Starting with your arrows, these are generally flowing quite well through space, although the point I raised about the gaps between your zigzagging sections needing to get narrower as they move back in space in the last lesson is still present here. If you're unsure of what I meant, this step demonstrates what I mean.
The nice sense of fluidity carries over nicely into your leaves, where you're capturing a strong impression of not only how those leaves sit in space, but also how they move through the space they occupy. Furthermore, you're doing a good job of building up levels of complexity using the constructional method. I'm very pleased with how you're not attempting to replace previous phases of construction, but rather using them as a scaffolding upon which to build up any further edge detail you may wish to add.
Moving onto the branches, I think you missed an important element of the exercise. As demonstrated here, the segments are intended to overlap in order to allow for a smooth, seamless transition from one to the next. This overlap is achieved by having one segment go past an ellipse and halfway to the second, and then start the next segment at the preceding ellipse. You instead started the next segment around the same location the previous one ended, and as such missed a pretty big aspect of this exercise. Please take greater care in reading the instructions in the future.
Unfortunately this somewhat weaker adherence to the instructions and techniques covered in these earlier sections seems to carry through many of your other drawings.
First and foremost, despite the leaves exercises' results coming out fairly well, with a nice sense of fluidity to them, when drawing leaves or other similar elements as part of your actual plant constructions, you appear to put far less time into the initial flow line, instead ending up with a more rigid path for the element to follow through space. It's critical that when drawing these flow lines, you focus on how that line is meant to move - not across the space of your flat page, but how it's actually going to be moving through the 3D world in which the object itself exists. That means considering not just how it moves across the field of view, but also how it moves towards and away from the viewer. I can see some use of little arrow heads on the ends of some of the lines - that's a good move, try to push that to really remind yourself that this line's whole job is to capture a sense of movement through space.
Admittedly the flow of the top petals on this lily are flowing much better than your other drawings, so you are certainly capable of this, it just requires direct attention. The lower petals on that plant are visibly wobblier and more hesitant - so also remember that the ghosting method is critical in order to allow yourself to execute your marks without hesitation.
Looking at this tomato plant, you've definitely skipped through steps. Instead of building up those leaves from simple to complex, you skipped right to the most complex shapes possible, forcing yourself to deal with a number of different problems at once. There are examples in the instructions, like this one, as well as this one about approaching more complex leaf constructions. Please read through them.
This drawing stood out in two ways. Firstly, due to the leaves being considerably longer, the lines ended up getting quite wobbly. Now drawing from the shoulder certainly can help with this, but it isn't always enough - so in circumstances like this, the technique learned in the branches exercise (executing these line segments so they overlap one another at their ends to flow smoothly and seamlessly together) can be a useful tool here, although it is to be used with considerable care. Secondly, the way you have the leaves themselves connecting with the trunk of the plant isn't actually accurate to how it actually works in the reference image. As shown here, looking at the reference shows the leaves actually peel off from the trunk - so instead of connecting at some kind of joint right into the face of the trunk, they should be flowing up from its base, and coming off. Take a little more time to study your reference and how the various elements connect to one another - it should help you make better choices when deciding how to go about drawing them.
The last thing I want to stress is the importance of drawing big. A number of these drawings end up taking up maybe a third of the page at best. When we draw small, it tends to severely limit our brain's ability to think through spatial problems, and also makes it harder for us to engage our whole arm when drawing. You should absolutely be taking up more of the page whenever possible.
I'd like you to do some additional pages, which you'll find assigned below.
Next Steps:
Please submit the following:
2 pages of branches
4 pages of plant drawings
Thank you again for the feedback. I have reviewed the instructions and tried to incorporate it in this submission.
Tim
Looking at your revisions, I think you're still struggling to understand how construction can be applied to leaves like those on this page and this one. The idea of construction is that it's easier to establish something simple as existing in 3D space, than it is to achieve the same with something complex. A leaf with basic smooth edges that moves in one direction is easier to draw as flowing through 3D space than a leaf with many different arms and serrated edges.
So, we approach drawing the more complex ones by breaking them down into a series of simple components, building up that structure bit by bit until we finally have enough scaffolding in place to support the more complex information.
You appear to establish one level of construction, and then leap right to the final level of complexity, skipping a number of steps in between. I pointed this out to you last time by linking you to the following notes/demos:
Since they didn't appear to clarify the approach for you, I went ahead and took this drawing and demonstrated here how I would go about constructing one of those leaves. The key here is that you are skipping steps - so look at the steps I'm employing, how I'm breaking that form down and building it up bit by bit, only ever building up to the level of complexity that the existing scaffolding can support.
Your execution of the branches exercise is looking better, although your linework is still pretty shaky, so that's something you're going to have to continue improving upon. Always remember to apply the ghosting method to every single mark you draw. The ghosting method's main purpose is to help you execute your marks with confidence, free from hesitation or the fear of making a mistake. You can read more about that mindset in this response to another student.
Before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to do two pages of leaf drawings, in which all the leaves should feature a higher level of complexity (like in the demos I showed you above).
Next Steps:
Please submit two more pages of the leaf exercise.
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.
