Lesson 3: Applying Construction to Plants
8:38 AM, Wednesday July 14th 2021
Hi there!
This is my submission for Lesson 3.
Thanks in advance for your feedback and time!
Starting with your arrows, these are drawn with a great deal of confidence and fluidity, doing a good job of capturing how they move through all three dimensions of space and capturing the depth in the scene. While your leaves are doing okay in this regard, I do feel like that sense of fluidity is a bit of a step down from the arrows. Remember abov all else when drawing that initial flow line, and then expanding it into the simple leaf silhouette in step 2, that the focus is on capturing how the leaf is not just sitting statically in the world, but rather how it's actually moving through the space it occupies. Every step of construction serves a purpose - being aware of that purpose, and being sure to push for it, will help you build up more solid structures.
When it comes to the addition of edge detail, you're doing fairly well in maintaining a tight, specific relationship with the structure from the previous phase of construction, although I want you to avoid drawing later phases of construction with a darker line. Some of these - especially the top right and bottom right, for example - tend to fall into the trap where your last phase of construction where you add all those little bumps attempts to replace the much fainter linework from before. Remember that construction is not about replacing the previous phase of construction, but rather building upon it. I am confident that you do understand this, as you did a much better job of showing it in the more complex leaf structures.
Continuing onto your branches, your work here is for the most part well done - your branches feel quite solid, and your maintaining of a consistent width throughout the length of each form contributes to this. Just one thing to keep in mind - be sure to extend each segment fully halfway to the next ellipse, to maximize the overlap between them and allow for a smoother, more seamless transition as shown here.
Moving onto your plant constructions, as a whole I think you've done a pretty great job. You're adhering to the core principles of construction very well, maintaining strict, specific relationships between each phase. I'm especially pleased how the petals in this plant extend right to that ellipse. You've done a great job of creating a sort of "cup" impression, which is characteristic of this kind of flower.
I really don't have much in the way of criticism to offer here, but there is one thing that I wouldn't really classify as a mistake - because it's not something we're worrying about just yet, but will come up in the next lesson. In this cactus, you attempted to apply the approach we use for altering the silhouettes of our leaves.
This technique works really well for leaves and petals - really, forms that are already flat. Forms that have volume to them, however, will end up getting flattened out. Here are some notes explaining how to tackle this kind of problem. It should come in handy for the next lesson.
Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Keep up the good work.
Next Steps:
Feel free to move onto lesson 4.
This is a remarkable little pen. Technically speaking, any brush pen of reasonable quality will do, but I'm especially fond of this one. It's incredibly difficult to draw with (especially at first) due to how much your stroke varies based on how much pressure you apply, and how you use it - but at the same time despite this frustration, it's also incredibly fun.
Moreover, due to the challenge of its use, it teaches you a lot about the nuances of one's stroke. These are the kinds of skills that one can carry over to standard felt tip pens, as well as to digital media. Really great for doodling and just enjoying yourself.
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