View Full Submission View Parent Comment
6:45 PM, Monday August 17th 2020

I'm assuming that you were using the same dying pen when laying down the basic construction of your leaves, and switched to one with richer lines when adding detail. As I'm sure you now understand (though perhaps not since you did it in your revisions), you should only be using pens that are creating rich, dark lines. While there is obviously the temptation to make use of that faint grey line, as you did here, it defeats the purpose of how Drawabox approaches learning and isn't all that different from using a pencil instead.

One thing that stood out a lot in your leaves is that you're really focused on detail and texture. Because you're more interested in how you're going to tackle the texture of your leaves, you end up distracted when actually drawing the underlying construction. As a result, you start repeating the same leaf forms (the top row of the first page of leaves, for example), you don't really think about how they're flowing through space (the lavender, rose leaf, mulberry leaf are all just laid flat upon the surface of the page, as are several in the second page). You also completely skip construction on the maple leaves both times (I'm unsure of what you mean by fixing construction on the second one, since as explained here you skip quite a few steps). I actually have a demonstration on how to approach drawing a maple leaf correctly right here. As you can see there, everything is built up with simple shapes/forms, and we never move ahead until there is enough of a scaffolding to support the next level of complexity.

The rest of the submission is fine. For your branches, just two simple things to keep in mind:

  • Get used to lifting your pen when you hit the end point, as right now you tend to veer off track right at the last second. This might be because you're trying to slow to a stop, so lifting the pen off the page is a more reliable, immediate action you can perform.

  • When your line does veer off the track, make sure you draw your next line so it overlaps the previous one directly. This will make drawing each individual leaf harder, but will ultimately force you to learn from the mistakes, since you're made to actually deal with their results instead of drawing your next stroke where the previous one ought to have been.

Your other constructions are coming along decently, for the most part. There's still room for improvement but these are going in the right direction.

Now, as I still feel you're getting distracted and focusing on the texture when you should be focusing on construction, I'm going to ask for another 2 pages of leaves - this time with no texture whatsoever. Make a point of rereading the instructions for this exercise. If you're interested in seeing what other students have drawn for their leaves, take a look at this example. Many students like to go through other students' submissions (which you can do by clicking on the "View Homework Submissions" button on the lesson page, and then turning off "Community Submissions" in the filter to see only the ones I've critiqued.

Next Steps:

Please submit two more pages of leaves. Don't include any texture, focus entirely on construction and how the leaf is flowing through space. Do not repeat the same leaf position over and over - remember that Drawabox is not really concerned with detail and texture, it is all about learning how forms exist in 3D space.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
11:38 PM, Wednesday August 19th 2020

Hello Mr. Irshad,

I did not use any other pen than a staedtlr 0.5 fineliner. I am not attempting to make use of a faint grey line in any way. I think I am hesitating when I draw leaf curves (even when ghosting). I really lack experience with ghosting curves, but I am practicing this everyday. Should I be drawing these curves in the same way as branches? Or should I be doing them in one confident swoop? Thanks for the advice on the branches and I will be sure to put it into practice. Thank you for sharing the image of another students homework. I will be sure to look at other students submissions to get an idea of the final homework. I read that one should read all of the sections material before starting any homework page. My first time around, I did not see the information about the leaf construction before I had already completed the leaves exercise. I hope to have fixed it this time around. Here is my imgur link: https://imgur.com/a/fXP5M9S

Thank you for your critique Mr. Irshad

Lars,

4:38 PM, Thursday August 20th 2020

This is moving much more in the right direction, although there is still plenty of room for improvement. I will however be leaving you to work on that on your own, and will mark this lesson as complete. Here are a few things I want you to keep in mind:

  • You handle the flow of your simpler leaves more successfully, thinking more about how they move through 3D space. When you get into more complex leaves however, you have a tendency to stiffen up, drawing those lines to be much straighter. Always think about how each individual flow line is meant to move through three dimensions of space, not just across the page but how they move through the depth of the scene.

  • Looking at the casava leaf, you drew an initial simple shape to start, which should have represented the extent to which all the smaller flow lines extended, but then you went on to ignore it completely. You shouldn't have extended the smaller flow lines beyond the perimeter of that shape. Always remember that every step of construction answers a question, or solves a problem - in this case you were answering how far out the elements of that leaf would ultimately extend. By choosing to extend them further, you basically negated the previous answer you'd given, resulting in a contradiction, which helped to undermine the illusion that the viewer is looking at something real and three dimensional.

  • Remember that the contour lines we add to the surface of the leaves are not the veins you see on the leaf's surface. Sometimes students will confuse the two, and they'll try and put in some sort of simplified branching pattern to how those contour lines are arranged. Whenever you put down a mark, make sure you think about specifically what it is meant to achieve. If it's supposed to represent one of those veins, then you'd be reaching instead for the kinds of shadow shapes we looked at in lesson 2, since the veins are a texture along the leaf's surface. Since we are not doing that right now, focus on just drawing those marks as basic contour lines, and focus only on how they're meant to help describe how that surface deforms through 3D space. Your contour lines were often drawn to be rather stiff, and many times didn't even extend all the way to the edge of the leaf - all of these things undermined their purpose, and made them less effective at their job.

As I mentioned, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, as you're moving in the right direction now with these. Be sure to incorporate this exercise into your regular warmups however, so you can continue improving.

As to your question about how to draw these lines, in this case you should be trying to tackle these lines in one swoop - the technique we cover in the branches exercise is more for lines that are considerably longer or more complex. Generally the marks we make when drawing leaves won't require that kind of complexity, and focus more on being simple and smooth.

Next Steps:

Move onto lesson 4.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
5:51 PM, Thursday August 20th 2020

Hello Mr. Irshad,

My references for complex leaves were flat. I think at this point I need to just go to a local park and pickup a couple leaves. Oof, I screwed up extending the leaf beyond construction based on what I thought about the diagram. In my mind I was using the veins as contours that conformed to the surface of the leaf. I was not focusing on detail at this point. I added the veins as contour lines based on the other students submission you shared. This helped me think about 3D space. I had to think more logically about this because I can only picture 3D space with my eyes open. I will be sure to incorporate leaves into my daily routine.

And thank you for the advice on drawing complex lines,

Lars

The recommendation below is an advertisement. Most of the links here are part of Amazon's affiliate program (unless otherwise stated), which helps support this website. It's also more than that - it's a hand-picked recommendation of something I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Cottonwood Arts Sketchbooks

Cottonwood Arts Sketchbooks

These are my favourite sketchbooks, hands down. Move aside Moleskine, you overpriced gimmick. These sketchbooks are made by entertainment industry professionals down in Los Angeles, with concept artists in mind. They have a wide variety of sketchbooks, such as toned sketchbooks that let you work both towards light and towards dark values, as well as books where every second sheet is a semitransparent vellum.

This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.