Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction
7:55 AM, Friday January 17th 2025
Thank you for taking the time to take a look/critique! :)
Hey there! I saw you finally submitted your work for Lesson 2, congrats! This is going to be a quick review, but only because the work here is so well done, there's not much to write about. Nevertheless, we'll press on.
Organic Arrows and Forms. Arrows are pretty fantastic. This is my favorite exercise, particularly because it feels especially good to get those parallel lines moving in space without any uneven spots. You take great care here, making sure that your arrows explore the space as much as they can, and line weight is applied well here where lines overlap.
Organic Forms and Contours. These are also quite well done. You keep the forms uniform on both pages, and the ellipses here follow the minor axis and expand/contract in a logical fashion. Typically this exercise can juke students when the time comes to draw the contours without the ellipse shape to help them, but I believe you have the right idea with these. As you end up making more sausages in the future, through warmups or necessity, it may help to experiment with more orientations, as those contours will also change. Here's a few different ways that sausages can be twisted. But other than that, I think these are great!
Intro to Texture. Okay! Another great section this lesson. I think your analysis page looks nearly perfect, to say nothing of your dissections. I'd say your observational skills are quite advanced, and it definitely pays off here. In fact, I remember seeing some of these in discord, and I was especially intrigued by that shizophyllum mushroom you shared. All of your textures here look great, and you employ the silhouette well to convey the forms that might otherwise appear flat. They also distort as the texture accelerates towards the back of the forms, and they adhere nicely to the contours.
Intersections. If I had to guess by looking through these, it might've been the hardest section for you. This is a guess, because a fair number of these intersections are small. That said, it's only a guess, and with the skill you've demonstrated up to this point, those could easily be deliberate. The intersections, while small, are varied and numerous, as you threw many forms on each page, building up from six large boxes, to four hundred and thirty six on the fourth(not really that many, but there's a lot on there).
Now the organic intersections here are also nicely done here. The forms are consistently done, and don't seem to fall into the trap of cutting into the forms around them. The second page is particularly noteworthy here, as the alternating orientation of the forms keep them from reading as parallel, which is cautioned against here. But as it stands, you do a great job of perpetuating the illusion of three dimensional space with these.
So with all said and done, I believe this lesson is as officially complete as a community critique can be. Nicely done!
Next Steps:
Move on to Lesson 3. Add these exercises to your rotation of warmups, as they'll serve you well going forward. If you're inclined, feel free to begin the 25 texture analysis challenge too. There's no urgency to complete those with the same rigor as the 250 box challenge, just complete one every now and again to mix up your drawing sessions. Good luck to you!
Thank you so much for the critique! :00 Hehe, yes, it took me forever to finish this, its so funny to think that Saif and I were once doing the 250 box challenge together. Lesson 1 and the box challenge, while tedious, didn't challenge my brain and push me to my limits nearly as much as this one did.
Thank you for pointing out the orientations, I think it's been pretty consistent that I need to experiment more with varied orientations, both with boxes and these sausages :) For intersections, I think I was cautious because the lesson said it was the brain breaker exercise, and I was afraid of confusing myself which resulted in me subconsciously avoiding drawing forms that overlapped significantly..whoops xD Again, thanks for pointing that out, as I didn't even realize I was doing that!
Oh, and those mushrooms - your version blew me away with the attention to detail, and how well the kind of strokes you chose represented those mushrooms, and the quality of how well it was executed without being overworked.
Thank you again for taking the time to critique my lesson, you've been an inspiration both here and on discord with your thoughtful and kind input that you give.
Some of you may remember James Gurney's breathtaking work in the Dinotopia series. This is easily my favourite book on the topic of colour and light, and comes highly recommended by any artist worth their salt. While it speaks from the perspective of a traditional painter, the information in this book is invaluable for work in any medium.
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