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What defines a texture?

7:57 AM, Tuesday March 26th 2024

I've been looking at the texture homework and tried to look online for textures that inspire me. There are things I've tried to draw in the past with "patterns" that can be represented with their cast shadows, and I would love to study them, but I am wondering if they count as "textures" in the context of this homework. Examples that come to mind:

Clouds

Palm tree leaves

A pile of coffee beans

If those are not textures (I can intuitively feel they're not...?), what would define a texture?

Thanks, and apologies if the question has been asked a million times (I looked up but didn't find)

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1 users agree
11:10 PM, Tuesday March 26th 2024

Texture is the arrangement of 3d forms such that they follow along the surface of another structure. Meaning, as the parent structure moved, deforms, etc. the textural forms along its surface follow with these changes.

Where a pattern would just be flat - like a design on a t-shirt, or like regular flat wallpaper that may have shapes and colours featured on it, but ultimately cannot be felt as anything but a flat surface - texture is three dimensional, and can be felt with your eyes closed.

This section from the beginning of the texture material in Lesson 2 covers this in more detail.

0 users agree
1:44 PM, Sunday April 21st 2024

Generally in Drawabox, texture can be explained as showing how a specific surface would feel like to touch. Everything has a texture, be it coffee beans or clouds Each texture has its own pattern, but not every pattern is a texture, e.g., color patterns are not a texture we consider in drawabox.

If something casts a shadow onto its surface, it can be felt by touch. Roasted coffee beans have bumps and creases, and a dented line in the middle, those are textures you can draw. 

In a pile of coffee beans, each bean casts a shadow onto another, you can draw that cast shadow of the bean. 

Clouds might be a little bit difficult to turn into texture, but they have their own cast shadows as well in their shapes.

Hope it helps!

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