Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction

11:17 AM, Tuesday March 23rd 2021

Lesson 2 by Zulb - Album on Imgur

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I somehow survived!

I don't think I've ever struggled as much as I have with this lesson. I'd never even considered what a texture was before this, so I hope my first forays were along the correct path. There were multiple failures and resortions to simply outlining the forms rather than

As for intersections, I don't think I've stared at four pieces of paper for so long! I ended up having to go for multiple walks just to clear my head, and overall that excersise alone must have taken well over 12 hours. By the end of the first page, I didn't feel like I'd actually grasped what was being asked, so I did another page of boxes just to try and clarify what an object "being in front of another" actually looked like, and the thought process that brings you there. I then attempted to add more complex, curved forms, but failed so spectacularly that my confidence evaporated, and so I decided it would be better to really study those cube intersections once more. Although most of those four pages felt more akin to drowning than drawing, I hope that the progress I feel I made in my head shows through.

The organic intersections were equally as mind-bending. My attempts to give the shapes weight kept failing, and fighting the natural response to go back and try and fix it (and probably make it look worse) was a tough task. As a result, I feel the lines are too wobbly and insecure, and I fully expect to have to re-do this excersise.

TEXTURE SOURCES:

IRL References are included in the imgur gallery.

Gyoza

Creme of tomato soup

Baked beans

Pommegranate

Chicken skin

Octopus

Bark

Apple core

Hair

Dirt

Fish scales

[Bread](https://www.thespruceeats.com/thmb/aKWwztjCoTsiPzayXvDYx6QLyOs=/4288x2412/smart/filters:no_upscale()/loaf-of-bread-182835505-58a7008c5f9b58a3c91c9a14.jpg)

Steak

Strawberry

This was one of my biggest disasters this lesson! I just couldn't wrap my head around it!

Grass

Noodles

Avocado

Sand

Orange

Orange Peel

Watermelon

Chameleon Skin

Cobblestones

Chrome

Pineapple Skin

Moss

Salmon

Corn on the cob

"Meat?" was meant to be seared steak, but ended up in disaster.

Thank you for your time!

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11:30 PM, Thursday March 25th 2021

I'll be the TA handling your Lesson 2 critique.

You're making progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson and hopefully this critique will help you in your future attempts.

  • Starting off in the arrows section your lines are looking smoothly and confidently drawn. You're doing a good job maintaining a consistent width as your arrows widen while moving closer to the viewer and with more mileage you'll become more consistent. It's good to see that you're trying to implement line weight, just remember that you want to keep your applications subtle and you'll become consistent with mileage. here are some things to look out for when applying it. I'd like you to experiment more with foreshortening in your future attempts, by utilizing it in both the arrows themselves as well as the negative space between their curves we can create a stronger illusion of an object moving through 3D space as demonstrated here.

  • Moving into the organic forms with contours exercise your forms are getting a bit too complex. We want to create our forms with both ends being the same size and to avoid any pinching, bloating, or stretching along the form's length as discussed here. You're keeping your line work confident here which is great, (your ellipses do get a bit wobbly but you'll continue to improve) if you feel uncomfortable working with contours still don't stress with more mileage it'll become more natural. Speaking of contours you're doing a good job trying to shift the degree of your contours so far, be sure to keep experimenting. The degree of a contour line basically represents the orientation of that cross-section in space, relative to the viewer, and as we slide along the sausage form, the cross section is either going to open up (allowing us to see more of it) or turn away from the viewer (allowing us to see less), as shown here.

  • In the texture exercises (more so in the dissections) you're focusing largely on outlines and negative space rather than cast shadows created by forms along the texture itself. This makes it difficult to create gradients with implied information which we could then use to create focal points in more complex pieces, by doing so we can prevent our viewers from being visually overwhelmed with too much detail. For more on the importance of focusing on cast shadows read here. I'd also like to quickly direct you to this image which shows that when we're working with thin line like textures if we outline and fill the shadow we will create a much more dynamic texture than simply drawing lines.

  • If you feel like you don't fully grasp form intersections just yet don't worry, you're on the right track but right now this exercise is just meant to get students to start thinking about how their forms relate to one another in 3D space, and how to define those relationships on the page. We'll be going over them more in the upcoming lessons. Your forms are looking quite solid here and they believably appear to belong in the same cohesive 3D space, good work.

  • While wrapping up your submission with the organic intersections exercise you show that you need a bit more time becoming comfortable with thinking of how these forms interact in 3D space and how they'd wrap around one another. I recommend trying to stack your forms perpendicularly rather than trying to keep them headed in the same direction to help make wrapping them around one another a smoother task. Your forms here get a bit too complex and your lines stiffen and wobble from a lack of confidence which makes the overall task more difficult, I'd like you to try simplifying your forms a bit more in the future. When it comes to your shadows you're pushing them enough so that they cast rather than just hugging the form that creates them which is a great start but you could push them in more areas. Your shadows appear to be following a consistent light source, be sure to experiment with different angles and intensities when trying this exercise again in the future. I recommend pushing your light source to the top left or right corner of the page to start with, it's easier than working with a light directly above your form pile.

Overall this was a solid submission, while you may have some things to work on I have no doubt you will improve with more mileage. I'll be marking your submission as complete and moving you on to the next lesson.

Keep practicing previous exercises as warm ups and good luck in lesson 3!

Next Steps:

Keep practicing previous exercise as warm ups.

Move on to lesson 3.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
12:17 AM, Friday March 26th 2021

Thank you very much for the critique! I'll make sure I take them to heart! The explanation about texture was especially useful, so thanks for your hard work!

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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.

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