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Texture vs Pattern

2:57 PM, Friday August 20th 2021

In lesson 2, when explaining texture, the lesson says that texture is made up of small forms that wraps around your forms, and that we're supposed to focus on drawing the shadows that these small forms create. However, within the lesson, it uses things like aluminum or meat as examples for the exercise. Aren't these patterns? There don't seem to be any small forms on them and rather seem to just have differences in colors or shades of a color. Could someone explain the difference to me?

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5:23 PM, Friday August 20th 2021

The patterns on aluminium and other reflective surfaces are a result of texture in the sense that the smooth texture causes them to reflect what's around them. A section of aluminium pointing towards darkness will be dark and a section pointing towards light will be light etc. If I recall correctly we don't see this effect in rougher materials because their planes are made up of smaller shapes capable of catching light from many angles. This means they are less reactive to small changes in nearby light and we don't see the same pattern of light and darkness in areas that are similarly lit.

So in other words, drawing a reflection on a metal surface describes it's smooth texture while drawing stripes on a tiger only describes the pigment in it's fur.

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9:22 AM, Saturday August 21st 2021

I try to stick to textures that have, IMO, genuine texture and hence cast shadows. I'm with you on the steel and meat stuff. There will be shadows there but imperceptibly so, so it is more of a guess or interpretation. I'm not sure that is helpful but each to their own.

Has to be said that the actual texture exercise has been very useful to me, I just can't get behind this aspect.

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