Lesson 3: Applying Construction to Plants

3:57 AM, Monday November 29th 2021

Lesson 3 - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/kZ6xJG1.jpg

Post with 12 views. Lesson 3

I first worked on this lesson a while back. I got a critique/some extra work to do along with it but ended up taking a long hiatus, so I figured I should just redo the whole lesson.

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11:11 PM, Monday November 29th 2021

I think in this critique, I'm going to focus entirely on the work you've submitted here. An alternative would be to frame it in comparison with your last submission, but I don't actually think that it would be beneficial. So, let's get to it.

Jumping right in with your arrows, the main focus here is that you are doing a great job of drawing most of your marks with a lot of confidence, which really helps to sell the manner in which the ribbons move through the world. This carries over somewhat into some of your leaves - for instance, the two leftmost leaves capture a good sense of movement in how they actually push through the world, rather than simply sitting statically in the world. I do however feel like the others are much more rigid. This can easily happen if we try to focus on too much all at once - if we're focusing on the idea of "drawing a leaf", then that's a lot to tackle at the same time. Instead, narrowing our focus down to just drawing a single line - the flow line - such that it represents a path of motion through a three dimensional world - can help keep our efforts on target. I also find that adding a little arrow head to the tip of the flow line (which you'll actually see here) can help a lot in capturing that sense of movement.

Moving onto your use of edge detail, conceptually you're doing it correctly, but you do need to be slowing down and giving yourself more time for the execution of each individual mark. Remember that every one of these additional marks we use to add edge detail are effectively a physical modification of what should be the silhouette of a 3D form.

Here I've called out a lot of little issues. Individually none of them are particularly dire, but they all come together to suggest that you need to be putting more time into each individual stroke, and that you may have a tendency to feel that because these marks are smaller, they shouldn't require as much time. Every mark you execute should be done so to the best of your current ability - the only way to do that is to invest as much time as they each require, regardless of any other concerns.

The other thing I called out was that while you are generally adding your edge detail one bump at a time, for some reason you have a lot of cases where those individual marks cross back over the leaf's silhouette, very similarly to the zigzagging issue discussed here. The reason this is a problem is because it results in a weaker relationship between the edge detail and the structure it's meant to attach to. Avoid jumping back and forth across the silhouette's edge, especially with a single stroke. Stay on one side, or the other.

Continuing onto your branches, at its core, you are applying the instructions of this exercise correctly, at least for the most part. By and large you're extending your edge segments fully halfway to the next ellipse - though it would definitely help for you to more purposefully use that last chunk of the previous segment as a runway to overlap directly before shooting off to the next target as shown here. That said, the bigger overall issue comes back to taking more time with each mark, ensuring that you're planning and preparing as per the ghosting method. Keep in mind that it's not just an exercise - it's a procedure to be used for all of the marks you draw, regardless of how time consuming that ends up being. Another notable issue is that your ellipses are very hairy - that is to say, you're going back over them way too many times. Try to stick to just 2 passes around the ellipse (as mentioned here back in Lesson 1) before lifting your pen, and as with everything else, the ghosting method should be used on your ellipses too.

Moving onto your plant constructions, overall you are once again applying the procedures and concepts just fine. You're just trying to get things done far more quickly than they require. For example, if we look at the edge detail on the petals of this flower, it speaks for itself.

My only other concern is this drawing in particular - specifically the way in which your line thickness varies pretty wildly. I can understand some of the central areas on your flowers getting packed with ink, simply because of all the tube structures coming out of it, resulting in more concentrated marks there in the center, but I'm not sure why we see similar things towards the other end of each tube. If the scale is an issue (that is, things getting really packed in a smaller area), you can always feel free to choose to focus on a specific section of your reference image - like one or two flowers, for instance. This will give you more room to explore those structures in their entirety. There is certainly no rule that says you must strive to reproduce the photograph in its entirety - each reference photo is just a source of information, nothing more.

Now, circling back to the horse I've undoubtedly beaten to death at this point: take your time. Sometimes students get the impression that if they work on a drawing or a page of an exercise, then that drawing/page must be done by the time they get up. That of course doesn't really make too much sense when you think about it, since it would mean that how much time the drawing requires is entirely dependent on how much time you happen to have that day. Instead, in order to give each drawing as much time as it requires - and more than that, each individual mark as much time as it requires - we simply break our drawings up across multiple days as needed.

You really aren't far off. Rushing is not a question of skill, it's one of approach, and thus one that is relatively easily corrected. I'll assign some further revisions below for you to work on that.

Next Steps:

Please submit:

  • 1 page, half of leaves, half of branches

  • 3 pages of plant constructions

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
10:42 PM, Thursday February 3rd 2022

https://imgur.com/a/24wHObi

Here's my revisions. For the second plant picture, my ellipses got so hairy that it's kind of hard to tell how I was trying to construct the pot, so I included a little MS paint picture showing what I was trying to do. I limited each ellipse to two passes but the concentric ones bleed into each other.

4:59 PM, Friday February 4th 2022

These are definitely looking much better, and you're improving on the fronts I'd mentioned. A couple quick points to call out:

  • I can see that you're using a lot of little points plotted out around your lines. Normally we use these for straight lines (marking out the start and end points), but there's technically no reason you couldn't use them as you have here. Just be sure to put down really tiny points, as small as you can, so they're more likely to be engulfed by the line once you execute it. In general though, the planning phase is more generally about making sure that you understand which mark you intend to make, what its job is, and so on, rather than specifically plotting points out everywhere. You are welcome to do so, but don't feel like it's a requirement.

  • Those big ellipses can be quite challenging. You were right to try and stick to just two passes. Other things that help include using the ghosting method (which it seems you are, so that's good) and making sure that you're engaging your whole arm from the shoulder. Also, keep in mind that the ghosting method's execution needs to be confident - but that doesn't inherently mean as fast as you can. So don't be afraid to slow down that pace as long as you can keep the stroke from hesitating. Drawing fast is usually the easiest way to draw confidently initially, but as we get more mileage under our belts, it does get easier to execute those marks a little slower without wobbling. This can in turn help us regain some of the control.

  • I noticed that when drawing this cylinderical flower pot structure, you neglected to do so around a central minor axis line. This is very important and will help you keep those ellipses better aligned to one another.

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

Next Steps:

Move onto lesson 4.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
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