Lesson 3: Applying Construction to Plants

2:00 PM, Saturday May 29th 2021

Lesson 3: Applying Construction to Plants - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/XhEeH4S.jpg

Discover the magic of the internet at Imgur, a community powered enterta...

It took longer for me to finish this than I expected. The branch exercise was really hard, but I kept doing it in my warm-ups, and it got better than I first started. But still, I have to improve a lot. I hope I understood the core ideas presented in the lesson enough to continue.

Thank you for the critique and your time in advance.

2 users agree
8:39 PM, Saturday May 29th 2021

For some of your plant constructions you made most of the lines very heavy and dark. This does help make the actual flower stand out from the scaffolding (sketch marks in construction) but it can go against the depth of the drawing overall. If you only darken a short part of some lines this makes it so you'll have to do less work and it would help with the depth of the drawing. What I mean by that is: in some lessons, we are recommended to darken lines regionally. If something is in front of something else and the lines intersect, then you can darken the line of the object in front of the other. However, you only need to darken it in the region where they intersect, instead of darkening the whole object. This means you won't have to darken every line you put down previously and it can help establish which lines are in front and which are in the back.

12:13 AM, Sunday May 30th 2021

Thank you for your critique. This is definitely something I am struggling with. Next time I will be more careful not to do this mistake.

0 users agree
10:01 AM, Friday June 18th 2021

Hello!

I think it was impressive that for your first leaf exercise you drew them dynamic. A lot of other people (myself included) tend to draw them very stiff to start of.

You seem to struggle with line confidence is some of these, especially the branches can be a bit wobbly and inconsistent relative to the circles. So it's good that you're already aware and working on that in your warm ups. For future plant drawing and studies maybe lean towards some more branch heavy ones so you can put that into practice as well.

In some of your drawings I have a really hard time resting my eyes cause they don't know where they're supposed to go. Especially with the rose and the bell flower, the lines and shapes are fighting for attention and it's making it very cluttered and hard to look at. So I would maybe read over the potato plant again because there he mentions visual hierarchy and he refers back to how we use line weight in the 250box challange. I think the marker or brush ben you use might be a bit too much. Especially for the outline of the large parts of the piece instead of a more focused focal point.

But I think your plants look really good. Even though I critiqued some of your drawing for having busy line I think some are really good and impressive. The mushroom has fun variation in the cracks and texture. The water lily is also really really good with nice framing of the center with the shadows and more sparing but effective lineweight on the leaves.

Hope this was of help :) .

Next Steps:

As mentioned in the critique and by yourself I would say that doing the branches exrcise as a warm up is recommended. Drawing branch heavy plants can be really good too. Maybe also while doing those drawing try and keep focus in mind and not clutter too much

This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete. In order for the student to receive their completion badge, this critique will need 2 agreements from other members of the community.
11:43 AM, Friday June 18th 2021

Thank you for your time and critique. It is full of helpful advice. I have a hard time understanding the line weight and the visual hierarchy. I find it really hard to understand the concepts so, I struggled a lot. Also, my line confidence got worse as I keep studying for some reason. That's why I was honestly surprised to get positive feedback on some of my plants. Thank you. At some point towards the middle of Lesson 3, I felt like I wasn't doing as instructed in the lesson materials, so I decided to start from lesson 1 and get an official critique. I hope I will figure out what and why I am doing wrong.

12:01 PM, Friday June 18th 2021

But that's great that you're aware of your weaknesses and use that to try and fight them.

:D

If you have time and are willing I'd be super happy if you'd be willing to critique my second or third lesson homework. If not that's totally fine.

Have a good one and good luck on your future assignments! :)

12:38 PM, Friday June 18th 2021

I will look at them as soon as possible. :)

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 I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Pentel Pocket Brush Pen

Pentel Pocket Brush Pen

This is a remarkable little pen. Technically speaking, any brush pen of reasonable quality will do, but I'm especially fond of this one. It's incredibly difficult to draw with (especially at first) due to how much your stroke varies based on how much pressure you apply, and how you use it - but at the same time despite this frustration, it's also incredibly fun.

Moreover, due to the challenge of its use, it teaches you a lot about the nuances of one's stroke. These are the kinds of skills that one can carry over to standard felt tip pens, as well as to digital media. Really great for doodling and just enjoying yourself.

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