Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction

4:14 PM, Monday September 28th 2020

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Hello there, again.

Had a marvelous time with this one. Shame it took me so much but such are the times...

So behold, my observations:

  • As before, I haven't restricted myself from exploring the tasks, which sometimes resulted in messiness (in all provided drawings). Call it a homework instructions abusement, but I find it necessary evil for me to absorb the purpose of exercises and develop the required mindset. I also prevented myself from hiding mistakes (more or less successfully) so they are clearly visible (miscalculations were made...).

  • Adding line weight on an existing line is something that keeps bothering me. It seems I am unable to set the right measure and often end in screwing up the existing line itself in the lack of control. I also often end up being unsure if applying line is even necessary or if one single confident stroke (as stressed out) is a good idea in place where smaller strokes forming a big curvy line should suffice. I mean, how do you event put a line weight on a long line without breaking it?! Perhaps I should just keep practicing superimposing on its own.

  • I keep finding myself in the situations where I lack confidence and forget to utilize ghosting and planning - being too careful at some and quite reckless at other times. Still, I think I am getting better at finding the middle ground.

  • I am absolutely mortified of shading in drawing so those exercises where kind of baptism with fire. Not satisfied with the result (and finding the ''right'' texture to use was a bitch as most of the ones I found were quite wacky and I didn't want to start with them... but I eventually forced myself to do them anyway) but this should get me somewhere.

  • I'm looking forward to the construction exercises but I had to find lot of courage to tackle intersections first (guess I gotta draw a few thousand boxes more to finally do it right... couple of pyramids, too). I can't even recall the amount of confusion I got here, but I'm generally satisfied with the result as I learned a lot (no mater the ugliness).

Any advice is highly appreciated, as always.

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Faber Castell PITT Artist Pens

Faber Castell PITT Artist Pens

Like the Staedtlers, these also come in a set of multiple weights - the ones we use are F. One useful thing in these sets however (if you can't find the pens individually) is that some of the sets come with a brush pen (the B size). These can be helpful in filling out big black areas.

Still, I'd recommend buying these in person if you can, at a proper art supply store. They'll generally let you buy them individually, and also test them out beforehand to weed out any duds.

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