Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction

9:13 PM, Thursday December 1st 2022

Lesson 2 Homework - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/O4IV7sn.jpg

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At last, another lesson conquered. This was a brutal one mainly due to the length of the texture exercises. 50% rule really took effect in this lesson that's for sure.

Although I like how my homework turned out I'm a little disappointed in myself because I could've done this way sooner but I just didn't have much motivation (+ no time, school sucks) to continue after the 250 box challenge. I did pick myself up again about 3 weeks later and once again took interest in completing all lessons.

Onto lesson 3! (hopefully this time a bit sooner than 2 whole months)

And of course, any feedback/critique would be heavily appreciated, thank you.

2 users agree
1:37 PM, Thursday December 8th 2022

Heya, Karish! I'm Keisari and I'm here to critique your work. First off, congratulations on finishing Lesson 2! You've reached further than most people do, so I'm sure you'll go on to complete Drawabox. It's fine and normal to run out of motivation once in a while, but I applaud you for picking it up again.

Thinking in 3D

Overall, your arrows look ok. You seem to have gotten the idea of 3D space and how their size and spacing compresses or expands based on the distance from the viewer, however, your marks lack confidence; wobbling is pretty visible and many of the pair of curves that compose an arrow don't quite seem to be stretched copies of each other as they are supposed to be. Remember that confidence is your main priority! In the replicating-the-curve part of this exercise, I like to adopt a mindset similar to the Superimposed Lines exercise back from Lesson 1 -- don't keep track of the trajectory of your line as you're making it, simply ghost it thoroughly and put it down confidently. In fact, you should be doing this for pretty much every single one of your lines; remember the stages of the Ghosting Method! Additionally, you seem to be placing hatching wrongly in many of your arrows; hatching is supposed to represent the shadow of the part of the arrow crossing over itself. If one part has another part overlapping it, the part being overlapped needs the hatching. Take this arrow as an example -- its hatching is entirely reverse to how it should be. I'd also suggest you try and push their foreshortening more, as that can improve your understanding of 3D space. That being said, this arrow of yours is excellently done and although it still falls a bit short of the ideal line confidence we're striving for, it makes good use of hatching and moves smoothly through space, and is a good example of what you should be aiming for. (There are others you've done well, picked this one arbitrarily.) You'll get better as you practice this exercise through your warmups, but I'd like to request one page of the Organic Arrows exercise as a revision to make sure you've properly understood what I've pointed out.

Your Organic Forms look good. Some look deformed here and there and so I suggest you try applying the Ghosting Method more carefully, but it looks like you've gotten what you should be attempting to do. Just like I recommended you try and push the foreshortening of your arrows to better understand 3D space, I recommend you also try and vary the degrees of your ellipses more. Other than that, you've done great!

Texture and Detail

You did amazing here. You're drawing implicitly, doing a remarkable job capturing the cast shadows rather than form shading or outlines, wrapping the texture around the form and your light/dark transitions look really seamless. For Dissections, I'd like to suggest you try being more adventurous with breaking the silhouettes to better convey texture, but overall those look excellently done. I have nothing to add, keep up the great job!

Construction

The main goal of the Form Intersections exercise is to make it so that all the forms appear as if they're on the same scene, through the use of consistent and shallow foreshortening. You've done very well in that regard, and that's what matters most. Hatching is missing and although it's optional, I'd recommend you do it. The intersections themselves are secondary, but if you wish to understand them better, I'd suggest checking out the Form Intersections First Aid Pack and this interactive website as you do your future warmups.

For Organic Intersections, you did well enough. You're drawing simple forms and are doing well with their contour lines, but you're not drawing through them, and at that times they look unstable and have wrong shadows. Remember to think of them as water balloons, and think thoroughly befire you start putting down your cast shadows. [Here's a quick edit of one of your pages pointing some of its main mistakes.](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/768460121348505600/1050404844436996166/image.png That being said, you'll make better sense of it as you practice.

Next Steps:

One page of Organic Arrows.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
9:25 PM, Saturday January 28th 2023

Holy smokes thank you so much for your feedback!

I tried doing exactly what you said about my organic arrows, I hope these rectify your critiques https://imgur.com/a/R3ghDzK

and I do think that thoroughly revisiting this particular homework has deepened my understanding of what the exercise is truly about.

I'd also like to say that the websites you linked for intersections are marvelous. I often thought hard about how each form intersects with another and how to represent/visualize it in my head since I've never done anything quite like that (I had 0 art experience when I started, and still somewhat do ????).

Once again thank you for taking the time to do this, I heavily appreciate it!

Lesson 3 coming very soon.

9:59 AM, Tuesday January 31st 2023

Yup, that looks a lot better. I'm glad I could be of help, and I'll also be glad to mark your submission as complete. Again, great job completing this lesson and best of luck with those plants!

Next Steps:

Lesson 3

This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete, and 2 others agree. The student has earned their completion badge for this lesson and should feel confident in moving onto the next lesson.
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