.

I was thinking about using a raspberry as a texture. So in that instance, I would only drawn the cast shadows of each bulb on the raspberry, and not draw the lit spaces of the form. Would this be considered a texture, and if a lit part of a bulb was at the sillhoutte of the form, would I draw cast shadows above the sillhoutte to shows it goes outside of the form?

I hope my questions make sense. I understand there will be an eventual update on Lesson 2, as I have seen the updates coming out for Lesson 1 on YouTube. Just trying to make sure I'm doing the right things!

I appreciate your time and help!

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8:09 PM, Tuesday January 9th 2024

So it's worth drawing a distinction between how we approach conveying the forms that exist inside of the existing silhouette of your main form (the sausage), and how we approach conveying forms where they break beyond it. For the former group, we use cast shadows (which I will note the demonstrations do not convey very well, because this focus on implicit markmaking using cast shadows is something we pushed towards gradually, and which the demonstrations won't fully convey until our overhaul of the demo material reaches that stage - right now we've just completed Lessons 0 and 1).

For the latter, you would indeed draw the outline of the new silhouette where the form breaks past that surface, as noted in this section of the notes. This would be conveyed as outline, rather than your suggestion of casting other shadows outside of the form, as every shadow requires a surface upon which to be cast, and there would be no surfaces outside of the sausage to receive it in this exercise.

As to your second question, a lot of it comes down to context. The classic pattern of staggered rectangles spaced out with an even border that people tend to picture would not constitute a texture, but the physical bricks themselves, arranged along the plain flat surface of a wall would indeed be a texture. Looking more closely, the bricks themselves would also have texture resulting from the unevenness of their surface, the little pockmarks, scratches, erosion, etc.

In this section I explain it as follows:

Texture - that is, what people tend to think of as detail - isn't actually all that different. While we treat it a little differently, texture is also made up of three dimensional forms. The only difference is that these forms adhere to the surface of some other object - and this difference fundamentally changes how we approach drawing it.

An example I like to use is fish. If you've got a fish swimming in the ocean, then we draw it similarly to how we draw the boxes and sausage forms we've tackled thus far. We apply constructional means - drawing through our forms, defining their silhouettes with outlines, describing how their surfaces move through space with contour lines, etc.

If, however, you take a bunch of fish and use it to wallpaper your bedroom, it becomes a texture - and the way we draw it changes. The fish is now a part of the wall itself. If the wall turns, the fish will follow. If you were to strip down this fishy wallpaper and wrap it around a box instead, the fish would come along with it. They cease to be an independent object, but rather become a part of this texture that can be applied to any other surface.

8:59 PM, Monday January 29th 2024

Thank you so much for this reply! I appreciate your time and help, as this is where I've been stuck.

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