Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction

5:48 AM, Saturday July 4th 2020

Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/evAsJ8T.jpg

Post with 49 views.

Hey everyone,

some lessons were definitely challenging but they also taught me a lot.

I'm looking forward to your feedback so I can continue improving.

Thanks and have a great day!

2 users agree
2:01 AM, Monday July 6th 2020

Hi, Silviu. Here's my critique for you.

For the Arrows exercise, you definitely need to work on getting your perspective correct. I notice that the gaps between your arrow eges don't have much foreshortening to them, and neither do your widths of your arrows. Although there may be a small degree of foreshortening, you should try to exaggerate it a little more in order to show more depth. Remember to think of your page as a "window" to a world. Also, don't repeat your lines when you make a mistake. And keep your hatching lines straight rather than curved.

For Organic Forms, instead of having ellipses of the same degree, you should try to vary them up. When you take an object that's in front of you and you slice it up in parallel segments, your viewing angle of those ellipses are not necessarily going to be the same. If you slice an ellipse directly in front of you, you won't be able to see the face of the slice at all, so the degree of it will be equal to zero. If you slice an ellipse not directly in front of you but on the side, you will see part of the face of the slice, so the degree of it will be greater than zero. If you bend that form more (which you should be doing often), then there will be a greater shift in degrees. Check out this section: https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/5/degree

For Texture Analysis, try not to think about the outlines too much, and instead think about cast shadows. I think it's more helpful to think more in terms of the small forms of the subject your drawing, and then imaging there is light shining on to it. From there, think about how that form will cast shadow onto its surroundings. When drawing the shadows themselves, don't think of them as lines, but instead think of them as shapes. It's sometimes helpful to draw the outline of those shapes first before you fill it in. Also, try to include more shadow in the parts where the individual forms meet and intersect. In where the forms meet, the shadows will generally be deeper. In your armadillo texture for instance, it seems as if you're just putting a bunch of lines in random places. In addition, don't scribble when drawing cast shadows either. When you scribble, you tend to rely on randomness or chaos. Instead, look for a rhythm and observe your reference more carefully. This exercise is mainly about choosing effectively which shadows to draw, and that comes from observing things carefully.

For your dissections, similar ideas apply. Think about the small forms themselves - don't treat them as if they are entirely flat surfaces. In this exercise, now you are considering a three-dimensional form to draw on rather than a flat 2D surface. Because of this, you should be mindful of the curvature - in particular, your elephant skin texture. Make sure that the texture warps along the sides. Don't make it flat-looking.

For your Form Intersections, it is unnecessary to add line weight to the corners. If you do add line weight, I believe you can add it to the silhouette of each form, although I think this part is optional. Also, you can draw hatching lines if you would like to in order to better clarify which forms are what. In additional, you should be sticking to equilateral forms as much as possible. Don't make forms overly stretched in a particular direction. Try to make the length of all sides equal to each other if possible, even for your cylinders. Some of them are overly stretched, and this forces you to think about foreshortening more, distracting you from the main purpose of this exercise (understanding relationships of how forms exist with each other in 3D space). When drawing ellipses, draw through them only two or three times (two is better). Don't draw through them more than that. As well as that, the perspective for your boxes is quite off, as there tends to be an excessive number of parallel and diverging lines. If you haven't already, you should do the 250 Box Challenge. Do this before moving on to the next lessons (get it critiqued too).

For your Organic Intersections, think of each form as as actual water balloons, rather than just flat surfaces floating in 3D space. I see some of your forms that look like that they're going to fall off. Avoid this, and try to imagine what would actually happen to these forms in real life if you've placed them there. If they would fall off, then draw them at their resulting position. Don't make overly complex shapes either. Just stick to simple "sausage" forms for the time being. This means keeping each end the same size, and not making the forms taper from one end to another. Try to keep your forms of the same size, too. Don't have very small ones and very big ones. When you're drawing cast shadows, be mindful of where you are placing them. Make sure it describes the surface it is being cast onto. In the top image, you're treating some of your cast shadows as if they are being casted onto a wall behind the forms. Instead, imagine there's a ground plane below them and draw your cast shadows on there. I should say, when you add line weight to your forms, apply them to parts of the forms where they overlap one another, in order to show what's in front of what. I would recommend doing this (and drawing your cast shadows) after you've drawn all the forms themselves. Make sure you're drawing from the shoulder, just like how you've been using it in Lesson 1. Your contour lines are sometimes ending up wobbly. Instead, make them smooth and confident.

As a final note, you may find it helpful to rotate your images on Imgur. You can do this by using the edit option.

Next Steps:

Please submit the following:

  • One page of Arrows

  • One page of Organic Forms (contour ellipses)

  • One page of Organic Intersections

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
5:34 PM, Wednesday July 8th 2020

Hi CONSCIOUSLEMON9,

Thanks a lot for taking the time to offer me this detailed feedback. It's incredibly helpful.

I've attached a link to the requested revisions:

https://imgur.com/a/RMcdb2q

Looking forward to your response.

Thank you and have a great day.

Kind Regards,

Silviu

P.S. thank's for the tip on rotating the images on Imgur. I did not know you could do that:D

4:00 AM, Saturday July 11th 2020

So for your arrows, only a few had foreshortening gaps between their edges. I noticed also that some of your arrows had decreasing gaps as they were coming towards you. Make sure that the gaps are getting smaller the further they are away from you. Try not to think of your paper you're drawing on as a flat 2D piece, but rather a "window" to a 3D world. Try to spend more time planning and ghosting.

For your organic forms, I see a little more variation with your ellipse degrees, although you could push them more if you wanted to. Imagine what would happen if you were to bend your organic forms a bit further. Try to keep your ellipses aligned to the minor axis also.

Your organic intersections seem like they have improved in terms of them not floating in space. Be mindful of your contour lines - they should reinforce the fact that these forms are rounded, not flat. You've made some of them look nearly straight. Also be mindful of the hook at the ends of the contour lines. You should include them always. Additionally, add line weight only to the parts where the forms overlap one another.

Next Steps:

Please complete half a page of arrows.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
7:12 AM, Saturday July 11th 2020

Hi CONSCIOUSLEMON9,

Thanks again for taking the time to offer me this feedback. It's been extremely useful and highly appreciated.

I've attached a link to the revision requested:

https://imgur.com/a/skS7CYn

Looking forward to your response.

Thank you and have a great weekend.

Regards,

Silviu

View more comments in this thread
1 users agree
1:51 PM, Sunday July 5th 2020

Hello there!

Good job finishing lesson 2.

Organic arrows are good, good job varying the thickness of the arrows as they go back in space.

your contour elipses are well done, they sit nicely on the organic form and clearly describe the cylindrical form, my one feedback regarding these would be to pay close attention to the degrees of each ellipse and vary them according to how the form turns, there are a few places where the degrees of the ellipses vary in such a way that it is hard to tell in which way the form is turning.

regarding the contour curves where you only draw one side of the elipse; your lines are clear and fluid however they are all rather flat and if you could see the full ellipse the degree would be very small. This is obviously fine and they can exist like this depending on their angle however I'm not sure this is the effect you are going for and it would be nice to see more variation and more of a curve in some of the cases to help better describe the nature of the forms. remember that while you aren't drawing the full ellipse, you still need to be able to feel how the full ellipse would be.

texture analysis is looking good, well done transitioning from the darker value ot the lighter value through your use of texture!

your dissections are mostly very good, you've done well to show the curvature of the forms through use of light and shadow from the outside to the center of the cylinders. my main feedback here would be to pay close attention to how the textures wrap around the 3d forms, I'll use the example of the palm tree bark. the horizontal lines can be used as contour lines to describe how they wrap around the trunk of the tree, at the moment they look a bit straight and flat.

form intersections are fine, I struggled a lot with this one so i know how mind bending it is! the actual construction of the forms is very good.

Organic intersections are feeling a little bit flat to me and I think its mainly down to your use of contour lines, it may have helped to draw through the forms a bit more as I'm not fully feeling the roundness of these forms. also you could easily improve the overall clearness of the drawings by adding some lineweight to show how things overlap and what is in front of what.

I hope this all makes sense! overall very well done, keep it up!

The recommendation below is an advertisement. Most of the links here are part of Amazon's affiliate program (unless otherwise stated), which helps support this website. It's also more than that - it's a hand-picked recommendation of something I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Sakura Pigma Microns

Sakura Pigma Microns

A lot of my students use these. The last time I used them was when I was in high school, and at the time I felt that they dried out pretty quickly, though I may have simply been mishandling them. As with all pens, make sure you're capping them when they're not in use, and try not to apply too much pressure. You really only need to be touching the page, not mashing your pen into it.

In terms of line weight, the sizes are pretty weird. 08 corresponds to 0.5mm, which is what I recommend for the drawabox lessons, whereas 05 corresponds to 0.45mm, which is pretty close and can also be used.

This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.