Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction
5:34 AM, Tuesday April 16th 2024
This lesson was done over 1.5 years due to personal issues, half of the first dissections page and onward is from this year, the rest is mainly from 2022.
Hello Laurada, I’ll be critiquing your submission today; if you have any questions, feel free to ask below. With that said, I’ll go ahead and review your submission.
Organic Arrows
The flow of the arrows proves to be smooth and consistent within both pages.The direction of compression on your arrows is clear; the width of the arrows gets smaller as they grow further away, which conveys proper perspective. Although, the line weight added to the overlap sections are quite harsh and done haphazardly when they should instead be subtle. Just to call back to lesson 1, when deciding to place down any mark on the page smoothness is key, even if it strays off the initial path (confidence first, accuracy secondary). Be mindful of how those extra strokes are added. The hatching lines also tend to wobble or lean in some sections so make sure that all instances of exercises are receiving the same level of line quality.
Organic Forms
Starting on your forms, sausages clearly show the intent of a tube with two spheres on opposing ends, a few cases of pinching or bloating but nothing major. Careful when placing the small ellipses that represent which side of the sausage is facing the viewer. Based on the way the ellipses are drawn, some of these poles wouldn't be visible.
Organic Forms with Contour Ellipses
Ellipses on sausages are clearly drawn through at least 2-3 times, and the degree shift is correctly made relative to the viewer. Next up on the alignment of forms, some ellipses here aren't quite matched up with the spine The spine (or more accurately the minor axis), provides the centerline for which we divide the ellipses equally into 2 parts . A misaligned spine could also contribute to ellipses being off, making it just as important to create a centered spine that crosses the midsection of the sausage for a good foundation.
Organic Forms with Contour Curves
The alignment is much better for the curves, but the degree shift is somewhat difficult to gauge and appears to look the same across the entire length of the form. Reasonably so, it's a lot harder to convey degree shifts with contour curves. Fundamentally, contour curves are separated by the difference of only showing the visible part of the ellipse. The degree shift should be approached in the same way as the ellipses; the degree shift of the curves will change as they progress through the sausage. Try to consider the half of the curve that is not visible and how it would change depending on the degree.
Texture Analysis & Dissections
Starting with the texture analysis, it's clear you're getting a grasp on how cast shadows operate. You've done a great job on strictly utilising shapes and thoroughly understanding the concept . In the future, I recommend pushing forward black/dense sections more so the transition is smoother. Aside from that, no issues. Good approach for the dissections as well, I don't have much to add there.
Form Intersections
Solving the intersections in different forms is pretty challenging on the first go, so I'm not too concerned about your ability to cross each object. As explained on the lesson page, it's more about how cohesive the page appears —the illusion that these forms exist in the same space. That being said, this is done well according to the instructions as all forms are grouped together. Now looking at the line work, there's some wobbliness with the line construction & hatching. As mentioned previously, ensure all lines are receiving the same amount of confidence.
Organic Intersections
Forms look okay here, with the occasional complex sausage. Once again, just a reminder to keep sausages simple and avoid awkward bends when possible. The use of contour lines appropriately describes the 3D aspect. But the structure of a few forms doesn't give the illusion that they could balance on top of each other. If we think of these forms as water balloons, it's much easier to judge how the masses will behave against one another. Cast shadows project well onto forms below. In future warm-ups try experimenting by placing light sources between ranges on the top left and right of the page.
Okay, I think that just about covers it, so I'll go ahead and send you off to Lesson 3. Keep up the good work.
Next Steps:
Remember to take these exercises into your warm-ups (10–15 minutes), and you can move on towards Lesson 3. Good Luck!
Thank you for the critique senj.
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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