The hardest parts were definitely the branches. When I tried to connect the two ellipses the "right way" I was still left with chicken scratches because when I stop the line midway through the ink leaves a huge dot after. I still really enjoyed this lesson though. As always critique is welcomed.
References: https://imgur.com/a/c97DQf4
Hi there, Nice work! I think you did a good job :)
Here are some stuff I noticed... hope they are helpful.
The organic arrows are very well done. They are dynamic and interesting to look at.
The leaves exercise incorporates different leaf shapes, but I feel you can try drawing more leaves that show both bottom and the top sides of the leaves. It doesn't have to be as extreme as the organic arrows exercise. I say this because I find it very helpful to understand how curved leaf that is coming towards you (imagine a large, coconut tree leaf) will show the bottom surface and then gently droops down to show the top surface. This can add a lot of depth to your drawing, so please give it a go.
The branches exercise, as you mentioned, seems to suffer from the ink blotches when overlapping lines. I suggest trying a) rather than stopping the pen when the pen is still on the paper, try to lift it off as you finish the stroke b) when adding the next line overlap the lines for a bit longer, but when doing so, start the stroke after ghosting the line a few times on top of the existing line first. Also, from the stand point of plant anatomy, remember the forking branches are usually thinner than the main branch it is coming off of.
It's good that you included the reference images in your submission. I think there are a good variety of different plants, and you drew them well. Take note that when you drew a group of flowers (the pink ones), the flowers which are on the edges should be seen from the side and not from the front as you drew some of them. Remember the flowers are following the curve of the blob you drew to group them. For the cactus pot, I think a central axis line through the pot may have helped to align the top of the pot to the bottom of the pot.
Next Steps:
I recommend trying out some of the suggestions above, especially some additional leaves exercises. Otherwise, hope you'll keep up your hard work and enjoy drawing :)
Hello Ive revised the leaf and branches exercise but I wasnt sure if you wanted me to revise the plant with the flowers on the sphere(please let me know if I do need to revise that one). In the leaf exercise I tried to showcase the top and bottom of the leaf. It particularly difficult because at some point the leaf started to twist instead of just oscillating. At the bottom left of my revision i tried to show the bottom of the leaf with a shadow in order to clearly show that its the bottom of the leaf but I'm not sure if it worked out so well. The braches exercise still had chicken scratches I think. It was difficult to keep the ellipses the same shape AND have the lines connecting them to be linear and smooth.
If you believe that I have to revise this section again please do not hesitate to do so. I am not particularly content with this revision and I am prepared to keep working on completing lesson 3 till perfection.
Thank you for the critique!
Hey! It's really nice that you've revised your work.
I can see you've put more thoughts into leaves exercise. They look more dynamic, showing both the top and the bottom planes.
I think twisting leaves are not an issue, but having control over when you would like it to twist and when you wouldn't want it to twist is the key here.
I think of the line going from the base of the leaf to the tip of the leaf as vertical axis, and I use imaginary lines perpendicular to that axis as my guide to determine which way the plane of the leaf is facing.
It's a bit hard for me to explain how I think about this... so please refer to images below, and see if they make sense to you:
Your 3D arrows were very well done in the first submission, so I have a feeling you'd have a lot easier time imagining the leaves initially as rectangular planes.
I use shading that follows the direction of my perpendicular guidelines mentioned above... somehow it makes sense to me, but I don't think there is a fixed rules for how you can shade the underside of the leaves.
As for the branches... to be honest, I draw a single continuous line after I draw the ellipses along the central axis... I tried doing overlapping lines, but like you, my lines don't seem to overlap well and they don't look very smooth :-( So... I'm not sure how to advice you on this. One thing I can say is that I do the ghosting lines for my one-stroke curves to make sure it touches the edges of all ellipses.
Next Steps:
Feel free to repeat any of the exercises, but you don't have to aim for perfection!
Learning to draw is a life-long process. You will learn a lot by trying to draw seemingly unrelated things, so go ahead to later lessons if you haven't already done so :) Happy drawing!
Thank you and Ill make sure to keep practicing leaves and branches. I'll move on to the next lessons if another user agrees that I am able to go on to the next lesson.
Let's be real here for a second: fineliners can get pricey. It varies from brand to brand, store to store, and country to country, but good fineliners like the Staedtler Pigment Liner (my personal brand favourite) can cost an arm and a leg. I remember finding them being sold individually at a Michael's for $4-$5 each. That's highway robbery right there.
Now, we're not a big company ourselves or anything, but we have been in a position to periodically import large batches of pens that we've sourced ourselves - using the wholesale route to keep costs down, and then to split the savings between getting pens to you for cheaper, and setting some aside to one day produce our own.
These pens are each hand-tested (on a little card we include in the package) to avoid sending out any duds (another problem with pens sold in stores). We also checked out a handful of different options before settling on this supplier - mainly looking for pens that were as close to the Staedtler Pigment Liner. If I'm being honest, I think these might even perform a little better, at least for our use case in this course.
We've also tested their longevity. We've found that if we're reasonably gentle with them, we can get through all of Lesson 1, and halfway through the box challenge. We actually had ScyllaStew test them while recording realtime videos of her working through the lesson work, which you can check out here, along with a variety of reviews of other brands.
Now, I will say this - we're only really in a position to make this an attractive offer for those in the continental United States (where we can offer shipping for free). We do ship internationally, but between the shipping prices and shipping times, it's probably not the best offer you can find - though this may depend. We also straight up can't ship to the UK, thanks to some fairly new restrictions they've put into place relating to their Brexit transition. I know that's a bummer - I'm Canadian myself - but hopefully one day we can expand things more meaningfully to the rest of the world.
This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.
