Lesson 3: Applying Construction to Plants

12:12 AM, Sunday January 17th 2021

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Lesson 3 submission. Thanks in advance for feedback :)

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2:57 AM, Tuesday January 19th 2021

Starting with your arrows, these are flowing confidently and fluidly through space. Just be sure to compress the gaps between the zigzagging sections of your arrows, as shown here, to better convey the depth in your scene.

That sense of confidence carries over into your leaves reasonably well, though it doesn't appear that you entirely completed this exercise. Looking at the steps of the exercise, you stopped most of them at step 2. Some were taken further, but the vast majority were left at this simplified state. I can't really imagine what a good reason for this would be. That aside, in the future I probably would have you opt to draw your leaves somewhat larger to give you more room to explore each leaf. Drawing small is a common issue when students don't feel entirely confident in their work (I don't see any signs of that here), and it does have the potential side-effect of limiting one's ability to solve spatial problems and to engage their whole arm while drawing. Again, I don't see any signs of either ill effect here, but it is something to keep in mind for the future.

For your branches, I'm noticing that many of your segments appear to stop just a little past a given ellipse, rather than extending fully halfway to the next one as demonstrated in these instructions. The resulting overlap is meant to help transition more smoothly and seamlessly from one segment to the next, and missing that in many areas has definitely resulted in more sudden shifts from one to the next.

Also, you appear not to be drawing through any of your ellipses, which is an important concept introduced in Lesson 1 that should be applied throughout the course.

Moving onto your plant constructions, the first couple pages where you follow along with the demonstrations have a number of major strengths. You're doing a good job of focusing on the flow and fluidity of your leaves, and your constructions are quite solid. The only thing I'd stress again is the importance of drawing these bigger on the page, just to ensure that you're not limiting your capacity for spatial reasoning, or making it harder to engage your whole arm while drawing.

Moving on from here, I definitely see a decline in certain aspects of your linework. For example, if we look at your tomato plant gets very sketchy in the flower pot itself. Here you're not applying the ghosting method and executing one individual stroke per line, instead opting to fall back on bad habits. This is also present to a lesser extent to the leaves, in some spots. The same can be seen in your Guiana Chestnut plant. As a whole, you need to be more mindful of the marks you put down, and how you execute them. The ghosting method is the embodiment of forethought and planning.

Stepping forward to where you delve into greater use of texture and detail, I can definitely see that you're not entirely adhering to the principles covered in Lesson 2's texture section, specifically the part on implicit drawing techniques. Here you appear to be focused more on drawing exactly what you see, and putting down little erratic marks to match. What Lesson 2 explored was thinking of the marks that define texture as being far more specific than that. To think about the actual textural forms we perceive in our reference images, and to determine the nature of the shadows they'd specifically cast on their surroundings. Remember that what we're doing in this lesson is not sketching - everything we do is purposeful.

One thing that helps follow those principles is to make every textural mark using this two step process, effectively outlining your cast shadow shapes and then filling them in, instead of making individual marks at a whim. Also, when doing this, make a point of filling your shadow shapes completely. You have a tendency of making them quite scratchy, leaving slivers of white amongst the black, the contrast of which creates unintentional focal points.

Lastly, also remember that form shading is something you should not be including in your drawings for this course. Focus areas of filled black only on cast shadows. You may not actually realize you're doing it, but I saw that you had a tendency to fill the 'opposite' side of your sunflower petals with solid black, as if to distinguish between them here. That constitutes form shading, since it isn't the result of one form casting a shadow upon another surface.

Now, I've laid out a number of things for you to keep in mind and work on. I'll assign some revisions below where you can demonstrate your understanding of these points.

Next Steps:

Please submit the following:

  • 1 page of leaves - fully completed this time.

  • 1 page of branches.

  • 3 pages of plant constructions. Be more mindful with your mark making - apply the ghosting method to every stroke, and use the two-step method for any textural marks you make.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
3:30 AM, Tuesday January 19th 2021

Hi! Thanks so much for the feedback :)

For the leaves, I misunderstood the instructions, and thought the edge detail and complexity constituted the detail part.

For the three plants, should I redo existing plants or try new ones?

4:09 AM, Tuesday January 19th 2021

Either existing plants or new ones is fine, as long as they're not ones I covered in my demonstrations.

5:08 AM, Friday January 22nd 2021
edited at 5:08 AM, Jan 22nd 2021

Hi! Here are my new drawings:

https://imgur.com/a/KQfbYnx

I paid a lot more attention to my line work this time. I realized that the first time, I was rushing a bit, and as a result not ghosting as much as I should have. I slowed down for these drawings, and hopefully you can see an improvement in the linework.

I focused more on construction for the first 2 plants, a resubmission of peaches and the jade plant, making sure to draw a lot bigger.

On the final plant, I focused a bit more on texture, an area that I still have trouble with. I tried filling in cast shadow shapes, but for some reason it still looks like the textures were "painted" on rather than just being there. Here's the mushroom I was drawing: https://s1.1zoom.me/b4158/440/Mushrooms_nature_Closeup_Leccinum_Moss_557206_3840x2160.jpg

I would love advice on where to improve regarding textures. I sometimes have trouble distinguishing between darker tones and form shadows.

edited at 5:08 AM, Jan 22nd 2021
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