Lesson 3: Applying Construction to Plants

3:12 AM, Monday June 6th 2022

1 - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/xTrbA19.jpg

Post with 19 views. 1

Hello Uncomfortable, awhile back I asked you something very personal. And on normal circumstances any other person would’ve just kept silent about this.

However as my respect for you has grown, I felt like this wasn’t something I could just overlook without feeling absolutely shit. If you haven’t guessed it by now, when I stated those “people” I was referring to none other than myself.

As I am not new student here, what I’ve learned here has definitely aided me in various ways. So much in fact that if I were to write it all down, it’d take more than a fraction of your time. However, If there is one thing that is clear, it is that your acts have been more than just a "push on the back" for me.

Hopefully all this doesn’t seem like an attempt for me to gain you validation, because it isn’t.

I just felt giving you an honest insight into me as a student of yours and a sincere apology was necessary, regardless of whether this whole thing makes you rolls your eyes or upsets you. I figured being upfront was the least I could do if I wanted to try making up for all the crap I gave you behind your back.

Although I would love to continue learning from your feedback and content, that is entirely up to you. After all, there is no reason for me to stay somewhere I am not welcome, And that is a possibility I was aware of when I decided to write this.

Sorry if this went on to be very long and personal, As a lot of edits were made I just wanted this to be delivered to you comprehensively as possible. The submission wont be as important as usually.

0 users agree
12:47 AM, Tuesday June 7th 2022

In regards to your personal matter, my response here may not be the most comfortable thing to hear. I understand where you're coming from - you are not the only person out there who's said things behind my back, it's kind of par for the course for putting something out on the internet. For that reason, I do not expect, nor require (or really even desire) an apology or explanation for such things. I'd prefer to be left ignorant of the fact.

The other option, however, is to apologize, but an apology is not a vague thing. An apology is specific - it requires you to admit not to the generalities of what makes you feel ashamed, but to actually show the things you've said, so I can fully grasp the scope of what it is I am forgiving. And I certainly will forgive you - but I cannot do so as a blank cheque.

If I'm being honest, I'd rather not have to deal with all of this - you've mentioned it because you felt bad, and because you have a conscience, and if it is what you need to move forward, then so be it. But when it comes to such things, I prefer not to do them halfway.

Continuing onto your homework, your arrows are off to a good start. You're drawing them with a great deal of confidence, which really helps to push the sense of fluidity with which they move through the world. This carries over nicely into your leaves, where you're capturing both how they sit statically in the world, as well as how they move through the space they occupy.

When it comes to the addition of edge detail, I do have a couple things to suggest:

  • Firstly, when it comes to construction in general, try to avoid redrawing the entirety of a given structure at each stage. Right now you end up effectively with almost a complete leaf at each stage, which results in the previous phases of construction being almost entirely replaced. Constructional drawing, as we're employing it here, actually relies a great deal on allowing the earlier stages to "shine through" wherever they're able to adequately stand for themselves, with the later stages focusing on adding marks only for the things that change - either individual protrusions, or cuts into the surface as shown here. The more of that earlier phase that can shine through, the more of the solidity that comes from its simplicity will carry forward as we build up complexity. As an extension of this, I noticed that your later phases of construction tended to have a darker line in many cases (although sometimes it was very slight so you might not even realize you're doing it) - try to keep the thickness of your lines from step to step roughly the same, so you're not tempted to redraw more than you need to.

  • Secondly, in the more complex leaf that you did towards the bottom right, you have a tendency there of having your final edges come off at arbitrary angles from the tips of the sub-leaves. They should really be following the existing edges at least for a bit, before maintaining that trajectory and shooting off the structure, as shown here. That way they'll maintain a much tighter bond to the existing structure, and thus will benefit from its solidity.

Continuing onto your your branches, aside from remembering to draw through each ellipse two full times before lifting your pen, you're doing quite well. You should definitely make more of a point to extend your edge segments fully halfway to the next ellipse as shown here, but as a whole you've done quite well here, and I'm pleased to see that you're considering the degree of your ellipses as the branch turns through space.

Moving onto your plant constructions, your work here is very well done. I have only a couple recommendations:

  • Again, avoid that temptation of starting light and getting darker as you progress. I'm actually only mentioning this because of this cactus where one of the ellipses looks really faint - although looking at the rest of your drawings, I think that might have just been your pen messing up, rather than an actual approach of starting faint and tracing back over the lines you want to commit to, which would in the context of this course be something to avoid.

  • When constructing your cylindrical structures, like flower pots, be sure to do so around a central minor axis line, to help in the alignment of your ellipses. I am pleased to see that you're drawing each of the necessary ellipses however - including one inset within the opening to establish the thickness of the rim. Just be sure to draw through them two full times, and use the ghosting method to keep that stroke confident.

As a whole your work is progressing quite well. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.

Next Steps:

Feel free to move onto lesson 4.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
2:47 AM, Wednesday June 8th 2022
edited at 4:10 AM, Jun 9th 2022

Thank you for the critique, I’ll hopefully go through it soon.

I completely understand what you mean, as I had a feeling that you were not interested in hearing the specifics or anything about this personal matter in general. But you are right. Without being specific about what I’m actually referring to, it becomes nothing but a text of self-pity.

As I have no intention of keeping things a secret I'll go ahead and lay down the specifics.

A lot of things I’ve said previously has contained jokes of cultural insensitivity towards you, in an attempt to be funny amongst the people I was around. Perhaps it was out of self insecurity or whatever doesn’t matter. Nonetheless I am still very sorry.

it also kind of worries me that you were willing to forgive and send me to the next lesson without fully understanding the situation. Are you really okay having a previous dick head learning from you? Maybe you don’t care, but I certainly would not hope that decision was made for the sake of professionalism or business.

Regardless, I’m sorry if this has turned out to be more of a burden to you than any good. You don’t have to reply to this if you don’t want to, as what I wanted to deliver has been done. Thank you Uncomfortable, as it’s been a pleasure being able to write to you personally.

  • Christian.
edited at 4:10 AM, Jun 9th 2022
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 we've used ourselves, or know to be of impeccable quality. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Drawabox-Tested Fineliners (Pack of 10, $17.50 USD)

Drawabox-Tested Fineliners (Pack of 10, $17.50 USD)

Let's be real here for a second: fineliners can get pricey. It varies from brand to brand, store to store, and country to country, but good fineliners like the Staedtler Pigment Liner (my personal brand favourite) can cost an arm and a leg. I remember finding them being sold individually at a Michael's for $4-$5 each. That's highway robbery right there.

Now, we're not a big company ourselves or anything, but we have been in a position to periodically import large batches of pens that we've sourced ourselves - using the wholesale route to keep costs down, and then to split the savings between getting pens to you for cheaper, and setting some aside to one day produce our own.

These pens are each hand-tested (on a little card we include in the package) to avoid sending out any duds (another problem with pens sold in stores). We also checked out a handful of different options before settling on this supplier - mainly looking for pens that were as close to the Staedtler Pigment Liner. If I'm being honest, I think these might even perform a little better, at least for our use case in this course.

We've also tested their longevity. We've found that if we're reasonably gentle with them, we can get through all of Lesson 1, and halfway through the box challenge. We actually had ScyllaStew test them while recording realtime videos of her working through the lesson work, which you can check out here, along with a variety of reviews of other brands.

Now, I will say this - we're only really in a position to make this an attractive offer for those in the continental United States (where we can offer shipping for free). We do ship internationally, but between the shipping prices and shipping times, it's probably not the best offer you can find - though this may depend. We also straight up can't ship to the UK, thanks to some fairly new restrictions they've put into place relating to their Brexit transition. I know that's a bummer - I'm Canadian myself - but hopefully one day we can expand things more meaningfully to the rest of the world.

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