Hello again, I've finally completed Lesson 3 and here's my homework. I quite enjoyed applying construction to plants despite having to face many difficulties along the way. I focused mainly on construction, and only applied detail while following step-by-step instructions, but I guess that's okay as adding detail was optional. I hope the link works, I'll be extremely grateful for any feedback.
Hi GrumpyOwl, I've checked your submission,
Starting out with your arrows, these are looking good. You are mostly drawing them with confidence and you are also capturing a good sense of fluidity in 3 dimensions. This translates pretty good to your leaves, which also have a good flow and look confident. Though, I'm seeing that when you adding details to the edges of the leaves, you are carving them into your forms. Always try to avoid cutting back into your forms, since it's pretty easy to mess it up and end up undermining ther solidity- Instead, always add complexity by building on top of your forms.
Next up your branches, I'm seeing that you started out with wobbly lines, but you immediately pick up on this and started doing more confident strokes, though I would still advice that you take a little longer ghosting your lines. I'm also noticing that you are varying the degrees of your ellipses which creates a more solid illusion of depth, also you are extending your lines on to the half of the other ellipses.
On to your plant constructions, you are doing a good job keeping your constructions solid and 3 dimensional, though there are still some minor things I wanted to point out.
Most important of all, I'm seeing very few line weight on your constructions, this especially caught my attention since you are doing some pretty complex plants with a lot of leaves. Line weight is a very localized tool that we have to clarify how forms overlap with each other. And when things get really messy, like for example in both of this constructions and you don't attempt to make things clear, you are reminding the viewer that they are looking at a drawing instead of a 3d construction. Here is a demo I did for another critique where I explain more depth how we can make our constructions clearer. Though, to clarify something, at the moment I did it I though that cast shadows are part of the construction phase, turns out they are part of texture. However, line weight is part of the construction phase.
Regarding construction issues, the only thing that caught my attention was what I've already said about constructing on top of your leaves and forms instead of cutting back into them.
I know that you said you didn't focus on texture and it's fine, though remember that whenever we are applying cast shadows, these need a consistent light source, so we cannot make shadows going right and left at the same time, like it happened in your daisy demo.
You did a very good job on constructing your forms and keeping them solid, so I'm gonna go ahead an mark this lesson as completed! Keep it up.
Next Steps:
Feel free to move on to lesson 4!
Hello Weijak!
First things first, I want to apologise for not replying sooner. I'd been feeling quite overwhelmed with all the work related to my studies for the past few months. But as I have more free time now, I've decided to continue with Drawabox lessons.
Thank you for mentioning the fact that I keep cutting back into my forms, I wasn't sure how to approach adding details to leaf edges - now I know how to do it properly and I'll try to avoid this mistake.
I'm very grateful for your clarification considering applying line weight to my constructions - I didn't know whether this step was a part of construction phase or not. But now I understand that my plant drawings look unclear because they lack line weight variation.
I find applying cast shadows pretty difficult, I didn't notice that shadows in my daisy demo were contradicting each other. Thank you for pointing this out for me, I'll definitely pay more attention to this problem.
Again, I'm very grateful for your thorough critique and good luck on your art journey!
Hi! Dont worry, this course is made so you can keep at it at your pace, the important thing is that you are coming back to it! (if that goes in with your interests of course). Regarding cast shadows, once you understand that they follow the form that they are being cast on and set up an arbitrary light direction, it becomes a very mechanical thing that its easier to practice, so dont worry too much about it, you will get better at it with time!
I hope you are able to use your free time on things you enjoy, and good luck to you too!
Right from when students hit the 50% rule early on in Lesson 0, they ask the same question - "What am I supposed to draw?"
It's not magic. We're made to think that when someone just whips off interesting things to draw, that they're gifted in a way that we are not. The problem isn't that we don't have ideas - it's that the ideas we have are so vague, they feel like nothing at all. In this course, we're going to look at how we can explore, pursue, and develop those fuzzy notions into something more concrete.
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