Lesson 6: Applying Construction to Everyday Objects

7:43 AM, Monday April 5th 2021

Lesso 06 - Album on Imgur

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Good morning !

I get confused about this lesson because I was really pleased to draw free-hand. I should watch a lot of comics and see that they often use ruler to move on !

I have a question, I almost feel like I cut in the boxes I draw first. But I know I should not. Is it more like a guide ? Is it the same concept as the circle in the hibiscus demo (do you use this concept anymore) ?

Sorry, I see I failed but I have looked at a lot of good submissions and I can note I figured out exactly why.

Best regards !

Adrien

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6:57 AM, Tuesday April 6th 2021

While I don't fully understand your question (language barrier might be a bit of an issue), I'll take a guess, and we'll see if my answer is of any help here.

I think you might be asking about something related to how, in earlier exercises, I've talked about avoiding trying to cut back into the forms you draw, as shown here. When working with organic subject matter, it pretty much always causes students to flatten out their drawings. For geometric construction, like the stuff we deal with in this lesson, that is not the case. It's actually much easier to work subtractively for stuff like this, because when dealing with these bounding boxes that surround our objects, it's easier to understand how we'd cut into them in three dimensions, rather than just as shapes on the flat page.

That said, looking through your drawings, I think there are some areas where you're skipping steps, which does cause some issues.

Before I get to that though, I want to mention that your form intersections are generally looking good, except for one issue - do not trace back over the silhouette of your forms. Doing so results in really wobbly, stiff, hesitant linework which undermines the solidity of the forms, making them appear somewhat more flat. Remember that line weight should be reserved for clarifying how specific forms overlap in localized areas. It should be applied using the ghosting method, achieving a confident execution, and not to reinforce the entire silhouette of a form. I talk about this in the instructions for this exercise, here.

When it comes to your own drawings, I really would have preferred if you'd have sticked to the same pen throughout the entirety of your instructions. I did mention that you shouldn't be switching pens - I know I wasn't specific in talking about colour, but I want students to treat the constructional steps as being part of their drawing, not as being something separate. You asked in your comments whether it should be "more like a guide" like the circle in the hibiscus demo.

In truth, even in the hibiscus demo, we're creating structure/scaffolding upon which to gradually build up our drawing. It's true that the circle wasn't going to represent something that exists in the flower itself, but it was still part of the construction itself. The whole drawing is just a construction - there's no separation between a "final" or "real" drawing, and the steps we use to build up to it. Every single drawing throughout this entire course is just an exercise in spatial reasoning.

Now you did adhere to this in some of your drawings. In this object, even though you used multiple colours, it doesn't look like you were redrawing anything, and as a result the construction came out feeling quite solid.

Conversely, if you look at this nail clipper, you appear to have started with a box, and then you drew the nail clipper in its entirety within that box, rather than breaking it into a series of smaller, simple forms, and gradually building your way to something more complex. You started with a box, and jumped straight into the far more complex object. That is not how this lesson should be approached.

For example, looking at your guitar, you went from that big enclosing box straight to a lot of very curved lines. As I demonstrated on another student's work, you should instead go from the larger bounding box to a series of boxy forms that define the general structure of the guitar. From there, you can round out the curves.

Another demo I have to help convey this is this mug. Based on your approach, you'd jump in and just draw a curving tube for the handle. Note how I instead break it down into a structure made up of straight, rigid forms, and gradually build up its complexity until finally I'm ready to round out those curves. We can actually compare this to the handle on this kettle.

One last thing I wanted to call out was in this stool. Here in your orthographic studies (the top and side view), you used the diagonals method to find the centers, but you didn't do so for the side of your actual construction. Instead, you appear to have estimated. In this lesson, you should pinpoint everything as exactly as you reasonably can. After all, you're given the tools and techniques to find the center, to mirror a measurement across the center, and so on. All it requires of you is that you invest the time to use those techniques. Right now you do so to varying degrees, but often are still inclined to jump in and approximate things, or draw by eye instead of constructing things as specifically as you otherwise could.

So, I'm going to assign some revisions. I'd like you to complete each drawing entirely with black pen, avoid redrawing/tracing over existing marks, and build up your construction in far more steps, building more gradually towards the end result, rather than jumping over important stages.

Next Steps:

Please submit 3 additional constructional drawings. Take as much time as you need for each and every one. I recommend not working on more than one drawing in a given day - and if you need to, feel free to break up a single drawing across multiple days. No one is forcing you to complete the work in any specific amount of time, so there's no need to rush.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
7:02 AM, Friday April 9th 2021

Good morning !

Alright ! I have understood what I have missed. You answered well to my questions thanks !

I think the mouse demo was confusing for me to really get the concept. It drive me on a bad way and make me lose the focus.

I will use one pen for the additional work. But just for my understanding, when you speak about different colours I should use the exact same model of pen but in different colors, was it my mistake ?

Best regards,

Adrien MEURET

4:26 PM, Friday April 9th 2021

The issue was the use of different colours - I want you to work only in black, with a ballpoint pen. It's okay if you switch between different pens because one runs out. What I want you to avoid is putting all your construction down in different colours, and ending up tracing back over some of your lines in black to create the "final" drawing.

3:14 PM, Saturday May 1st 2021

Hello !

Thanks I get it a lot better. But is it enough ?

https://imgur.com/a/OcdgCjx

Best regards !

Adrien

4:06 PM, Monday May 3rd 2021

This is much better! I have just one thing to point out, which you can keep in mind as you move forwards: draw each and every form in its entirety, as if you have x-ray vision. For example, if we look at your rubik's cube, we can see where you've had your edges stop because they were overlapped by another form. Drawing every form in its entirety helps us understand how they each exist individually in 3D space, and how they relate to one another within that space.

Aside from that, you're doing great, and the degree of subdivision for this one is excellent.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.

Next Steps:

Feel free to move onto the 25 wheel challenge, which is a prerequisite for lesson 7.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
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