Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction
10:04 AM, Friday July 12th 2024
Done over the course of several months.
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12:41 PM, Friday July 19th 2024
Nice work on completing Lesson 2. Here's the critique:
Organic Arrows
Think of the curves of the arrows as folds. Many of them have a three-dimensional effect, but some, e.g., the right-hand arrows on page one, flatten out so they appear 2D.
Contour Lines
The forms look good. The ellipses align with the axes on the first page and the curves are properly overshot on the second page. Make sure to keep the forms even from top to bottom when you draw these for your warmup (see the form on the left-hand side on page one).
Texture Analysis
Your textures indicate shadow and contrast. They also transition well from left to right on the gradient.
Dissections
The textures conform to the rounded forms and break the contours, with an exception of the “brushed metal”. That one looks like it could be more rounded and break out more. Most of the textures are heavy in shadow. I recommend adding greater contrast so you can analyze the textures better.
Form Intersections
These look fine. Just remember to emphasize the intersections with darker lines. There is a rectangle of the bottom of page 1 which appears to have no intersections. Practice drawing pyramids during your warm-ups; they are somewhat disjointed on pages 2 and 3.
Organic Intersections
The forms have realistic weight to them and the shadows are shaped correctly. Recall that the 3D should be sausage-like. The top form under the smaller on the second page isn’t quite there.
Next Steps:
You understand the concepts of Lesson 2! Move on to Lesson 3.
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Printer Paper
Where the rest of my recommendations tend to be for specific products, this one is a little more general. It's about printer paper.
As discussed in Lesson 0, printer paper (A4 or 8.5"x11") is what we recommend. It's well suited to the kind of tools we're using, and the nature of the work we're doing (in terms of size). But a lot of students still feel driven to sketchbooks, either by a desire to feel more like an artist, or to be able to compile their work as they go through the course.
Neither is a good enough reason to use something that is going to more expensive, more complex in terms of finding the right kind for the tools we're using, more stress-inducing (in terms of not wanting to "ruin" a sketchbook - we make a lot of mistakes throughout the work in this course), and more likely to keep you from developing the habits we try to instill in our students (like rotating the page to find a comfortable angle of approach).
Whether you grab the ream of printer paper linked here, a different brand, or pick one up from a store near you - do yourself a favour and don't make things even more difficult for you. And if you want to compile your work, you can always keep it in a folder, and even have it bound into a book when you're done.
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