This lesson is the beginning in a series of lessons that cover drawing actual objects. It's important to do each lesson in order, because they build up to more complex subjects.
As with all lesson sets, be sure to complete the basics lessons before moving onto this one.
Strongly recommended that this lesson be done traditionally with a 0.5mm felt tip marker. Your results will likely not be as helpful if it's done digitally. Of course, it's up to you.
This approach relies on first completely ignoring all of the overwhelming detail. It may look silly and juvenile, but it is important to do the simple lay-ins first for every drawing. Not only does it help produce a successful drawing, but it also trains your brain to consciously ignore detail that is irrelevant.
I strongly recommend doing these exercises from life. Drawing from life is always better, but not always possible. Future subjects will be more difficult to find, but it's not that hard to find plants in daily life.
If you feel that you are starting to screw up one of the drawings, I urge you to persevere through it. Don't scrap it and start a new sheet - see what happens if you keep going at it. Of course, that doesn't mean just throwing ink everywhere and hoping it'll go better. But try and recognize what you feel you did wrong and analyze how to fix the image. This is a major skill to develop when it comes to drawing, especially with ink.
Bonus Content
November 21st 2014: Here's another example, since the one in the lesson isn't the greatest.
Here's a higher-res album of the examples I included in the lesson sheet. My digital example was kind of meh (largely because it was digital), but the control of texture and line weight is much clearer in these traditional examples. Aim for this, or better. Concentrate on the separation of shapes by the heavy shadows and line weight. Usually it pays off to be bold, even though it means putting down more ink and risking making mistakes. Also, be sure NOT to use the same line weights all around the image. It often creates a nice effect to have a heavier line on one side of a shape, and a lighter one opposite.
When I did this homework in my own class, we had gone on a field trip to the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia, CA. One of my classmates took a massive collection of fantastic reference photos. Check it out over here.
Homework
Minimum of 2 pages of lay ins - fill the pages, and don't go beyond the lay-ins. I want to see lots of different kinds of plants, and I don't want to see detail. Show me that you can focus on the general shape.
Minimum of 6 pages of plants, 2-3 drawings per page. Start with the lay-ins, then build up the complexity on top. As you increase complexity, be sure to play with your line weight and shadow shapes - if done correctly, this will make your initial lay-in lines (which you hopefully did lightly, carefully controlling your pen pressure and ink flow) seem to disappear, and the proper drawing will come forward.
Submit your homework here; photos and scanned images are both accepted, as long as the image is clear. Submit it even if it's bad - I may send you back to do the homework again, but I will try and tell you what you're doing wrong, and you will grow from the experience.
Also, sorry for the messy and inconsistent handwriting. It will happen often, and I will apologize every time!
PLEASE POST ALL HOMEWORK AND QUESTIONS RELATED TO THIS LESSON AS COMMENTS
Dropping by to get a piece of advice before I move on.
Here are a couple of sketches. I feel like I'm doing something wrong. Am I trying to draw too much detail and end up creating a mess? Should I focus more on drawing the plants like forms with wrapping lines? I need some tips on the technique!
They're not bad, but the bigger issue that I see is the way you're trying to add detail. In the plant on the right, I can see some scribbly lines on the upper petal. By their nature, scribbles are random and messy - they don't show intent, and you always want your marks on the page to be intentional. Sometimes that means your hand is going to cramp up and hate you, but that's what it takes.
Another thing to consider is focusing detail in some areas only. The entire plant does not have to be covered in surface detail, often indicating it on some areas is enough to imply it for others. One thing my instructor would do is, he would finish his lay in and break down the forms - basically get to the stage before he'd start adding texture information. Then he'd draw a circle around his focal point, and only put detail within that circle. Here's some examples of his sketches where he does that.
It's a good idea to look at how he draws his plants - focus on how he simplifies the image using large areas of black shadow, and the different ways he goes about indicating detail (without necessarily filling everything with texture information).
The main problem I believe I have is that I try to add value and texture everywhere, thus making a mess. From what I see from Peter Han's and your sketches, you find a balance between those two and the end result is very clean. I guess that comes with practice though.
Btw, these exercises you are assigning us follow the "Dynamic Sketching 1" curriculum, right? It's a really good course from what I've heard.
So here is my completed homework. It was a pretty shitty one. I currently have uni exams and tomorrow is the last one. I have to admit though, that plants aren't the most enjoyable thing to draw for me.
I'm not patient at all and I have a pretty messy sketching style, I just find it nearly impossible to draw the perfect line. I always make lots of mistakes, and that's why I prefer pencil, because you can control the line weight much better (I never use eraser). Tbh, I don't like super clean line drawings but I want to have energy in my sketches and expresiveness. I also found it pretty hard drawing only major forms because plants are full of details which you can't even make out.
Your lay-ins are looking nice. Very simple, great summaries of the forms present. 7 looks really nice, and I appreciate that you also captured the context of the subject. You also demonstrated how we can use the rules for drawing solid forms in reverse to depict masses of leaves that have very little weight to them at all.
In number 11, you didn't quite manage to capture the volume and form of the fruit. I think it's the hatching that is not quite following the contour of the object. The result is somewhat random, so it flattens out the form.
13 is absolutely gorgeous. You've used shading and texture (and lack of texture in certain areas) to establish a clear focal point. The drawing also has a lot of dimension to it, because you've captured the orientation of the forms very well, so it looks convincingly 3D.
15 is also quite nice, but the cast shadow that falls on the water was not done very well. It looks like you'd had enough at this point (and after a lot of drawing, I can understand), and half-assed the shadow. Unfortunately, in half-assing it, you hatched it against the surface of the water. The angle of your strokes matters everywhere, and that's one of the keys that differentiates a bad messy sketch from one that feels like it's full of energy.
On that note, you're right - your better sketches do carry a lot of energy in a way that a clean, exact drawing would fail to do. That said, our overall goal here is to gain mastery over our drawing hand. If you want to make a rough, energetic stroke, you should be able to. If you want to make a precise mark, however, you should also be able to - because the need for that will arise at some point. Each one has its place.
Anyways, great work. I'm already seeing a fair bit of growth.
Concerning number 15, I began shading with strokes in the wrong direction and it messed it up. I made mistakes like this all the time and it was too late to kinda fix them.
Back with lesson 3! Had a fun time with this one, but sometimes my sketches end up too cluttered in my opinion? If I look at your examples they seem so clean.
I'm still having troubles with line weight, I don't know if it's the wrong kind of felt pen or if it just me and I need to practice more.
Took a picture of the pen I'm using now. The left one was a bit too big and not easy to make different lines with it. The right one is quite fun but if I put a lot of pressure on it, it doesn't make a big difference in thickness. What do you think?
As far as the pens go, the orange one seems to be about right, though I suppose it isn't really producing the range of weights that we're looking for. I use the Staedtler Pigment Liners which can generally be found at any art supply store and some office supply stores. I specifically use te 0.5.
I'm going to refer to the pages as they appear in your imgur album - meaning page 1 would be the picture of your pens.
On page 2, I really like the lay-ins for the pear-shaped fruitplantthing (bottom center), and the one on the left with the numerous bulbous masses. Those shapes cary a lot of volume with them just through the way you've captured the flow of the shape. Very good. Strive for this kind of flow and volume. Page 3 seems to be a fair bit weaker, but that's normal. A lot of my initial lay-ins were like that as well.
Your venus flytrap is very striking, nice use of graphic shadow shapes. Notice though where you use hatching on the stem portion of the plant (the part coming off the main flytrappy-spineymouth-bit and leading back to the roots), you're not hatching along the form. The way you've approached it will flatten it out. Instead try and think of them as an opportunity to achieve a similar effect as contour lines. It's the same thing when you paint - you want your brush strokes to wrap around the 3D form to reinforce the idea that you are not looking at a 2D surface.
With the very dark tree, it seems to me that your initial lay-in may have been weaker. Here's a quick demo I did many months ago. If you look at the way I approached the tree, I layed in the masses of leaves as circles/spherical forms. We want to convey that the leaf masses are voluminous.
I really like the way you approached the water surface on page 8. That piece looks really striking. The surface texture (the hatching) could have been handled better though. I've noticed this in most of your pieces, that you're putting hatching all over. In a lot of cases, it just adds unnecessary noise that stresses the eye out somewhat. When I look at this piece, my eye settles most comfortably on the lilypads, because they provide a nice rest area. It's true that noise helps establish a focal point, but if you push it too far it becomes uncomfortable.
Nice work on page 12 as well. Your hatching is flattening it out once again, but if I ignore it, I imagine that the forms conveyed a fair bit of volume before the hatching was added.
So to summarize this critique:
Don't use hatching thoughtlessly, it will flatten out your forms
Where you use hatching, try and make it wrap around the form and emphasize the 3D aspect of it
Try and strike a balance between noisy areas and rest areas.
Your lay-ins are mostly looking solid
I like your use of graphic shadow shapes, it helps build a hierarchy of detail - you're taking certain chunks and saying, "these are not important" and by doing so, you're giving more attention to the areas that need it.
Feel free to move onto lesson 3, but keep these points in mind as they will be relevant in all subsequent exercises.
A big thank you for your advice, especially on the hatchings. Looking back on the sketches, my hatchings aren't well thought out. So that's a big point to focus on together with the rest of your advice.
Also going to get me some of those pens when I have the chance!
Your drawings are coming out rather flat. After looking over your homework a couple times, I think I've come to realize what your overall mistake is-
You spend a lot more time on the polish/detailing stage than you do on the construction stage. When you block in the form, it looks to me like you're rushing through, and you're not envisioning the subject in 3D space.
You need to draw through your forms (if you're putting down a cylinder, draw the full ellipse on both ends, so you can see the parts of the line that would technically be hidden), and you need to focus on using the tricks we've covered to convey the three-dimensionality of your drawing. The details don't really matter at all, and if you overdo them they can detract from the final piece. If you look at Lesson 5, you see a technique where I draw a circle around my focal point, and I only work on the details within that circle. That may help you reduce the noise and stay on point with your detailing.
I dreaded this at first, but then it got easier. (And then I got tired and sloppy at the end, sorry).
Do you have any tips on doing line weights and shadows? Or pointers to other articles? It's fun playing with them, but I do feel like I'm not really sure what I'm doing.
Great work! Your lay-ins are clean and purposeful, and you capture the essence of each plant quite well in your individual drawings.
I especially like number 4, which shows a great understanding of volume and form, and 9 which definitely got very complex, but you pulled through! I also really like your control of your focal point. I think you achieved a good balance of detail and simplicity.
As far as line weights and shadows go, it's the sort of thing you learn as you go along. You're doing pretty well with them, especially in the middle of your set. I usually try and focus on a hierarchy of some elements being important and others less so - and i use shadow to separate those shapes out. Also, line weight is a good way of easily conveying thickness without having to actually draw in thickness, which involves adding more lines (and thus increasing noise/contrast). On that same note, it's also important to know where to avoid using thick lines, like on the edges of leaves.
I am new to sketching/drawing. This is my first time picking up a pen and drawing since I was at school. I would deffo say I have no skill at the moment so the whole shading/lighting part of the homework next will be a struggle for me to actually look good or "real". Though can you comment to see where i am going wrong or if i am on the right track. Cheers! (Loving the tutorials btw... I dont see it yet but hopefully it will make be able to draw in the future).
You seem to be doing the lay-ins decently, but I'm concerned about the fact that you didn't start at lesson 1, even though you mentioned that you are very new to this. All of the lessons are interconnected, with each one building on the one prior to it. Skipping to the parts that seem more fun is definitely not something I would recommend. It's best to take things one step at a time.
Two still life drawings I'm not really proud of, but decided to put them up anyway for potential feedback: onetwo
Additionally I've done a still life digital painting. I stopped working on it after c. 3 hours (the upper right part is a bit more rough than the rest).
It's at the same angle as one of the drawings above, but the underlying sketch was made from scratch.
There's a lot of critique below, but you should be ready to move onto the next lesson.
Your lay-ins are looking fairly good, though I am getting the sense that you're approaching them in a somewhat organic fashion, letting your subconscious/intuition drive your hand. The strokes don't all look like they're driven by clear intent.
The lay-ins, at their foundation, should be shapes and forms (and a few lines/curves). They're squished and squashed and manipulated and whatnot, but for the most part they're independent components. Don't approach it as though you're doing a lay-in for a specific object. Look at the subject, see the shapes and forms that underlie it and mark those down on the page. You're not drawing a plant, you're drawing a bunch of simple shapes and forms, because that is what you should be seeing.
I'm nitpicking, of course, for the most part you're doing a good job in that stage. The ones on page 2 are pretty well done.
The cacti on page 4 are very nice. I like how they convey the round, bulbous nature of the plant. The spherical plant on page 5 is quite well done as well, especially how you take advantage of the surface texture to reinforce the curvature of the surface.
On the other hand, some of your plants are getting flattened out, because you're trying too hard to cover them with texture. There's no need for that. If you look at the far right of page 7, it comes out completely flat because of the way you decided to texture it - both applying too much texture, and also forgetting to follow the curvature of the surface, which is always foremost.
If you look at the animal drawing lesson (lesson 5, I think), you'll see me discuss drawing a circle around your focal point and applying texture only within that circle, and leaving the rest fairly simple. I think this technique will help you organize your thoughts and clarify what is important in a piece and what is less so.
The focal point/texturing issues apply as well to your two extra still lifes. The second one is fairly well done, as far as form goes. Your hatching could definitely be much cleaner in both, though. You're hatching often in a way that ends up dragging the tip of the pen along the paper when you move your hand back, before making the next mark. This comes off as sloppy. Also, in the first one, your lay-in does not look like it was done properly, since the cylinders that make up the pot and its base are not aligned properly in perspective.
For the digital painting - your first step should be to establish your forms' silhouettes, and do so cleanly. The cylinder of the pot, the leaves, each one should have a clean silhouette. Usually I'll start off messier, but the process of cleaning up requires you to make decisions about where an edge exists. Once these silhouettes have been established, you have more freedom - you can lock the transparency on these layers, or work with clipping masks, and paint within the shapes without worrying about going outside.
There's one other thing I can recommend - never paint an object in isolation. Our subjects exist within a setting, and that environment will impact its lighting and colours. The black/white gradient isn't helping you - paint in the general colours and surfaces of the area so you will gain a better understanding of how the light bounces off the ground and onto the pot and leaves. You can leave that surrounding area rough, because it only exists to help you understand - but it should still be there.
I didn't have a good idea on how to approach the texture, in the hindsight I think I'd have been better off drawing delicate outlines to indicate the areas of color change.
Nice work - especially on the mushrooms. You'll notice that your most successful pieces were the ones where you didn't try and detail the fuck out of everything. Top left of page 7, with the spherical berrythings and the simple leaves. You did a great job of conveying the forms of the berrythings, and kept the focus on them. I would have gone so far as to leave the leaves as an empty shape (without the veining inside), but it's still fairly effective.
So as far as the detailing goes, don't just detail everything. Decide on your focal point, detail that, and leave everything else much looser. Also, when you're texturing, avoid doing anything that feels like random scribbling. Everything should carry some degree of intent, in direction, weight, pressure, etc. If you get random, it'll just end up looking messy.
I look forward to seeing your work for lesson 4! ... And I hope when you submit it, you'll rotate the images, for the sake of my neck! :P
Umm yeah, sorry for that... my cell phone rotated them :P
I'll make sure it doesn't happen in the future :)
The problem with overdetailing comes from the fact that I usually screw something up really bad and then I have to compensate for it... But it's getting better, I'm working on my linework quite often (thats why this hw took me so long) and it's gradually improving. I still need a LOT of practice to get to a decent level.
Anyways thanks for your swift reply!
[deleted]
2014-10-29 01:12
I dunno you check this thread anymore, but here is my work. I couldn't get my hands on paper and pen yet, but the tablet arrived today so I decided to mess around with it today. Mine looks the worst around here but here we go!
I do indeed still check all the threads! Or rather, I still get notified of comments on them, which is definitely handy.
In terms of details, you're not doing too badly, but where you're lacking is form and solidity. You aren't capturing any sense of volume or dimension in your drawings, so they in turn come out very flat. I can't help but notice that you haven't submitted any homework for lessons 1 and 2 - that would definitely contribute to those weaknesses.
The first two lessons deal with the flow and integrity of lines (yours are pretty sketchy, which compromises solidity and form), and also approach how forms can be manipulated in perspective and also how they interact with each other. It's all very important foundational work.
I look forward to seeing your submissions for those lessons, and I hope you can find some paper and a pen soon! I totally understand the excitement from having a new tablet, and you should absolutely be playing around with it - but for the sake of practice, you should still do these lessons with a felt tip pen on paper. Once you've gotten through the lessons, your understanding on what you need to carry over into digital will be much stronger, and will allow you to progress faster.
[deleted]
2014-10-29 01:37
Thanks for the feedback! I actually did some of Lessons 1 and 2, but with tablet, since the pen/pencils and sketchbook are all arriving tomorrow. If you would still like to have a look, http://imgur.com/a/ynlej
Obviously I didn't have enough patience in Lesson 2 since I really wanted to draw something first! But I think my drawing is significantly weirder since I've never used a tablet before. Hopefully they'll all be better when I repeat them on paper. Thanks for the reply!
Definitely looks like you might be having some driver issues for your tablet. Notice how a lot of your lines are coming out jagged and almost robotically wobbly? Looks like there's some miscommunication between your tablet and your software.
Wacom's drivers tend to be hit-and-miss. If you installed the ones that came on the CD with your tablet (I'm assuming they still provide drivers like that), then it might be outdated. Even if it's the most recent driver, sometimes the newest drivers are crappy.
Start off by unplugging your tablet and uninstalling your current driver. Then reboot your machine and download the first driver from the link above, 6.3.9w5. Install it, reboot again, then plug in your tablet.
If your lines are still wobbly, repeat those steps (including all of the uninstalls, reboots, etc.) with the other driver, 6.3.6-3. If you're still encountering issues, then... I guess the only option is to contact Wacom.
These issues are common though, so there should definitely be a solution out there.
[deleted]
2014-10-29 01:58
Now buyer's regret is coming in D:
Should I just ditch the tablet for now and work on paper for a while until I can get a better tablet? Or is the one I bought fine until very later on?
The tablet you purchased is just fine, and will last you for several years once you get the driver issues sorted out - which like I said, are super common. I've got the Intuos Pro right now, and when I installed the latest drivers, I encountered the same clusterfuck.
I still think you should work on paper for now, while you do the lessons from /r/ArtFundamentals, but once you get your tablet working properly, you should still play around with it and get used to it.
The lines definitely look way better. Still a bit concerned about the shorter lines (in the handwriting) but we'll see how it goes.
[deleted]
2014-10-29 03:37
Yeah I don't know what's wrong with the writings. My handwriting isn't pretty but it isn't that bad! I just did a wasp and it felt a lot better. Just going to have fun with the tablet until my gear arrives!
Here's my homework. on #10 I attempted to draw a tree, as you can see it did not turn out very well, do you have any tips on drawing these kinds of trees?
For trees like that, instead of focusing on drawing little closed shapes for each leaf, look at the shadows instead. Designing your shadow shapes carefully can still give you the sense of leaves (because you'd have little divets in the shadow shape in the shape of leaves) but very much reduces the density of detail, which is the primary issue with this one.
This is how I approached it when I did this assignment, though I found using a brush pen helped me cover those shadow shapes a little more easily.
You've done quite well, though. I especially like 7 and 8, and the rectangular frame was a nice touch on 17. My neck, however, hates you. Rotate the images next time!
So I'm....apprehensive about this one. I'm really really skilled at abstract forms and stuff, but the transition to actual drawings is...difficult. I do hope this is...up to snuff.
Haha, your pen is dying 'cause you're torturing the poor thing! I think you're not putting enough time/thought into the lay-ins and the early stages, and your instinct seems to be to compensate for the weakness in form with detail and lighting. As we saw from things like the organic forms with contour lines, you should be able to see form in the linework - the shading only reinforces what is already there.
With your lay-ins, be a little less sketchy, and a little more deliberate. Where you see a cylinder, start with the ellipse on the top (a couple rounds, not a cyclone), then draw the other ellipse, and connect them with two solid lines. From the looks of it, you're in sketch-mode, which naturally seems to mean a billion marks on the page. Slow down, think about everything you do before you do it.
Your pitcher plant lay-in looks pretty good. Still probably a little sketchier, but it's fairly clear and it seems to start suggesting its own volume. Your palm tree is on the other hand, pretty weak. It's not giving you any idea of 3D space, or even concrete form. The palm leaves aren't defined. Also, the trunk is not closed off, so it doesn't give us the sense of being a form at all.
I like the maple tree lay-in , it's simple but it summarizes everything that's going on.
As for the full drawings, once again the pitcher plant is pretty good, but you made a mistake in the way you approach your hatching for the shading. It's still pretty scribbly (though I see you did the texture exercise, and it's looking pretty decent albeit a bit rushed). The bigger problem though is that your hatching doesn't follow the contour of the form. This is really important. The contour lines we explored in lesson 2 are not limited to what you're drawing, but also how you draw. Hatching lines can reinforce the curvature of a surface if they run along it - but conversely, if they go against that curvature, the object will appear completely flat. This also works for paint strokes, once we get to that.
I'd like you to do two pages of plants, but don't go into lighting or detail. Focus on their structure and 3D form. Take advantage of natural contour lines (and if you feel it helps you understand the form, feel free to throw in one or two of your own if there aren't any), and remember to be deliberate with what you draw. Think before you make a mark, and absolutely conserve your lines.
[deleted]
2014-11-12 05:04
Just to clarify: you want the outlines of the plants, without detail?
No shading or anything?
I think I can do that. Needing to slow down is news to me, though- I always feel I'm going too slow to start with, so.
Yeah, just the linework. Think about it as the form intersection exercise, but applied to an actual object. I want to see you convey 3D form without having to resort to shading. Also, about slowing down - it's more about giving yourself the time to think and plan, rather than actual speed.
Hm.. It is starting to look better. Now do another two pages of the regular full drawings, but remember not to go overboard with shading or detail. Sometimes it helps to draw a circle over your focal point and restrict yourself to adding extra shading/detail only within that circle. Check Lesson 4's animal demo for a better idea of what I mean.
For these two pages, I think it would be best if you pick from the ones you already did, and simply redo them. That way we can have a direct comparison and see whether you are demonstrating a better understanding of 3D form.
Hello! So, I decided to go ahead and post what I have now, even though its not finished yet. I wanted to see if you could go ahead and take a look at what I've done so far and see if maybe you could help me out. Then I could take another stab at it. Homework I feel like I am not doing to great of a job at this one. I've never really drawn plants before, and even after I put in the layouts the plant is still so overwhelming. Maybe I am approaching it from the wrong angle or something? I dunno. I'd really appreciate any light you could shed on the situation! Thank you!
Your lay-ins are alright. Page 1 has a few issues, where you're not closing your shapes/forms. If a form isn't closed, it's automatically going to look really flat and won't contain much volume. Page 2 is better, because you're actually closing those forms.
The stuff on page 5 is pretty good. On the right, you've got a lot of really nice play between complex and noisy areas with large swathes of empty leaves. The trunks/stalks/stems/whatever of the plant are looking a little odd though. Kind of irregular. When approaching things like that, just focus on the cylinder/tube shape that's being twisted around. Maybe look into the texture and see if you can find some nice natural contour lines to throw in. If you can't, just toss in some contour lines for the hell of it. The point where it's overlapping with the soil in the pot doesn't look quite right though. I think the soil would be bulging upwards, covering that end of the trunk.
One thing that I do notice you doing - which I've seen from other people - is that you're focusing too much on lighting. The 3D aspects of the drawing - volume, contour, etc. should be coming through before you start shading things. The edges show how forms turn in space, shading merely emphasizes what's already there. So if you rely on shading too early and fail to work in that 3D structure at the earlier stage, the shading will be attempting to emphasize something that isn't really there.
A good example of this is the tree on page 6. Those leaves have no structure, they're just kind of there. Often you'll find clusters of leaves forming a sort of squashed ball. The trunk's solidity is also being undermined by the hatching - it no longer feels like it's a solid object, with all of the rough and frayed edges.
The lily on page 7 looks fantastic. The shading does weaken it a little bit, but I still get a sense for the petals peeling back in space. Page 9's not bad either.
What I would recommend for you is to do at least three or four pages of plants with no shading at all. Focus on the structure and form, and try to convey that 3D-ness just using the edges and contour lines.
When you do go back to shading though, be mindful of how you apply your crosshatching. It's kind of messy right now. Hatching should almost always be very regular, almost mechanical. The lines should be parallel, or if they're following a curving surface, they should curve equally like a flock of birds flying together. No scribbling, no randomness. Do your best to convey intent.
Thank you for getting back to me. I will start on this asap. Quick question though, When it comes to things like bushes/trees, plants with lots and lots of leaves, is it typical to just kind've guesstimate the leaves and fill in? Or should I be making a conscious decision to try and draw in each leaf? When I look at something like a tree, I don't even know where to start or how to go about doing the leaves. If I try and draw each leaf, I lose concentration quickly and just get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of leaves that need to be drawn. On the other hand, if I try and just fill, I end up hating the way it looks and want to just start over.
Donno if it's standard, but that's sure as hell what I do. If I tried to draw in every individual leaf I guarantee you I would just die at my desk. This is a pretty good example of when I was 'preparing' myself to write up this lesson, since I hadn't done the whole observation-from-life thing in a while.
Don't take it as a strong example of what to do, because I was just kind of finding my stride - but it is basically how I think.
Specific details are very, very overwhelming. What we are doing when we draw something, aside from understanding its form and construction, is composing the image itself. We are trying to communicate what the object is to a viewer, and in doing so we have to set up a hierarchy of information. Some information isn't important at all - you could draw three leaves and just indicate/hint at the others, and you'd be communicating the idea pretty well.
What's important when you're drawing something is to balance areas of high-contrast/noise/detail with simple, clean, blank areas. The eye needs places it can rest, and it doesn't want to be screamed at.
Sometimes your reference lends itself to that, sometimes you have to make those calls yourself, deciding what details to ignore and what to emphasize.
Alrighty! So I tried to focus more on over all shape and form of the plants this time. Definitely think it helped out a lot. Still having a little trouble on the trees, But I think your note on balancing out noise and blank space was very helpful.
Hm... that's puzzling. Your form is still rather weak, but you nailed the foliage in that tree, it looks awesome.
It looks to me like you're worried about drawing lines that aren't actually in your reference image - like the construction lines. For now, don't worry too much about drawing the construction shapes and forms faintly and gingerly. Draw them in boldly and as closed forms. Complete spheres, solid cylinders, etc. The core of that tree trunk is a cylinder, but I don't see the construction lines of where it closes at the bottom.
Also, with the mushrooms - especially the one on the right, your lay-in for the cap was very loose. I can see how it is composed of multiple lines, in a rather sketchy manner. I think your biggest weakness is specifically with cylinders, though. Maybe practice drawing a few tube-like forms that twist and turn a bit, like stems and tree trunks. Remove them from the plant context, and draw them like the organic forms with contour lines from Lesson 2.
hmmm, yea I think you are correct. When I am drawing these my basic process is: try to lightly block in the shape of the plant, then draw out the edges, and then draw out details. Maybe I should spend more time on blocking in the overall shape? And when I am drawing in the edges, I think you are right about me trying to not draw lines that don't exist. Should I not do that? I'm sure there is a "sweet spot" when it comes to that kind of thing. Mixing the actual image with imagination? I think I am going to try and just break down a bunch of different plants, into super basic forms (cubes, cylinders, cones, etc..)
See, it's more that these exercises aren't about drawing beautiful images. Hopefully that is the result, but it's more about understanding the forms that you see, and building those skills so that down the line, you can more effectively draw these things without relying as much on construction lines.
So always keep in mind that this is a training exercise, whose purpose is to help you learn. Not a step-by-step of how to produce something beautiful.
Sorry to bother you again, especially without work to show, But drawing cylinders aside, I just feel like I'm not getting what it is I should be focusing on. I keep falling into the trap of focusing to much on the final form of it all, I am trying desperately not too, but if I just try to quickly sketch something out, its too loose and doesn't read at all. I can barley even tell what it is, and I drew it! I feel for something like this my strokes should be more fluid and confident, but I am just not getting it. would you maybe have any advice on this? If not I will just keep chuggin away at what I am doing.. I just feel like I am going to turn it in and it is going to be wrong... again haha.
All I could think to do was to draw another example. The one in the lesson isn't.. the greatest, I guess. Here's a coconut tree.
By the third step, you're pretty much done. Frankly, I probably went a bit too far with the lines on the less important leaves. When you see one of those leaves, you should not see a bunch of tiny pieces. You should see the overall form, and then draw it as though that is exactly what you see. Not like it's a faint construction sketch. At each step, focus on the purpose of that step - don't try and pave the way for the next one, and in doing so, fumble it.
"You should see the overall form, and then draw it as though that is exactly what you see. Not like it's a faint construction sketch."I have not heard it put that way. That's actually way helpful!!
That applies more to the exercises, of course - by the time people are doing actual illustrations, they'll know enough to do handle the construction steps however they feel most comfortable. For now, it's all about making sure people aren't looking too far ahead and forgetting about the step they're on.
Okay, Got you some more to look at haha.. Sorry this is taking me so long to do, I feel like this is something I should have been able to pick up pretty quickly, not sure what my deal is :/ Also, Sorry this is all crammed onto 2 pages, I ran out of paper in my sketch book at work today and I didn't bring a back up! Homework
You are getting it, gradually. These are feeling quite a bit better. I really like how you handle large clusters of leaves. Frankly, I'd go so far as to call this lesson finished.
There's still room for development, but the way all these lessons work, is they're stacked on top of each other - one building on the next. The core values of each are the same, about this breakdown of form and structure. The progress you've made here will reflect on the next stuff, and the progress you make there will affect how you draw plants in the future.
I think you should take it easy, let these things process and digest, and then move onto the next set. Insects, I believe?
Okay, so things definitely aren't going right. The biggest issue I can see right now is that you are relying heavily on lighting and detail to push the image, rather than the underlying structure.
Lets start a little slower. You skipped the part where you were supposed to do a few pages of lay-ins. That's important so I can see how you're approaching the early stages.
Do two pages of lay-ins and show them to me. Don't go beyond that stage.
So, this one is taking a while... Only on page two of the actual plants. Anyway, do you have any tips for shading? I think I saw some in one of the threads but can't for the life of me find the post. I think my form is relatively bad, but the shading is even worse! (The struggle tho)
It sounds strange, but there's method to my madness. Shading is so often used as a shitty crutch. Same with adding overwhelming detail. It just takes bad shape/form and makes it a bazillion times worse, while attempting to mask the initial problem.
Line should be more than sufficient (using the tools we've learned so far - contour lines, weight, using changes in the edges to demonstrate how a form turns in space) to demonstrate form successfully. Then, shading and detail kind of hangs off of that. It'll emphasize what's already there, but without that underlying form, it'll amount to nothing.
If you're uncertain of your form, do a page or two without any shading and show them to me. I might be able to point you in the right direction. You should know though, I just shipped off all three of my monitors and am about to start dismantling my PC. I'm pretty limited with what I can do with my laptop, but I can still try to give advice and critique.
Okay, so page one and two are the lay-ins, I hope you can see them okay, I had to use flash because they're super faint but it didn't help much. Page 3 was a weird exotic plant that I don't think came out very good, and a bonsai tree which I think is the best thing. Page 4 I tried to do a banana tree from your friends flickr page, but I got frustrated and skipped to page 5 where I tried to do what you asked. The second drawing on page 5 is super badly done and not finished but I guess it works as an example. Anyway, struggling, fix me with your magic words.
Hm... So I've been mulling it over, trying to think of the best way to tackle giving you advice.
A good starting point is looking at the top left of page 4. You've got some leaves coming off a stem. Simple enough, and it has both strong points and weak ones.
The top most leaf, the one that comes out towards the right - that one's done rather well. What's good about it is the way you've tackled the line weights. They're on one side of the leaf, not all around it, so it gives us a sense of thickness to the leaf. The one below it, however, has a thick line going all the way around - our eyes try to look at the thick line as representing a thickness in the leaf, but our brain knows that you can't see the thickness all around. So, the illusion breaks, and the leaf looks terribly flat.
Next, back to the top leaf. The center line has a bit of a flowing curve to it. This curve is bending through space, so it gives us the impression of a 3D object. The one below it, however, has a center line that is almost completely straight and rigid. I think one of your biggest weaknesses, across the board, are these rigid, stiff, lifeless lines. There's no flow and life to them. I can't help but get the feeling that when you're drawing them, you don't feel as though you're drawing a 3D object. What you perceive yourself to be drawing always comes through.
I want you to do a full 4 pages of plant drawings (feel free to repeat ones you've already done) but don't do any shading and don't go into any fine detail. Stay away from trees, because you're going to get too caught up in the foliage. Stick to things with big bulbous shapes, curving leaves and stems, etc. Keep thinking organic, curvy, flowing, full of life.
We'll see how you're doing after the 4 pages. And take your time! Don't jump on the work, take a break, mull over it, and get in the right mindset.
Hey, so I took a few days off the lessons to draw some of what I enjoy as I was feeling quite put off! Anyway, back now, think the couple of days definitely helped, although these are still very wonky. Anyway, let me know what you think.
Your shapes and forms are getting better. The leaves on the first page (in the middle of the page) look way better. They have a nice sense of flow to them.
The shapes (outside edges) on the third page also look much better, and they feel as though they're objects that could be turning in 3D space.
I can see that you experimented with using broken lines on the inside - it's good that you're experimenting, but that definitely took the wrong direction. Those broken lines undermine the confidence of the outside edges, and they just appear confusing to the eye.
I think you're getting a better grasp on the space, but are still struggling with how to apply your details. It may be in your best interest to look at some of the other work that people have submitted for this lesson, and to read the critiques I gave to them. Look at what came out well, and what didn't.
Once you've done that, thought over it and maybe taken a bit of a rest if necessary, do another 4 pages. Again, no shading, just lines for now. You're definitely showing improvement, so I think the next set will continue that trend.
I think I'm doing something wrong but I decided to go ahead and finish anyways so I can get more feedback. It feels like my lay-ins are too simple and stiff compared to everyone else's. I'm also struggling with jumping from lay-in to drawing. It's like I panic when faced with so much complexity and I don't know which parts to draw and which parts to leave out.
Hmm... You're right, they are rather stiff - but you're doing a lot that's good. One of the biggest things I'm noticing is that you're drawing complete, solid forms - something that a lot of people fail to do for their lay-ins, and something that helps a lot. So kudos for that.
The thing about plants is that they combine the two sections of Lesson 2 - dealing with organic shapes and turning them into 3D forms, and also the 3D form intersections (which are more rigid). You have to find the middle ground, a point where you can take those rigid, rudimentary 3D forms and instead of feeling like they're made out of wood, play with them as though they're made out of rubber, or putty. They have weight and mass to them, but if you have a sphere, you can squish and stretch it.
Something I noticed in your work is that at times you rush a little too much, on the later stages of the drawing. Your cross-hatching is very scribbly and half-assed. Notice how those hatching lines tend to hook around at their ends? That's because instead of drawing individual lines, you're almost drawing a single line that loops back and forth. That is indicative of looser, exploratory sketching - what we're after here is thoughtful, planned execution of the construction you understand in your mind.
I'd like to see two more pages of plants, keeping what I've said above in mind. Treat your forms as though they're more organic, and less mechanical. Don't rush, put thought and intent behind every mark you make.
Okay, I think I get it now! Instead of jumping right from lay-in to drawing I tried to build up the complexity a little at a time, adding more and more detail to the lay-in until it turned into a drawing.
The lay-ins at the top of page 1 are great. Lots of energy, nice variation in your line weights, and the shapes feel very flexible and organic. The top of page 3 is pretty nice too, though be careful with your line weights - the drawing will flatten out if you darken all the way around the shape, instead of just on one side.
Overall, with these and your previous submission, I think you're ready to move onto the next lesson.
Your lay-ins are god-awful. Your full drawings, on the other hand, are actually really quite good. Some of them, anyways.
The bit about the lay-ins is more likely because you just misunderstood how to approach them. Once we correct that, I think it should reflect in your final drawings and make them even better.
The top right of page 3 is pretty good, though a little confusing as to the hierarchy of shapes. It's a little hard to tell what's in front of what. A better use of line weight should help with that.
The top right of page 4 is STUNNING. You have a very clear organization of detail - very dense in the centre, your focal point, and then it tapers out as you reach the outer petals. I'm not sure how much of that was from the flower itself and how much was conscious decision on your part, but that is definitely the sort of thing you should be aiming for. More variation on line weights to emphasize and clarify overlaps could be nice here too (when a line overlaps another, it is usually a little thicker - don't go overboard though).
The mushroom on the top right of page 6 is a prime example of where a stronger lay-in would have helped, largely because mushrooms are more clearly just a few basic forms thrown together (like the form intersections).
Top left of page 7's mushrooms are pretty nice. They're simple, and a little boring (line weights!) but they do an okay job of conveying form. They don't completely sell the illusion of solidity, but they're definitely going in that direction.
Bottom left of page 9 - another one of those flowers, you seem to be quite good with those overlapping petals. The leaves look pretty bad though, but the flower bit is fantastic. Usually I'd expect a person to end up drawing something that looks too confusing when there's that many little elements, but you pulled it off fairly well.
Nice texture study on the bottom of page 10, I like seeing little things like that. Shows me that you're thinking hard, analytically. That's the mindset you'll need to succeed at this sort of thing.
Page 11 in general is pretty nice. It's nothing special, but it does demonstrate the beginnings of an improved understanding of how these smaller shapes and forms make up a whole plant.
Having looked through these, I get the sense that you learned a lot through the process, and if you were to do the lay-ins right now, they'd probably come out better than the ones at the beginning. That said, since the example in the lesson honestly isn't that great, I created another one a while back for someone else, and included it in the notes. Take a look, see if it does a better job of explaining how to approach the process.
Your lay-ins should be composed of complete, solid forms and shapes. 3D forms are better for things like the mushrooms, where there's a lot of solid mass involved, 2d shapes can be applied for elements that are a little harder to pin down, or that are less solid - things like foliage, for example, that we like to bunch together into larger masses rather than dealing with them individually.
Anywho, I'd like to see another couple of pages of lay-ins, then you'll be good to go.
Thank you for the response. I guess I'm a little confused on the lay-ins, mainly on how far we are supposed to take it and how simplified we are supposed to make it. Hopefully I understand it a little clearer.
Here's a bit more of an explanation for you. The problem is that your lay-ins are more like speculative sketches, rather than solid constructions. You're looking very much at all of the detail - all the little shapes and bits. That helps you later on, because you clearly have a good eye for surface texture, but your drawings end up lacking a solid construction or base. As such, they end up looking flatter and less convincing.
Try and look at the big shapes, the big forms, the major rudimentary components that make up the object. For example, a maple tree is just a stretched ball (foliage) on a long tube (tree trunk). Don't look at all the leaves.
One of my problems was a lot of the subjects I would pick was usually just a close up of a flower and I wasn't sure how to simplify it when there were petals, do I just draw a circle shape encompassing all of them, or do I try to rough in the general shape of the petal.
I think I also went a little bit overboard with the contour lines on a couple of them but I wasn't sure how to communicate the simplified form without them.
Hm, this teaching approach isn't working too well, so I'll try something else.
One thing I'm seeing very much is that your lines are very wobbly and lack any semblance of confidence. You're being way too careful, like you're scared of making an incorrect mark. There are a lot of broken, dashed lines that undermine the solidity of what you're drawing. This goes hand-in-hand with why you're so good at detailing. You're definitely very observant and particular, but we need to work on your boldness and your willingness to get marks onto the page.
I'd like to see you do a lay-in - just a single drawing - using this picture of a flower as your subject.
Focus on:
capturing the major forms. what I see is a tube-like stem, a squashed ball in the centre of the petals, and a series of 2D shapes that radiate out from around it. Together those shapes seem to make a sort of ellipse, if you want to get really simple. The petals themselves curve through 3D space, but the shapes themselves are quite simple.
drawing with solid lines. no broken, dashed lines, if your lines are coming out wobbly (which they seem to be doing a lot) try and draw your lines a little quicker. wobbliness comes from being too careful.
Before you do this, do a few pages of the lines/ellipse exercises from lesson 1 as a warm-up, and only approach the lay-in once you feel comfortable and ready.
One last thing - I'm assuming you're using a scanner to upload your images. Something about the settings you're using is making it come out with a lot of contrast. See if you can scan it in as a photograph (usually this high contrast comes from settings associated with drawing presets). If you can't, then it may be better for you to take a photo of the drawing instead (a cellphone camera will do nicely). The high contrast is taking a lot of the character out of your lines, and it makes it a little harder to judge your work.
Nicely done! I did my own version of it last night, and yours matched up rather closely. I included some notes in mine - none of which are in direct response to yours, since I wrote them yesterday - but they still might be of value to you.
I really like the fact that you even threw in the contour lines over the bud in the centre of the petals. It shows that you're starting to understand the three-dimensionality of the various forms you're using.
Also, the quality on this scan is way better. Your lines have more character than the previous scans showed.
Since this one is definitely in the right direction, I'm going to mark your lesson 3 as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 4 when you're ready, but remember the things you learned here about the lay-ins, they're just as important in later lessons.
After a few days of looking at it, I'm not so sure about the line weight. I kinda feel like its a bit weak on the edges and I feel like I might have to push it more.
Also, you might see a bit of a slowdown on submissions from me because I just got a copy of Scott Robertson's new rendering book. Its pretty damn awesome.
Overall, these look really good (except for 10, I have no idea what that is).
Let's start with your lay-ins. It's a bit hard to critique most of them without knowing what exactly they're supposed to represent, but the most important thing that I'm seeing is that each one is comprised of complete forms and shapes. They're fairly confident, a lot of your forms carry a good sense of volume and solidity, etc. The only one I was just a teensy bit concerned about was #3 on page 1, what looks to be a mushroom. I would have thrown in a cap to the stem tube where it connects with the cap. I could be wrong (again, without the reference I'm just guessing) but it feels as though the connection point would be visible at this angle. Being able to see the cap on the tube would help reinforce how these two forms intersect.
Other than that, and based on how your final drawings came out, I'm convinced that you made the right choices between 2D and 3D elements when doing your lay-ins, and that they were not too simple for the subjects.
There definitely is progress as I flip through your finals. The first page are a little more tentative, a little more flat. The pot in #1 is awkward, like the top plane is angled while the bottom plane is flat. #2 is pretty decent, the layering of the bits on the stem is really nice. Actually, the whole thing is all about layering, and you pulled that off well. #3 is kind of meh. I like the details around the ridge of the cap, but I feel like the stem flattens out a lot. The cap shows some great volume and form, though.
At page 4 you really start to move forward quickly. The scale is good as long as you can convey the amount of detail you require - which it seems that you could. Both here show good form and volume, the surface texturing is not distracting (even with the complexity of #4). I do feel that you're lacking focal points, but frankly that's preferable to having a piece that is too busy. In the future, pick a spot on your subject, draw a circle over it (a lot of people are nervous to do that), and detail the shit out of everything inside the circle. Just outside the circle, you can taper off the detail. Here's an example of how my instructor, Peter Han, tackled that sort of thing.
Page 5 is looking okay, though some of the overlaps of the petals on #6 are a little unclear. The line weight uncertainty you mentioned is likely at play here. I'll go over that a bit more later. #7's got some nice organic twisting to it, and it shows some nice movement through 3D space. The petals are a little boring though, like they're begging to be made a focal point. I like the care you took when applying the little rings around the stem, they really push the form and solidity of the whole plant. Also that curling on the petal is a fantastic touch.
6 is nice, I like the simplistic approach to the cube-pot-thing, it really emphasizes the plant itself. That in itself gives the kind of contrast we look for to define a focal point, though that could definitely be taken much further. #7 is well done too, but there are ways of showing scale on an object without resorting to external reference. It's certainly not as concrete as having a person standing there, but it'll do the job in a subtler manner. It's all about the details. The best example I can think of is a large space ship. As a basic arrangement of forms, it is very difficult to tell how big it is, if there's no frame of reference. However, once the details are added, you immediately have something to compare. Little access panels, windows, recessed sections and cut-lines (oh god, how I love the cut-lines) all show scale because we understand at least to some extent, how they are intended to be used. Humans are driving this space ship - or usually, at least something human-sized. Therefore the windows are tailored to them, as are the access panels. Cut-lines might help show how it was put together, breaking it into more manageable parts. More cut-lines, more parts, probably a significantly larger overall construction.
Now, how do we apply that to plants? Tricky, but looking at things like leaves and petals, no matter the scale, some things don't change too much. One thing that comes to mind - and I could be wrong about this, so take what I say with a grain of salt - but the little veins in leaves probably aren't going to scale up very much with the rest of the plant. I'm sure there's more that you can find by studying your reference photo, so look for little details like that.
I really, really have no idea what's going on in #10, but every set of drawings is going to have a failure or two. No shame in that. The head on 11's looking great, though the stem kind of lost its form. Despite the reference, I probably would have tried to show a bit of the stem curving back around, instead of having the top of it hidden by parts of the head. I think that would have communicated its purpose a little better, and would have given us some nice flow.
Your trees came out really nicely. They're looking nice and solid, especially the tree trunks. The foliage was captured better in #13, but the approach you took for both was definitely the right one. Clumping things together, not letting the overwhelming detail get the better of you.
Now, for the line weights, there's two main things that I keep in mind when tackling them. First off, treat them like you would lighting. One side of a form will have a lighter line (closer to the light source), the other side will have a thicker line (further away from light source). Don't stick to the lighting thing as a hard-fast rule, but use it as a guideline. Then there's overlaps. A thicker line conveys the fact that it is on top of a thinner line. So if you end up with a T junction, you'll want to make the top bar of the T a little thicker than the vertical line. We already know that it's overlapping based on the arrangement of the lines, but we're trying to make it as easy as possible for the viewer's eye to pick up on it. In some cases, it becomes less obvious, so the weights are important to avoid confusion.
I did a quick treatment of your water lily to demonstrate how to approach some of those concepts. You'll notice that this also started to create a focal point around the connection of the root to the rest of the plant.
Anyways - you did a great job, and I definitely think you're ready to move forward.
Not gonna lie - I was super intimidated by this assignment, but it definitely got easier as I went along. The most difficult part was maintaining my patience and not wanting to quickly wrap it up.
Your lay-ins are pretty good, although a lot of the ellipses I see are pretty rushed. Slow down and make sure each shape and form is complete. I know you had trouble with patience, but you'll have to fight a little bit harder.
The forms in your final drawings are alright - sometimes you go a little too heavily into detail. Your leaning plant of pisa's trunk/stem/whatever does not need to be detailed out completely. It would have been a lit more successful had you left the vast majority of it empty with a few minor contour lines to reinforce the form. Same with the orange tree - you don't ever need to detail so much, it ultimately detracts from the drawing, because you end up overwhelming the viewer. There's so much noise and contrast that their eye doesn't know where to rest.
I can see that you tried to taper off from the detail with some of your other trees, and you're going in the right direction with that. You could go further, though. It's possible that this is a side effect of you trying to maintain your patience - you over compensated with detail!
The other major issue I see is line weights. You kind of went HAM all over them, and it flattens out a lot of your drawings. For example, the roses - you've got them surrounded by a heavy, black line. This turns them into a flat graphic shape, and no amount of contour lines or shading will be able to combat it.
I'd like you to reel back a bit. Do two more pages of plants, but instead of drawing them with full detail, try to approach it more like I did in this example (I added it to the bonus content in the lesson notes a while back). Do not apply shading or excessive detail. You can apply line weights, but be careful and thoughtful with it. Start off with thin lines, then selectively darken lines on one side of your forms (treat it like lighting, where the line closer to the light source is lighter, the one further away is darker). Also use line weights to reinforce overlaps - a thicker line crossing over a thinner line will always be clearly communicated as being on top.
I feel like you've got a lot of good drawings here, but they're buried under overwhelming detail and line weights.
[deleted]
2014-12-23 20:28
OK, I did a couple more pages of plants. I dialed back the line weight and the detail, stuck to basic forms to get the shape and then sprinkled in the details. Let me know if this is an improvement.
Better, though you still have room to grow. I think you might be a little heavy handed with your pen - or perhaps it's particularly thick to begin with? What size are you using?
I'll mark the lesson as complete, because I think that as long as you apply what you've learned in this lesson, you should be fine to move forward.
[deleted]
2014-12-23 23:39
I'm using a Faber Castell M pitt pen, should I go smaller?
Definitely. I think the M is comparable to the staedtler 0.8mm. I don't really use the faber castell's much (though they are generally a little better in quality than the staedtlers), but I've got a couple lying around and they're F. I believe that's comparable to the 0.5mm staedtler pens, which are the ones I recommend.
Page 8 is amazing. That tree blows my mind. The mushrooms on page 7 are really impressive too. Loving the form on whatever that is to the right of the mushrooms as well, the volume of the main mass is fantastic, and is accentuated by the thin, curling petals.
There's just a couple things that worry me a little bit. Here's an overdrawing of page 4. Basically, it's your ellipses. When doing your constructions, they seem to come out a little timid, a little uncertain. Draw them with confidence - consistent, tight ellipses. Even if you make a mistake, you can visualize what the ellipse would have been had you made it a little bigger, or a little smaller. You still have a solid ellipse that you can count on, though.
Oh, and don't forget that your pots have inner rims as well. There's thickness there, be sure to show it. Well - you kind of did show it on the top right, but it's kind of... unclear, I guess. The rim comes out uneven so it's not entirely clear if we're looking at the inner rim, or something else.
Your later ones definitely seem to be much better, so it looks like you did show progress through the lesson.
Here's my overscribbles. Overall, you did well, and you should feel free to move onto the next lesson. There are a few things to point out here though.
You have fantastic control over your details and your focal point. That was definitely what stood out to me most. Good control of graphic shapes as well. At times, however, your sense of 3D forms was a little lacking. This comes largely from the lay-ins, don't forget to work in the primitive 3D forms where they belong. This includes stems/trunks, flower pots, bulbous masses. 2D is for things with very little weight or solid form, while everything else is more 3D. There are in-betweens, but for those things you seem to have been fine.
Contour lines are the best way to deal with those 3D forms, and in plants there are a lot of natural ones that can work their way into your textures. Keep an eye out for these. In the next lesson you'll find those contour lines friggin' EVERYWHERE. BUGGSS AAHHHHH!
Ok, I'm planning to do a couple more of the plant drawings, but I wanted to get a little feedback first because I'm not sure I'm doing this correctly. I'm having some trouble detailing only one specific area, partially because I don't know what area to choose. I saw the tips about drawing a circle around it but I still get distracted and put detail everywhere because it just looks "wrong" otherwise.
I'm also including one more page of the form intersections from lesson 2 since you mentioned last time I should be drawing through the shapes more. Is this closer to what I was supposed to be doing?
Those form intersections are very nicely done. Still need to work on those circles, so be sure to keep up with the ellipse exercises from lesson 1.
Your plants look lovely (I really like 12 and 7) as far as observational drawing goes, but I'm trying to emphasize more analysis and construction. As far as yours go, I'd like to see a little less detail and a little more form.
This starts with the lay-ins. Treat them more like form intersections. Anything that has any weight to it should be rendered as a 3D form (tube, ball, box, etc - of course, I'm using these non-geometric terms because you can squash and stretch them as you please to fit the organic subject). Make sure your forms are closed and solid. Remember that these aren't sketches, they're constructions.
Areas with less weight - things like leaves, petals - can be captured as 2D organic shapes instead. Just make sure that they are also closed. You can apply contour lines to give them a greater sense of form and direction.
Once you understand that form construction, you can start applying the more specific elements that pertain to your subject - and once that's done, and it looks like your subject if it were naked and bare, you can start applying detail.
Detail is tricky. It's very, very possible (and quite easy) to add far too much. What you want to do is determine a particular focal point in your composition. My instructor used to circle his focal point - literally put a distinct circle over it. Then he'd detail the shit out of everything inside, and leave everything else relatively plain and simple. Here's some examples of how he handled focal points.
I'd like you to do two more pages. Don't go too heavily into the detail phase. If you like, you can choose not to add any extra detail. Just enough to communicate what your subject is. That is essentially what we're doing. Communicating.
I think seeing that overdrawing helped a lot, thanks! I tried to focus more on closing the shapes in my lay-ins. My lines are still a bit shaky, but I'm definitely understanding what's going on better. For the drawings, I tried to do different levels of detail without getting carried away. It was tough - I don't know why I have this urge to fill everything in.
Your last page is very nicely done. You're right about the lay-ins, some of them are looking a little shaky, but your final drawings seem to settle down nicely.
I think being forced to deal with less detail is very good for you in particular. Eventually you'll find a nice middle-ground between detailing the crap out of everything, and leaving it awkwardly bare. It'll come with practice, as long as you continue to actively and consciously struggle with it. Struggle is good!
I'll be marking this as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.
I do not forgive you - I commend you. The extent to which you developed your lay-ins is really great, and the result is clear. Your drawings have a much greater sense of form and weight. As you draw more, you'll find yourself gaining a greater control over your pressure, and your ability to visualize those lay-ins, but for now, it is very well done.
The only critique I have is that you should focus your detail a little more to create focal points. Decide on an area to draw your viewer's eye to, and lead it there by concentrating more detail in that area, and less detail elsewhere.
Well done! Feel free to move onto the next lesson.
I feel like I did a decent job on the lay-ins, but then when I started on the plants I got real discouraged. I feel like that first page is just no good at all. Then I started to improve, but one major thing I noticed is that I feel like I'm horrible at adding in detail. Once I have the outline done, they start to look good. But as soon as I start detailing/shading, I feel like every single one of them look much much worse. And then the weird thing is that when I finish, about half of them actually turn out pretty decent!
Without rambling too much more, I thought I started out weak, then got stronger and stronger, but then my last page started to go down hill again. I feel like my best are 7, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17. Also, I can't figure out how to draw branches for shit (that don't look flat)!
PS - I didn't forget about the box challenge. I'm up to 150 boxes so far.
You're getting there. I'm a little concerned about how you apply details, and your forms flattening out a lot. I did like certain aspects of 7 (the circle-leaves with varying density looks neat and gives the foliage mass form) and 16 (it reaches through 3D space nicely).
First off, draw BIGGER. These drawings are tiny, which makes it really hard to apply detail and explore form. Page 7's doing better, with two big plants per page.
Here's some notes about your approach. They mostly focus on your use of form, and how you can apply details to varying densities to accentuate the curvature of a form should help with those branches you were having difficulty with). Also, consider your viewing angle. If you look at something sidelong, it'll come out flatter. This becomes especially important with how wide you decide to make the bases of your cylinders when drawing stems or tree trunks.
I'd like to see four more pages of plant drawings, demonstrating that you've understood what I mean.
Thank you for taking the time to critique and create specific visual notes that I could use! Hopefully these new ones are better from a 3D form perspective, though I'm still occasionally crashing and burning (i.e. the flowers on page 3).
One thing that I'm finding troubles with somewhat frequently (but not always) is line weights. Mainly, I draw my lay-ins, then block out more detailed shapes. Then I add weight to the overlap lines. I'm finding that after I do that, I've got lines in the background that are too dark when compared to the foreground objects. And on top of that, trying to keep in mind to only darken one side of the object in the foreground, I start to get a little confused as to what lines to darken in what priority order.
Hopefully that makes sense. Does the line weight stuff start to become more of a general feeling, or should I just be using a greater range of line thickness to show all the different scenarios?
And thanks again for your work teaching and critiquing!
Hmm.. I think you can do much better than this. Form-wise, I'm not seeing that much improvement (aside from those gorgeous mushroom caps).
Here's some more overdrawing. The first is in regards to balancing your viewer's focus. Always keep in mind - adding more ink will draw the viewer's eye in most cases. So if you make a mistake, don't try and cover it up with more ink.
The line weight thing that you're worrying about, though, honestly is a non-issue right now. Reason being, you're so caught up worrying about making your drawings look clean that you're letting the form slip by.
So, I'd like you to do four more pages - this time, forego all the details. Just don't bother with them. Treat this as the form intersection exercise from lesson 2. I want you to draw through all your forms. Focus on getting the forms correct, and if that means drawing through your ellipses several times before lifting your pen, to keep your ellipses the correct shape like in these notes - which it should - then absolutely do it.
I officially hate plants. Haha. I hope these are following your instruction correctly. Let me know if you meant something else when you asked me not to add details at all.
This time I also drew in the lay-in forms pretty strongly, and it sometimes makes the resulting drawing seem a little busy. But I figured that was okay since we are focusing on those forms and not a polished end-state drawing.
I think I've had you draw enough plants, and while you've still got plenty of room to improve, I think you're starting to catch onto the concepts. I'll mark this lesson as complete, but keep what I mentioned in my critiques in mind as you complete the next lessons.
Today's a good day. Only had two critiques to do, and both were very well done! Yours is the second. Your constructions are very solid, and the sense of form and 3D comes through all the way into your most detailed drawings.
I especially love the top left of page 6, all of page 8 and the top right of page 9.
Your particular style is somewhat sketchier than what I usually look for, but you executed it well. There are some places where you could use a bit more solidity (your flower pots, especially on page 3 - the pots themselves are simple 3D forms, but your edges are sketchy and frayed which compromises the sense of solidity and weightiness), so you should look to improve on that. Still, I feel that in general you've done very well.
One other thing that I'd like to mention - again, it concerns the flower pots. Looking at your last page, on the far right, your pot has no width to it. You should consciously try to include just a little bit of a lip or rim to any hollow tube-like structure like that. Even if it isn't thick enough to register based on your subject, it would help in the communication of the forms to your viewer which is ultimately the top priority.
The first two pages of detailed drawings are from life, the next two are from reference. After looking over your examples again, I think I could have put a lot more effort into the textures and shading, but I got lazy. I'd also like to try adding some of the background vignettes next time too, they look pretty cool!
Honestly, I think the textures are very nicely balanced. They're sparse, but that's not a bad thing. Just enough to convey the information, not so much that it becomes overbearing.
Honestly, I'm finding that I generally don't have much critique to give - honestly, you're a good ways beyond me. Still, looking at your homework is always a joy so I hope you'll continue submitting it, even if I don't have much to offer.
I'm definitely going to keep submitting, these exercises and your notes alone are a massively helpful resource. They've really helped me gain a lot more confidence.
I'm sure you'll have a lot more to say when I get to the perspective and anatomy exercises. :P
It definitely looks like you were finding your way. Some of the drawings leave a lot to be desired, but there are a bunch that are really well done.
For the lay-ins, I think your second page is WAY better than your first. That's perfectly fine - in fact, it's great, because I love seeing the gradual understanding rather than immediate grasp of the material. It's why putting lessons into practice is so important.
I really love that fat tree in the top right of page 4. It's so simple, but you can immediately feel the form of its trunk, the bulging obesity of it all. The branches push that idea too, with their swollen knots.
The mushrooms on page 9 show some great forms as well, and the flowers on page 10 are all fantastic. There are others that are nice as well, but these stood out to me the most as the strongest examples of what you've learned.
In particular, I like your stylistic approach. You don't bury things in details, and you show a lot of form and curvature with line alone. Because of this, I think the pieces I mentioned came out stronger than the ones where you filled in your shadows with a lot of black. It's not that the particular method isn't one you should continue to practice and pursue, but rather that it's one where you have a lot of room to improve.
Comparatively, I think the shading of the tree on page 8 was quite well done. It's not as overbearing as your deep solid black shadows in other drawings, and it simply feels much nicer to look at. That one also exhibits some nice forms moving through 3D space, with the trunk/branches moving further away and towards the viewer.
Always remember that the details are the least important aspect - form is of much greater significance, A naked form that carries its volume and convincingly sits in 3D space is far better than a beautifully detailed drawing that falls flat.
It looks like early on, you were floundering a bit - a few hits and misses form-wise, focusing a little too much on detail. By the end, however, starting from halfway through page 6 and all the way to the end of page 8, you seem to figure out what you're doing. #14 and #15 are very nicely done. 15 is a particularly difficult one, and you've done a great job of capturing how those leaves reach into space towards the viewer.
Am I doing the first part right? I don't have time to continue the full homework right now, so I figured I would post these in case you get a chance to look at them before I get going on the rest. Thanks!
It's more or less correct. It depends on how these lay-ins represent your understanding of the forms. I ask to see them largely because they help me understand mistakes made in the rest of the drawings. On their own they're difficult to comment upon.
So I started this lesson a few months back, and ended up moving to a different country in between so I finally picked it up again this month. I don't know, I feel myself that some of the drawings are messy or off in a way. Maybe it's just the struggle of moving onto actual objects. Here is my work
Up to page 5, it wasn't particularly promising. Your lay-ins are completely done in 2D, which makes it somewhat difficult (but not impossible) to transition into capturing the proper 3D form. What you should be laying in is more of an extension of the form intersections from the previous lesson. Most elements will be captured as 3D forms, save for the few parts that are generally less substantial and weighty (individual petals, leaves, etc - though masses of them can create organic forms). These would be captured as 2D shapes, but even the shapes themselves often turn in 3D space.
Up to page 5, while they aren't the best, they still do demonstrate some movement into 3D, I just think that since your lay-ins are still 2D, you're setting it up to be a little more difficult for yourself. What I find disappointing about them is that the forms tend to be awkward and stiff, and the detailing is often too dense and distracting.
All that said, page 6 and onwards are very well done. They seem far more controlled. You capture your shapes more confidently, and your detailing seems to have been held back - you don't create lots of contrast everywhere for the sake of it, instead you produce attractive focal points. Page 7 is definitely the best example of this.
I'm marking this lesson as complete, because you've shown some clear progression. Try and carry over those strengths into the future.
I am also continuing to work on the intersections although I only took a picture of one of the pages I did. They are rough.
I felt like these were either hit or miss for me. (a big miss being the rose that I tried twice on the 8th page). Although I feel like I improved over time but you can be the judge of that.
It's good that you're trying the form intersections more, because I think the overall issue is that when drawing your plants, you're spending too little time on the construction. In general, you seem to be a bit rushed - looking at your details, they tend to be haphazard and scribbly.
I'd like you to draw three plants for me, and include the reference you used with them. When you draw them, do not move into the detail stage. Start with the lay in to block in your forms and shapes, then build up the plant, but stop before you start adding the minutae.
Focus on communicating those forms and overall shapes. For example, with the tree on the bottom of page 7, you should have blocked in each overall branch as a leaf shape. Then you could break that down into the individual pieces, but they'd follow the curvature of that overall shape. The example I included in the lesson notes went over something very similar.
As far as 'stop before you add details', using that example, I'd say stop before you reach the last step.
Also, put more thought behind every mark you make. Don't just sketch roughly hoping for the right line to be in there. You're free to draw through your ellipses to make sure that you achieve the correct shape, but for drawing simple lines, draw them carefully. You're doing a lot of rough sketching right now, and that's making things much messier than they ought to be.
Okay, I did 3 plants and stopped each one when I was doing the natural contour lines. I tried to be more confident with my lines. I have a bad habit of sketching/chicken scratching when I am not feeling confident in my drawing.
I had a lot of trouble with my 3rd image, I tried it twice and both look pretty bad to me. I feel like the overall shape for each leaf doesn't convey "leaves". I thought maybe the natural contour lines would help communicate leafs better but those made the drawing look worse.
There's numerous problems with your approach, but the most significant I think is that you're drawing really small. The smaller you draw, the bigger the tip of your pen ends up relative to the length of your lines. It also becomes much more difficult to get any sort of decent rhythm or flow to those lines.
You also need to go back and practice your organic forms and contour lines. You're not wrapping the lines around your forms, and your leaves are very stiff and rigid. Loosen up. Drawing bigger may help, but it's also a matter of your frame of mind. Imagine that you're drawing in 3D space, rather than just on a flat piece of paper. Carve that pen around the forms, in and out of space.
I'd like you to give the whole set of homework another shot keeping these things in mind. It will likely help to go back and do more of the lesson 2 exercises again, perhaps as warmups.
I'm really sick and loopy on meds, so rather than giving you a critique, just do this exercise. Two full pages of it, and then three more pages of plants. Then I'll mark the lesson as complete.
Very nice ribbons. Your plants are still stiff though, so consciously try and carry that organic flow into the flatter elements. Try and be conscious of how they twist and turn in and out of 3D space.
Still, as I said, you've been at this long enough so I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. As you explore these same concepts with the content covered in the later lessons, you should find things on this front improving as well. Doesn't hurt to come back and practice plants once in a while, though.
Not bad. It's clear that you did a lot of experimenting and learning through the course of this lesson. Your lay-ins are good, but early on you seemed to be unsure of how to approach detailing. The tree on page 4 seemed to be the first big challenge, and you defaulted to a more stylized approach, rather than keeping to your reference image.
On the next page, you paid better attention to the reference, and did a much better job. I also agree with your decision not to fully render - to do so would have been a mistake. The way you rendered it, it fades off nicely and builds a great focal point. You're guiding the eye around the composition quite successfully.
In general, your forms are good, though at times your use of line weight flattens them out. When you use a thick line all the way around a form, it ends up looking more graphic, which results in a flatter look. For example, the whole left side of page 4. You do get better at this though.
Honestly, the top left of page 5 is fantastic. Very well done, and your subject was especially complex due to all of the detail. You did well to capture that without it becoming noisy and distracting.
As far as observational drawing goes, your drawings are beautiful. But as analytical studies, they are ineffective. Rather than understanding the forms as they exist in 3D space, and as they relate to one another, you are replicating the information you see without really digesting it.
Don't worry about the little details - they're the least important elements to a drawing. Actually, I think it'd be better if I did a demo using one of your own reference images.
Could you link me the references you used? I'll pick one or two and I'll try to explain the approach.
First off, you're very, very stiff. These are organic objects, they sway and twist and bend and do whatever-the-fuck-they-want. Your lines are stiff and rigid, so you're not even beginning to convey that. You need to practice your continuous, wavy, organic lines. Here's an exercise I wrote up over the weekend that should help you loosen up.
Secondly, I don't think you're spending enough time on your lay-in. These things should consist of complete shapes and forms. The lay-ins you did at the beginning of your assignment are more or less complete, but make sure that you continue to do them like that all throughout.
Also, don't forget that your pots are not paper thin. There's thickness to them.
You're right about stiffness. Your exercise with arrows turned up to be very interesting and fun. After several pages of drawing arrows my perception of 3d objects on 2d plane of sheet changed somehow.
Now, here're some more attempts. Hope something changed. Looking forward to your critique.
Definitely better! I think I'll be incorporating the arrow exercise into lesson 2, when I rewrite it this weekend.
I think the best example of you breaking away from the stiffness is the tree (#7) - the limbs are starting to move through 3D space, instead of just trailing across the page. #3 is also showing some nice forms, though I'd definitely recommend that the really dense crosshatching inside the center should follow the contour of the surface. It's a really subtle touch, and most people wouldn't notice it, but I think it'd push it just a little further. The forms in #5 are also pretty well done.
You definitely have more room to grow, but I think you've demonstrated some strong improvement. I think you're ready to move onto the next lesson.
You're definitely piling on too much ink, and focusing way too much on detail. They're not bad as observational drawings, but I want to see their guts, their construction. Also, it looks to me that you're doing y our lay-ins in pencil. Do everything in ink. Don't concern yourself with producing a pretty final drawing.
I'd like to see a few more pages of plants, but I want you to stop before you reach the detailing stage. I want to see complete constructions of the plants, similar to this demo I just did for someone else.
I tryed to do more constructional drawings like you said. Through which I somehow got faster. Maybe because I didn´t focus as much on a pretty result?
Still one question: Why is it bad if I use the ink like this? Out of my view point it forced my mind to recreate the form, to understand. So that I can realistically recreate the illusion of form.
One explanation I have for myself is because what I did, and the constructional drawings are completely different exercises. But I´m not too sure, that´s why I´m asking.
Could you retake the photos? Usually the quality's not a big deal but here I'm having difficulty making out all of the drawings, since they're poorly lit.
Sorry it took so long. I try to generally avoid Reddit if I have to learn for exams so i do not get to reply much. Additional to that I got sick last Friday. But I will try to be faster in the future.
Hm.. I think I'll mark this lesson as complete for now. I'm not 100% happy with your constructions, but I feel like you might be able to improve better on the insects (the next lesson) than the plants. The insects emphasize more of the concepts that you're lacking here.
About the pens - stick to one pen (in this case, i'd say the fineliner). Your thicker lines are getting to be very thick, and it flattens the whole image out. If you stick to one pen, you'll learn to apply a greater degree of pressure control.
Also, there's no problem with you taking your time.
I like your lay-ins quite a bit, they have a clear focus on the 3D constructions that underlie your subject matter. I noticed the little note you made on your third page, "make line follow shape" and it's definitely something you need to consciously remind yourself of. I think that's the main weakness I see, primarily with the hatching - since they all become little contour lines. Often when they don't follow the surface of the form, they flatten the images out a bit. For example, the bottom right of page 6 - your hatching is mostly vertical lines, which contradicts the form that the other lines are conveying. It didn't come out badly, but that's largely despite the direction of your hatching, rather than because of it.
In general though, I like your forms, they're coming out pretty well. Go ahead and move onto the next lesson, but keep the hatching/contour lines in mind.
[deleted]
2015-02-24 03:31
I'll try some of those again with that in mind, thanks again for the advice and critiques!
Uncomfortable
2014-08-30 17:06
This lesson is the beginning in a series of lessons that cover drawing actual objects. It's important to do each lesson in order, because they build up to more complex subjects.
As with all lesson sets, be sure to complete the basics lessons before moving onto this one.
LESSON 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes
LESSON 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections
Notes
Strongly recommended that this lesson be done traditionally with a 0.5mm felt tip marker. Your results will likely not be as helpful if it's done digitally. Of course, it's up to you.
This approach relies on first completely ignoring all of the overwhelming detail. It may look silly and juvenile, but it is important to do the simple lay-ins first for every drawing. Not only does it help produce a successful drawing, but it also trains your brain to consciously ignore detail that is irrelevant.
I strongly recommend doing these exercises from life. Drawing from life is always better, but not always possible. Future subjects will be more difficult to find, but it's not that hard to find plants in daily life.
If you feel that you are starting to screw up one of the drawings, I urge you to persevere through it. Don't scrap it and start a new sheet - see what happens if you keep going at it. Of course, that doesn't mean just throwing ink everywhere and hoping it'll go better. But try and recognize what you feel you did wrong and analyze how to fix the image. This is a major skill to develop when it comes to drawing, especially with ink.
Bonus Content
November 21st 2014: Here's another example, since the one in the lesson isn't the greatest.
Here's a higher-res album of the examples I included in the lesson sheet. My digital example was kind of meh (largely because it was digital), but the control of texture and line weight is much clearer in these traditional examples. Aim for this, or better. Concentrate on the separation of shapes by the heavy shadows and line weight. Usually it pays off to be bold, even though it means putting down more ink and risking making mistakes. Also, be sure NOT to use the same line weights all around the image. It often creates a nice effect to have a heavier line on one side of a shape, and a lighter one opposite.
When I did this homework in my own class, we had gone on a field trip to the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia, CA. One of my classmates took a massive collection of fantastic reference photos. Check it out over here.
Homework
Minimum of 2 pages of lay ins - fill the pages, and don't go beyond the lay-ins. I want to see lots of different kinds of plants, and I don't want to see detail. Show me that you can focus on the general shape.
Minimum of 6 pages of plants, 2-3 drawings per page. Start with the lay-ins, then build up the complexity on top. As you increase complexity, be sure to play with your line weight and shadow shapes - if done correctly, this will make your initial lay-in lines (which you hopefully did lightly, carefully controlling your pen pressure and ink flow) seem to disappear, and the proper drawing will come forward.
Submit your homework here; photos and scanned images are both accepted, as long as the image is clear. Submit it even if it's bad - I may send you back to do the homework again, but I will try and tell you what you're doing wrong, and you will grow from the experience.
Also, sorry for the messy and inconsistent handwriting. It will happen often, and I will apologize every time!
PLEASE POST ALL HOMEWORK AND QUESTIONS RELATED TO THIS LESSON AS COMMENTS
mihachris
2014-09-01 19:05
Dropping by to get a piece of advice before I move on.
Here are a couple of sketches. I feel like I'm doing something wrong. Am I trying to draw too much detail and end up creating a mess? Should I focus more on drawing the plants like forms with wrapping lines? I need some tips on the technique!
Uncomfortable
2014-09-01 19:43
They're not bad, but the bigger issue that I see is the way you're trying to add detail. In the plant on the right, I can see some scribbly lines on the upper petal. By their nature, scribbles are random and messy - they don't show intent, and you always want your marks on the page to be intentional. Sometimes that means your hand is going to cramp up and hate you, but that's what it takes.
Another thing to consider is focusing detail in some areas only. The entire plant does not have to be covered in surface detail, often indicating it on some areas is enough to imply it for others. One thing my instructor would do is, he would finish his lay in and break down the forms - basically get to the stage before he'd start adding texture information. Then he'd draw a circle around his focal point, and only put detail within that circle. Here's some examples of his sketches where he does that.
It's a good idea to look at how he draws his plants - focus on how he simplifies the image using large areas of black shadow, and the different ways he goes about indicating detail (without necessarily filling everything with texture information).
mihachris
2014-09-01 22:30
The main problem I believe I have is that I try to add value and texture everywhere, thus making a mess. From what I see from Peter Han's and your sketches, you find a balance between those two and the end result is very clean. I guess that comes with practice though.
Btw, these exercises you are assigning us follow the "Dynamic Sketching 1" curriculum, right? It's a really good course from what I've heard.
Uncomfortable
2014-09-01 22:34
Yes, that's the one - and if you ever get a chance to take it, you definitely should, be it online or in person.
mihachris
2014-09-17 18:52
So here is my completed homework. It was a pretty shitty one. I currently have uni exams and tomorrow is the last one. I have to admit though, that plants aren't the most enjoyable thing to draw for me.
I'm not patient at all and I have a pretty messy sketching style, I just find it nearly impossible to draw the perfect line. I always make lots of mistakes, and that's why I prefer pencil, because you can control the line weight much better (I never use eraser). Tbh, I don't like super clean line drawings but I want to have energy in my sketches and expresiveness. I also found it pretty hard drawing only major forms because plants are full of details which you can't even make out.
Sorry for the ramble. Lesson 3
Uncomfortable
2014-09-18 04:21
Your lay-ins are looking nice. Very simple, great summaries of the forms present. 7 looks really nice, and I appreciate that you also captured the context of the subject. You also demonstrated how we can use the rules for drawing solid forms in reverse to depict masses of leaves that have very little weight to them at all.
In number 11, you didn't quite manage to capture the volume and form of the fruit. I think it's the hatching that is not quite following the contour of the object. The result is somewhat random, so it flattens out the form.
13 is absolutely gorgeous. You've used shading and texture (and lack of texture in certain areas) to establish a clear focal point. The drawing also has a lot of dimension to it, because you've captured the orientation of the forms very well, so it looks convincingly 3D.
15 is also quite nice, but the cast shadow that falls on the water was not done very well. It looks like you'd had enough at this point (and after a lot of drawing, I can understand), and half-assed the shadow. Unfortunately, in half-assing it, you hatched it against the surface of the water. The angle of your strokes matters everywhere, and that's one of the keys that differentiates a bad messy sketch from one that feels like it's full of energy.
On that note, you're right - your better sketches do carry a lot of energy in a way that a clean, exact drawing would fail to do. That said, our overall goal here is to gain mastery over our drawing hand. If you want to make a rough, energetic stroke, you should be able to. If you want to make a precise mark, however, you should also be able to - because the need for that will arise at some point. Each one has its place.
Anyways, great work. I'm already seeing a fair bit of growth.
mihachris
2014-09-18 06:01
Concerning number 15, I began shading with strokes in the wrong direction and it messed it up. I made mistakes like this all the time and it was too late to kinda fix them.
Thanks a lot for the awesome feedback!
ArbitraryFern
2014-09-17 10:03
Back with lesson 3! Had a fun time with this one, but sometimes my sketches end up too cluttered in my opinion? If I look at your examples they seem so clean.
I'm still having troubles with line weight, I don't know if it's the wrong kind of felt pen or if it just me and I need to practice more.
Took a picture of the pen I'm using now. The left one was a bit too big and not easy to make different lines with it. The right one is quite fun but if I put a lot of pressure on it, it doesn't make a big difference in thickness. What do you think?
Lesson 3
Uncomfortable
2014-09-17 16:53
As far as the pens go, the orange one seems to be about right, though I suppose it isn't really producing the range of weights that we're looking for. I use the Staedtler Pigment Liners which can generally be found at any art supply store and some office supply stores. I specifically use te 0.5.
I'm going to refer to the pages as they appear in your imgur album - meaning page 1 would be the picture of your pens.
On page 2, I really like the lay-ins for the pear-shaped fruitplantthing (bottom center), and the one on the left with the numerous bulbous masses. Those shapes cary a lot of volume with them just through the way you've captured the flow of the shape. Very good. Strive for this kind of flow and volume. Page 3 seems to be a fair bit weaker, but that's normal. A lot of my initial lay-ins were like that as well.
Your venus flytrap is very striking, nice use of graphic shadow shapes. Notice though where you use hatching on the stem portion of the plant (the part coming off the main flytrappy-spineymouth-bit and leading back to the roots), you're not hatching along the form. The way you've approached it will flatten it out. Instead try and think of them as an opportunity to achieve a similar effect as contour lines. It's the same thing when you paint - you want your brush strokes to wrap around the 3D form to reinforce the idea that you are not looking at a 2D surface.
With the very dark tree, it seems to me that your initial lay-in may have been weaker. Here's a quick demo I did many months ago. If you look at the way I approached the tree, I layed in the masses of leaves as circles/spherical forms. We want to convey that the leaf masses are voluminous.
I really like the way you approached the water surface on page 8. That piece looks really striking. The surface texture (the hatching) could have been handled better though. I've noticed this in most of your pieces, that you're putting hatching all over. In a lot of cases, it just adds unnecessary noise that stresses the eye out somewhat. When I look at this piece, my eye settles most comfortably on the lilypads, because they provide a nice rest area. It's true that noise helps establish a focal point, but if you push it too far it becomes uncomfortable.
Nice work on page 12 as well. Your hatching is flattening it out once again, but if I ignore it, I imagine that the forms conveyed a fair bit of volume before the hatching was added.
So to summarize this critique:
Don't use hatching thoughtlessly, it will flatten out your forms
Where you use hatching, try and make it wrap around the form and emphasize the 3D aspect of it
Try and strike a balance between noisy areas and rest areas.
Your lay-ins are mostly looking solid
I like your use of graphic shadow shapes, it helps build a hierarchy of detail - you're taking certain chunks and saying, "these are not important" and by doing so, you're giving more attention to the areas that need it.
Feel free to move onto lesson 3, but keep these points in mind as they will be relevant in all subsequent exercises.
ArbitraryFern
2014-09-17 18:11
A big thank you for your advice, especially on the hatchings. Looking back on the sketches, my hatchings aren't well thought out. So that's a big point to focus on together with the rest of your advice.
Also going to get me some of those pens when I have the chance!
jabberdoggy
2014-09-25 00:04
Here is my homework for Lesson 3.
Uncomfortable
2014-09-25 00:22
Your drawings are coming out rather flat. After looking over your homework a couple times, I think I've come to realize what your overall mistake is-
You spend a lot more time on the polish/detailing stage than you do on the construction stage. When you block in the form, it looks to me like you're rushing through, and you're not envisioning the subject in 3D space.
You need to draw through your forms (if you're putting down a cylinder, draw the full ellipse on both ends, so you can see the parts of the line that would technically be hidden), and you need to focus on using the tricks we've covered to convey the three-dimensionality of your drawing. The details don't really matter at all, and if you overdo them they can detract from the final piece. If you look at Lesson 5, you see a technique where I draw a circle around my focal point, and I only work on the details within that circle. That may help you reduce the noise and stay on point with your detailing.
jabberdoggy
2014-09-25 12:16
Thank you. I will give that a try.
curiouscake
2014-09-27 09:04
Homework!
http://imgur.com/a/3yVPo
I dreaded this at first, but then it got easier. (And then I got tired and sloppy at the end, sorry).
Do you have any tips on doing line weights and shadows? Or pointers to other articles? It's fun playing with them, but I do feel like I'm not really sure what I'm doing.
Uncomfortable
2014-09-27 19:22
Great work! Your lay-ins are clean and purposeful, and you capture the essence of each plant quite well in your individual drawings.
I especially like number 4, which shows a great understanding of volume and form, and 9 which definitely got very complex, but you pulled through! I also really like your control of your focal point. I think you achieved a good balance of detail and simplicity.
As far as line weights and shadows go, it's the sort of thing you learn as you go along. You're doing pretty well with them, especially in the middle of your set. I usually try and focus on a hierarchy of some elements being important and others less so - and i use shadow to separate those shapes out. Also, line weight is a good way of easily conveying thickness without having to actually draw in thickness, which involves adding more lines (and thus increasing noise/contrast). On that same note, it's also important to know where to avoid using thick lines, like on the edges of leaves.
Ruffell
2014-10-01 12:04
The first part of the homework done http://i.imgur.com/l8yHxXI.png and http://i.imgur.com/WEzD0BS.png
I am new to sketching/drawing. This is my first time picking up a pen and drawing since I was at school. I would deffo say I have no skill at the moment so the whole shading/lighting part of the homework next will be a struggle for me to actually look good or "real". Though can you comment to see where i am going wrong or if i am on the right track. Cheers! (Loving the tutorials btw... I dont see it yet but hopefully it will make be able to draw in the future).
Uncomfortable
2014-10-01 20:41
You seem to be doing the lay-ins decently, but I'm concerned about the fact that you didn't start at lesson 1, even though you mentioned that you are very new to this. All of the lessons are interconnected, with each one building on the one prior to it. Skipping to the parts that seem more fun is definitely not something I would recommend. It's best to take things one step at a time.
Ruffell
2014-10-01 20:42
I have done the other lessons. I just didnt post them :)
Uncomfortable
2014-10-01 20:47
Ah, fair enough then.
tmku
2014-10-08 21:58
Hey!
Here's lesson 3. The third page of lay-ins features references from life.
http://imgur.com/a/JDJeW
Two still life drawings I'm not really proud of, but decided to put them up anyway for potential feedback: one two
Additionally I've done a still life digital painting. I stopped working on it after c. 3 hours (the upper right part is a bit more rough than the rest).
It's at the same angle as one of the drawings above, but the underlying sketch was made from scratch.
http://i.imgur.com/kslVtfJ.png
Uncomfortable
2014-10-08 22:26
There's a lot of critique below, but you should be ready to move onto the next lesson.
Your lay-ins are looking fairly good, though I am getting the sense that you're approaching them in a somewhat organic fashion, letting your subconscious/intuition drive your hand. The strokes don't all look like they're driven by clear intent.
The lay-ins, at their foundation, should be shapes and forms (and a few lines/curves). They're squished and squashed and manipulated and whatnot, but for the most part they're independent components. Don't approach it as though you're doing a lay-in for a specific object. Look at the subject, see the shapes and forms that underlie it and mark those down on the page. You're not drawing a plant, you're drawing a bunch of simple shapes and forms, because that is what you should be seeing.
I'm nitpicking, of course, for the most part you're doing a good job in that stage. The ones on page 2 are pretty well done.
The cacti on page 4 are very nice. I like how they convey the round, bulbous nature of the plant. The spherical plant on page 5 is quite well done as well, especially how you take advantage of the surface texture to reinforce the curvature of the surface.
On the other hand, some of your plants are getting flattened out, because you're trying too hard to cover them with texture. There's no need for that. If you look at the far right of page 7, it comes out completely flat because of the way you decided to texture it - both applying too much texture, and also forgetting to follow the curvature of the surface, which is always foremost.
If you look at the animal drawing lesson (lesson 5, I think), you'll see me discuss drawing a circle around your focal point and applying texture only within that circle, and leaving the rest fairly simple. I think this technique will help you organize your thoughts and clarify what is important in a piece and what is less so.
The focal point/texturing issues apply as well to your two extra still lifes. The second one is fairly well done, as far as form goes. Your hatching could definitely be much cleaner in both, though. You're hatching often in a way that ends up dragging the tip of the pen along the paper when you move your hand back, before making the next mark. This comes off as sloppy. Also, in the first one, your lay-in does not look like it was done properly, since the cylinders that make up the pot and its base are not aligned properly in perspective.
For the digital painting - your first step should be to establish your forms' silhouettes, and do so cleanly. The cylinder of the pot, the leaves, each one should have a clean silhouette. Usually I'll start off messier, but the process of cleaning up requires you to make decisions about where an edge exists. Once these silhouettes have been established, you have more freedom - you can lock the transparency on these layers, or work with clipping masks, and paint within the shapes without worrying about going outside.
There's one other thing I can recommend - never paint an object in isolation. Our subjects exist within a setting, and that environment will impact its lighting and colours. The black/white gradient isn't helping you - paint in the general colours and surfaces of the area so you will gain a better understanding of how the light bounces off the ground and onto the pot and leaves. You can leave that surrounding area rough, because it only exists to help you understand - but it should still be there.
tmku
2014-10-09 21:49
Thanks for the reply. You got some good points there.
The plant at page 7 definitely did not go as planned. This what I was trying to depict.
I didn't have a good idea on how to approach the texture, in the hindsight I think I'd have been better off drawing delicate outlines to indicate the areas of color change.
isleyso
2014-10-17 06:15
Done with this homework.
I finally bought some decent pens (last page only), took me a while to find something nice in this god forsaken place :D
I think i'm starting to like drawing with pens :) If I could only control my values a little better...
Uncomfortable
2014-10-17 06:25
Nice work - especially on the mushrooms. You'll notice that your most successful pieces were the ones where you didn't try and detail the fuck out of everything. Top left of page 7, with the spherical berrythings and the simple leaves. You did a great job of conveying the forms of the berrythings, and kept the focus on them. I would have gone so far as to leave the leaves as an empty shape (without the veining inside), but it's still fairly effective.
So as far as the detailing goes, don't just detail everything. Decide on your focal point, detail that, and leave everything else much looser. Also, when you're texturing, avoid doing anything that feels like random scribbling. Everything should carry some degree of intent, in direction, weight, pressure, etc. If you get random, it'll just end up looking messy.
I look forward to seeing your work for lesson 4! ... And I hope when you submit it, you'll rotate the images, for the sake of my neck! :P
isleyso
2014-10-17 06:45
Umm yeah, sorry for that... my cell phone rotated them :P
I'll make sure it doesn't happen in the future :)
The problem with overdetailing comes from the fact that I usually screw something up really bad and then I have to compensate for it... But it's getting better, I'm working on my linework quite often (thats why this hw took me so long) and it's gradually improving. I still need a LOT of practice to get to a decent level.
Anyways thanks for your swift reply!
[deleted]
2014-10-29 01:12
I dunno you check this thread anymore, but here is my work. I couldn't get my hands on paper and pen yet, but the tablet arrived today so I decided to mess around with it today. Mine looks the worst around here but here we go!
http://imgur.com/a/xkXhG
Uncomfortable
2014-10-29 01:19
I do indeed still check all the threads! Or rather, I still get notified of comments on them, which is definitely handy.
In terms of details, you're not doing too badly, but where you're lacking is form and solidity. You aren't capturing any sense of volume or dimension in your drawings, so they in turn come out very flat. I can't help but notice that you haven't submitted any homework for lessons 1 and 2 - that would definitely contribute to those weaknesses.
The first two lessons deal with the flow and integrity of lines (yours are pretty sketchy, which compromises solidity and form), and also approach how forms can be manipulated in perspective and also how they interact with each other. It's all very important foundational work.
I look forward to seeing your submissions for those lessons, and I hope you can find some paper and a pen soon! I totally understand the excitement from having a new tablet, and you should absolutely be playing around with it - but for the sake of practice, you should still do these lessons with a felt tip pen on paper. Once you've gotten through the lessons, your understanding on what you need to carry over into digital will be much stronger, and will allow you to progress faster.
[deleted]
2014-10-29 01:37
Thanks for the feedback! I actually did some of Lessons 1 and 2, but with tablet, since the pen/pencils and sketchbook are all arriving tomorrow. If you would still like to have a look, http://imgur.com/a/ynlej
Obviously I didn't have enough patience in Lesson 2 since I really wanted to draw something first! But I think my drawing is significantly weirder since I've never used a tablet before. Hopefully they'll all be better when I repeat them on paper. Thanks for the reply!
Uncomfortable
2014-10-29 01:42
Definitely looks like you might be having some driver issues for your tablet. Notice how a lot of your lines are coming out jagged and almost robotically wobbly? Looks like there's some miscommunication between your tablet and your software.
What kind of tablet did you buy?
[deleted]
2014-10-29 01:45
I bought Wacom Intuos Pen& Touch. This
I installed the latest drivers from the official website... Yeah I definitely noticed I couldn't draw straight lines easily.
Uncomfortable
2014-10-29 02:03
Wacom's drivers tend to be hit-and-miss. If you installed the ones that came on the CD with your tablet (I'm assuming they still provide drivers like that), then it might be outdated. Even if it's the most recent driver, sometimes the newest drivers are crappy.
Go to http://us.wacom.com/en/support/legacy-drivers/ and put in your model name. It should come up with two different versions, 6.3.9w5 and 6.3.6-3.
Start off by unplugging your tablet and uninstalling your current driver. Then reboot your machine and download the first driver from the link above, 6.3.9w5. Install it, reboot again, then plug in your tablet.
If your lines are still wobbly, repeat those steps (including all of the uninstalls, reboots, etc.) with the other driver, 6.3.6-3. If you're still encountering issues, then... I guess the only option is to contact Wacom.
These issues are common though, so there should definitely be a solution out there.
[deleted]
2014-10-29 01:58
Now buyer's regret is coming in D:
Should I just ditch the tablet for now and work on paper for a while until I can get a better tablet? Or is the one I bought fine until very later on?
Uncomfortable
2014-10-29 02:10
The tablet you purchased is just fine, and will last you for several years once you get the driver issues sorted out - which like I said, are super common. I've got the Intuos Pro right now, and when I installed the latest drivers, I encountered the same clusterfuck.
I still think you should work on paper for now, while you do the lessons from /r/ArtFundamentals, but once you get your tablet working properly, you should still play around with it and get used to it.
[deleted]
2014-10-29 02:29
I see. I'll try your method and report back!
[deleted]
2014-10-29 03:19
I think it's fixed? Thank you!
Uncomfortable
2014-10-29 03:24
The lines definitely look way better. Still a bit concerned about the shorter lines (in the handwriting) but we'll see how it goes.
[deleted]
2014-10-29 03:37
Yeah I don't know what's wrong with the writings. My handwriting isn't pretty but it isn't that bad! I just did a wasp and it felt a lot better. Just going to have fun with the tablet until my gear arrives!
Golden_Crane
2014-11-03 20:32
Here's my homework. on #10 I attempted to draw a tree, as you can see it did not turn out very well, do you have any tips on drawing these kinds of trees?
Uncomfortable
2014-11-03 20:50
For trees like that, instead of focusing on drawing little closed shapes for each leaf, look at the shadows instead. Designing your shadow shapes carefully can still give you the sense of leaves (because you'd have little divets in the shadow shape in the shape of leaves) but very much reduces the density of detail, which is the primary issue with this one.
This is how I approached it when I did this assignment, though I found using a brush pen helped me cover those shadow shapes a little more easily.
You've done quite well, though. I especially like 7 and 8, and the rectangular frame was a nice touch on 17. My neck, however, hates you. Rotate the images next time!
Go ahead and move on to the next lesson.
[deleted]
2014-11-12 04:19
http://imgur.com/a/clY7I
So I'm....apprehensive about this one. I'm really really skilled at abstract forms and stuff, but the transition to actual drawings is...difficult. I do hope this is...up to snuff.
Uncomfortable
2014-11-12 04:50
Haha, your pen is dying 'cause you're torturing the poor thing! I think you're not putting enough time/thought into the lay-ins and the early stages, and your instinct seems to be to compensate for the weakness in form with detail and lighting. As we saw from things like the organic forms with contour lines, you should be able to see form in the linework - the shading only reinforces what is already there.
With your lay-ins, be a little less sketchy, and a little more deliberate. Where you see a cylinder, start with the ellipse on the top (a couple rounds, not a cyclone), then draw the other ellipse, and connect them with two solid lines. From the looks of it, you're in sketch-mode, which naturally seems to mean a billion marks on the page. Slow down, think about everything you do before you do it.
Your pitcher plant lay-in looks pretty good. Still probably a little sketchier, but it's fairly clear and it seems to start suggesting its own volume. Your palm tree is on the other hand, pretty weak. It's not giving you any idea of 3D space, or even concrete form. The palm leaves aren't defined. Also, the trunk is not closed off, so it doesn't give us the sense of being a form at all.
I like the maple tree lay-in , it's simple but it summarizes everything that's going on.
As for the full drawings, once again the pitcher plant is pretty good, but you made a mistake in the way you approach your hatching for the shading. It's still pretty scribbly (though I see you did the texture exercise, and it's looking pretty decent albeit a bit rushed). The bigger problem though is that your hatching doesn't follow the contour of the form. This is really important. The contour lines we explored in lesson 2 are not limited to what you're drawing, but also how you draw. Hatching lines can reinforce the curvature of a surface if they run along it - but conversely, if they go against that curvature, the object will appear completely flat. This also works for paint strokes, once we get to that.
I'd like you to do two pages of plants, but don't go into lighting or detail. Focus on their structure and 3D form. Take advantage of natural contour lines (and if you feel it helps you understand the form, feel free to throw in one or two of your own if there aren't any), and remember to be deliberate with what you draw. Think before you make a mark, and absolutely conserve your lines.
[deleted]
2014-11-12 05:04
Just to clarify: you want the outlines of the plants, without detail?
No shading or anything?
I think I can do that. Needing to slow down is news to me, though- I always feel I'm going too slow to start with, so.
Uncomfortable
2014-11-12 05:15
Yeah, just the linework. Think about it as the form intersection exercise, but applied to an actual object. I want to see you convey 3D form without having to resort to shading. Also, about slowing down - it's more about giving yourself the time to think and plan, rather than actual speed.
[deleted]
2014-11-14 20:30
http://imgur.com/a/8YWgt
So I initially misunderstood the point of the assignment, so I gave you two extra. Hope this is good enough.
Uncomfortable
2014-11-14 20:46
Hm.. It is starting to look better. Now do another two pages of the regular full drawings, but remember not to go overboard with shading or detail. Sometimes it helps to draw a circle over your focal point and restrict yourself to adding extra shading/detail only within that circle. Check Lesson 4's animal demo for a better idea of what I mean.
For these two pages, I think it would be best if you pick from the ones you already did, and simply redo them. That way we can have a direct comparison and see whether you are demonstrating a better understanding of 3D form.
NuggleBuggins
2014-11-19 06:32
Hello! So, I decided to go ahead and post what I have now, even though its not finished yet. I wanted to see if you could go ahead and take a look at what I've done so far and see if maybe you could help me out. Then I could take another stab at it. Homework I feel like I am not doing to great of a job at this one. I've never really drawn plants before, and even after I put in the layouts the plant is still so overwhelming. Maybe I am approaching it from the wrong angle or something? I dunno. I'd really appreciate any light you could shed on the situation! Thank you!
Uncomfortable
2014-11-19 17:27
Your lay-ins are alright. Page 1 has a few issues, where you're not closing your shapes/forms. If a form isn't closed, it's automatically going to look really flat and won't contain much volume. Page 2 is better, because you're actually closing those forms.
The stuff on page 5 is pretty good. On the right, you've got a lot of really nice play between complex and noisy areas with large swathes of empty leaves. The trunks/stalks/stems/whatever of the plant are looking a little odd though. Kind of irregular. When approaching things like that, just focus on the cylinder/tube shape that's being twisted around. Maybe look into the texture and see if you can find some nice natural contour lines to throw in. If you can't, just toss in some contour lines for the hell of it. The point where it's overlapping with the soil in the pot doesn't look quite right though. I think the soil would be bulging upwards, covering that end of the trunk.
One thing that I do notice you doing - which I've seen from other people - is that you're focusing too much on lighting. The 3D aspects of the drawing - volume, contour, etc. should be coming through before you start shading things. The edges show how forms turn in space, shading merely emphasizes what's already there. So if you rely on shading too early and fail to work in that 3D structure at the earlier stage, the shading will be attempting to emphasize something that isn't really there.
A good example of this is the tree on page 6. Those leaves have no structure, they're just kind of there. Often you'll find clusters of leaves forming a sort of squashed ball. The trunk's solidity is also being undermined by the hatching - it no longer feels like it's a solid object, with all of the rough and frayed edges.
The lily on page 7 looks fantastic. The shading does weaken it a little bit, but I still get a sense for the petals peeling back in space. Page 9's not bad either.
What I would recommend for you is to do at least three or four pages of plants with no shading at all. Focus on the structure and form, and try to convey that 3D-ness just using the edges and contour lines.
When you do go back to shading though, be mindful of how you apply your crosshatching. It's kind of messy right now. Hatching should almost always be very regular, almost mechanical. The lines should be parallel, or if they're following a curving surface, they should curve equally like a flock of birds flying together. No scribbling, no randomness. Do your best to convey intent.
NuggleBuggins
2014-11-19 17:43
Thank you for getting back to me. I will start on this asap. Quick question though, When it comes to things like bushes/trees, plants with lots and lots of leaves, is it typical to just kind've guesstimate the leaves and fill in? Or should I be making a conscious decision to try and draw in each leaf? When I look at something like a tree, I don't even know where to start or how to go about doing the leaves. If I try and draw each leaf, I lose concentration quickly and just get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of leaves that need to be drawn. On the other hand, if I try and just fill, I end up hating the way it looks and want to just start over.
Uncomfortable
2014-11-19 17:52
Donno if it's standard, but that's sure as hell what I do. If I tried to draw in every individual leaf I guarantee you I would just die at my desk. This is a pretty good example of when I was 'preparing' myself to write up this lesson, since I hadn't done the whole observation-from-life thing in a while.
Don't take it as a strong example of what to do, because I was just kind of finding my stride - but it is basically how I think.
Specific details are very, very overwhelming. What we are doing when we draw something, aside from understanding its form and construction, is composing the image itself. We are trying to communicate what the object is to a viewer, and in doing so we have to set up a hierarchy of information. Some information isn't important at all - you could draw three leaves and just indicate/hint at the others, and you'd be communicating the idea pretty well.
What's important when you're drawing something is to balance areas of high-contrast/noise/detail with simple, clean, blank areas. The eye needs places it can rest, and it doesn't want to be screamed at.
Sometimes your reference lends itself to that, sometimes you have to make those calls yourself, deciding what details to ignore and what to emphasize.
NuggleBuggins
2014-11-19 20:13
Awesome, thank you for the advice. I will try and focus more on the things that you mentioned on my next go around!
NuggleBuggins
2014-11-20 06:23
Alrighty! So I tried to focus more on over all shape and form of the plants this time. Definitely think it helped out a lot. Still having a little trouble on the trees, But I think your note on balancing out noise and blank space was very helpful.
Homework pt.2
Uncomfortable
2014-11-20 16:58
Hm... that's puzzling. Your form is still rather weak, but you nailed the foliage in that tree, it looks awesome.
It looks to me like you're worried about drawing lines that aren't actually in your reference image - like the construction lines. For now, don't worry too much about drawing the construction shapes and forms faintly and gingerly. Draw them in boldly and as closed forms. Complete spheres, solid cylinders, etc. The core of that tree trunk is a cylinder, but I don't see the construction lines of where it closes at the bottom.
Also, with the mushrooms - especially the one on the right, your lay-in for the cap was very loose. I can see how it is composed of multiple lines, in a rather sketchy manner. I think your biggest weakness is specifically with cylinders, though. Maybe practice drawing a few tube-like forms that twist and turn a bit, like stems and tree trunks. Remove them from the plant context, and draw them like the organic forms with contour lines from Lesson 2.
NuggleBuggins
2014-11-20 20:15
hmmm, yea I think you are correct. When I am drawing these my basic process is: try to lightly block in the shape of the plant, then draw out the edges, and then draw out details. Maybe I should spend more time on blocking in the overall shape? And when I am drawing in the edges, I think you are right about me trying to not draw lines that don't exist. Should I not do that? I'm sure there is a "sweet spot" when it comes to that kind of thing. Mixing the actual image with imagination? I think I am going to try and just break down a bunch of different plants, into super basic forms (cubes, cylinders, cones, etc..)
Uncomfortable
2014-11-20 20:42
See, it's more that these exercises aren't about drawing beautiful images. Hopefully that is the result, but it's more about understanding the forms that you see, and building those skills so that down the line, you can more effectively draw these things without relying as much on construction lines.
So always keep in mind that this is a training exercise, whose purpose is to help you learn. Not a step-by-step of how to produce something beautiful.
NuggleBuggins
2014-11-20 20:59
Got it! I will try and focus more on basic forms then final render.
NuggleBuggins
2014-11-21 22:27
Sorry to bother you again, especially without work to show, But drawing cylinders aside, I just feel like I'm not getting what it is I should be focusing on. I keep falling into the trap of focusing to much on the final form of it all, I am trying desperately not too, but if I just try to quickly sketch something out, its too loose and doesn't read at all. I can barley even tell what it is, and I drew it! I feel for something like this my strokes should be more fluid and confident, but I am just not getting it. would you maybe have any advice on this? If not I will just keep chuggin away at what I am doing.. I just feel like I am going to turn it in and it is going to be wrong... again haha.
Uncomfortable
2014-11-21 23:09
All I could think to do was to draw another example. The one in the lesson isn't.. the greatest, I guess. Here's a coconut tree.
By the third step, you're pretty much done. Frankly, I probably went a bit too far with the lines on the less important leaves. When you see one of those leaves, you should not see a bunch of tiny pieces. You should see the overall form, and then draw it as though that is exactly what you see. Not like it's a faint construction sketch. At each step, focus on the purpose of that step - don't try and pave the way for the next one, and in doing so, fumble it.
Whirly123
2014-11-22 00:16
"You should see the overall form, and then draw it as though that is exactly what you see. Not like it's a faint construction sketch."I have not heard it put that way. That's actually way helpful!!
Uncomfortable
2014-11-22 00:26
That applies more to the exercises, of course - by the time people are doing actual illustrations, they'll know enough to do handle the construction steps however they feel most comfortable. For now, it's all about making sure people aren't looking too far ahead and forgetting about the step they're on.
NuggleBuggins
2014-11-22 03:07
Okay, Got you some more to look at haha.. Sorry this is taking me so long to do, I feel like this is something I should have been able to pick up pretty quickly, not sure what my deal is :/ Also, Sorry this is all crammed onto 2 pages, I ran out of paper in my sketch book at work today and I didn't bring a back up! Homework
Uncomfortable
2014-11-22 03:19
You are getting it, gradually. These are feeling quite a bit better. I really like how you handle large clusters of leaves. Frankly, I'd go so far as to call this lesson finished.
There's still room for development, but the way all these lessons work, is they're stacked on top of each other - one building on the next. The core values of each are the same, about this breakdown of form and structure. The progress you've made here will reflect on the next stuff, and the progress you make there will affect how you draw plants in the future.
I think you should take it easy, let these things process and digest, and then move onto the next set. Insects, I believe?
firststatejake
2014-11-24 07:39
sighhhhhh
Lesson 3:http://imgur.com/a/23Z91....
Uncomfortable
2014-11-24 18:38
Okay, so things definitely aren't going right. The biggest issue I can see right now is that you are relying heavily on lighting and detail to push the image, rather than the underlying structure.
Lets start a little slower. You skipped the part where you were supposed to do a few pages of lay-ins. That's important so I can see how you're approaching the early stages.
Do two pages of lay-ins and show them to me. Don't go beyond that stage.
firststatejake
2014-11-24 18:53
Oh yeahhh I forgot that okay I'll get that back soon
hushblessedchild
2014-11-24 22:02
So, this one is taking a while... Only on page two of the actual plants. Anyway, do you have any tips for shading? I think I saw some in one of the threads but can't for the life of me find the post. I think my form is relatively bad, but the shading is even worse! (The struggle tho)
Uncomfortable
2014-11-24 22:21
The biggest tip I have for shading is: don't.
It sounds strange, but there's method to my madness. Shading is so often used as a shitty crutch. Same with adding overwhelming detail. It just takes bad shape/form and makes it a bazillion times worse, while attempting to mask the initial problem.
Line should be more than sufficient (using the tools we've learned so far - contour lines, weight, using changes in the edges to demonstrate how a form turns in space) to demonstrate form successfully. Then, shading and detail kind of hangs off of that. It'll emphasize what's already there, but without that underlying form, it'll amount to nothing.
If you're uncertain of your form, do a page or two without any shading and show them to me. I might be able to point you in the right direction. You should know though, I just shipped off all three of my monitors and am about to start dismantling my PC. I'm pretty limited with what I can do with my laptop, but I can still try to give advice and critique.
hushblessedchild
2014-11-25 00:09
Okay thanks, I'll avoid it from now on. I'll try and get some to you for tomorrow.
No worries on taking your time/being limited. I appreciate anything! This is free so I don't expect nearly as much as you give.
hushblessedchild
2014-11-25 01:39
http://imgur.com/a/P2G9C
Okay, so page one and two are the lay-ins, I hope you can see them okay, I had to use flash because they're super faint but it didn't help much. Page 3 was a weird exotic plant that I don't think came out very good, and a bonsai tree which I think is the best thing. Page 4 I tried to do a banana tree from your friends flickr page, but I got frustrated and skipped to page 5 where I tried to do what you asked. The second drawing on page 5 is super badly done and not finished but I guess it works as an example. Anyway, struggling, fix me with your magic words.
Uncomfortable
2014-11-25 05:19
Hm... So I've been mulling it over, trying to think of the best way to tackle giving you advice.
A good starting point is looking at the top left of page 4. You've got some leaves coming off a stem. Simple enough, and it has both strong points and weak ones.
The top most leaf, the one that comes out towards the right - that one's done rather well. What's good about it is the way you've tackled the line weights. They're on one side of the leaf, not all around it, so it gives us a sense of thickness to the leaf. The one below it, however, has a thick line going all the way around - our eyes try to look at the thick line as representing a thickness in the leaf, but our brain knows that you can't see the thickness all around. So, the illusion breaks, and the leaf looks terribly flat.
Next, back to the top leaf. The center line has a bit of a flowing curve to it. This curve is bending through space, so it gives us the impression of a 3D object. The one below it, however, has a center line that is almost completely straight and rigid. I think one of your biggest weaknesses, across the board, are these rigid, stiff, lifeless lines. There's no flow and life to them. I can't help but get the feeling that when you're drawing them, you don't feel as though you're drawing a 3D object. What you perceive yourself to be drawing always comes through.
I want you to do a full 4 pages of plant drawings (feel free to repeat ones you've already done) but don't do any shading and don't go into any fine detail. Stay away from trees, because you're going to get too caught up in the foliage. Stick to things with big bulbous shapes, curving leaves and stems, etc. Keep thinking organic, curvy, flowing, full of life.
We'll see how you're doing after the 4 pages. And take your time! Don't jump on the work, take a break, mull over it, and get in the right mindset.
hushblessedchild
2014-11-29 02:21
Hey, so I took a few days off the lessons to draw some of what I enjoy as I was feeling quite put off! Anyway, back now, think the couple of days definitely helped, although these are still very wonky. Anyway, let me know what you think.
http://imgur.com/a/6CEQ9
Uncomfortable
2014-11-29 21:49
Your shapes and forms are getting better. The leaves on the first page (in the middle of the page) look way better. They have a nice sense of flow to them.
The shapes (outside edges) on the third page also look much better, and they feel as though they're objects that could be turning in 3D space.
I can see that you experimented with using broken lines on the inside - it's good that you're experimenting, but that definitely took the wrong direction. Those broken lines undermine the confidence of the outside edges, and they just appear confusing to the eye.
I think you're getting a better grasp on the space, but are still struggling with how to apply your details. It may be in your best interest to look at some of the other work that people have submitted for this lesson, and to read the critiques I gave to them. Look at what came out well, and what didn't.
Once you've done that, thought over it and maybe taken a bit of a rest if necessary, do another 4 pages. Again, no shading, just lines for now. You're definitely showing improvement, so I think the next set will continue that trend.
starfries
2014-12-07 04:43
Lesson 3
I think I'm doing something wrong but I decided to go ahead and finish anyways so I can get more feedback. It feels like my lay-ins are too simple and stiff compared to everyone else's. I'm also struggling with jumping from lay-in to drawing. It's like I panic when faced with so much complexity and I don't know which parts to draw and which parts to leave out.
Uncomfortable
2014-12-07 17:22
Hmm... You're right, they are rather stiff - but you're doing a lot that's good. One of the biggest things I'm noticing is that you're drawing complete, solid forms - something that a lot of people fail to do for their lay-ins, and something that helps a lot. So kudos for that.
The thing about plants is that they combine the two sections of Lesson 2 - dealing with organic shapes and turning them into 3D forms, and also the 3D form intersections (which are more rigid). You have to find the middle ground, a point where you can take those rigid, rudimentary 3D forms and instead of feeling like they're made out of wood, play with them as though they're made out of rubber, or putty. They have weight and mass to them, but if you have a sphere, you can squish and stretch it.
Something I noticed in your work is that at times you rush a little too much, on the later stages of the drawing. Your cross-hatching is very scribbly and half-assed. Notice how those hatching lines tend to hook around at their ends? That's because instead of drawing individual lines, you're almost drawing a single line that loops back and forth. That is indicative of looser, exploratory sketching - what we're after here is thoughtful, planned execution of the construction you understand in your mind.
I'm not sure if you saw this, but it might help a little since the example in the lesson isn't that great: here's another drawing example I did a few weeks ago.
I'd like to see two more pages of plants, keeping what I've said above in mind. Treat your forms as though they're more organic, and less mechanical. Don't rush, put thought and intent behind every mark you make.
starfries
2014-12-10 07:58
Okay, I think I get it now! Instead of jumping right from lay-in to drawing I tried to build up the complexity a little at a time, adding more and more detail to the lay-in until it turned into a drawing.
http://imgur.com/a/t0Lig
The first two pages are dressed-up lay-ins and the last two are my plants.
Uncomfortable
2014-12-11 02:33
The lay-ins at the top of page 1 are great. Lots of energy, nice variation in your line weights, and the shapes feel very flexible and organic. The top of page 3 is pretty nice too, though be careful with your line weights - the drawing will flatten out if you darken all the way around the shape, instead of just on one side.
Overall, with these and your previous submission, I think you're ready to move onto the next lesson.
dth0807
2014-12-09 22:49
http://imgur.com/a/gd50J
had a lot of trouble with this.
Uncomfortable
2014-12-09 23:16
Your lay-ins are god-awful. Your full drawings, on the other hand, are actually really quite good. Some of them, anyways.
The bit about the lay-ins is more likely because you just misunderstood how to approach them. Once we correct that, I think it should reflect in your final drawings and make them even better.
The top right of page 3 is pretty good, though a little confusing as to the hierarchy of shapes. It's a little hard to tell what's in front of what. A better use of line weight should help with that.
The top right of page 4 is STUNNING. You have a very clear organization of detail - very dense in the centre, your focal point, and then it tapers out as you reach the outer petals. I'm not sure how much of that was from the flower itself and how much was conscious decision on your part, but that is definitely the sort of thing you should be aiming for. More variation on line weights to emphasize and clarify overlaps could be nice here too (when a line overlaps another, it is usually a little thicker - don't go overboard though).
The mushroom on the top right of page 6 is a prime example of where a stronger lay-in would have helped, largely because mushrooms are more clearly just a few basic forms thrown together (like the form intersections).
Top left of page 7's mushrooms are pretty nice. They're simple, and a little boring (line weights!) but they do an okay job of conveying form. They don't completely sell the illusion of solidity, but they're definitely going in that direction.
Bottom left of page 9 - another one of those flowers, you seem to be quite good with those overlapping petals. The leaves look pretty bad though, but the flower bit is fantastic. Usually I'd expect a person to end up drawing something that looks too confusing when there's that many little elements, but you pulled it off fairly well.
Nice texture study on the bottom of page 10, I like seeing little things like that. Shows me that you're thinking hard, analytically. That's the mindset you'll need to succeed at this sort of thing.
Page 11 in general is pretty nice. It's nothing special, but it does demonstrate the beginnings of an improved understanding of how these smaller shapes and forms make up a whole plant.
Having looked through these, I get the sense that you learned a lot through the process, and if you were to do the lay-ins right now, they'd probably come out better than the ones at the beginning. That said, since the example in the lesson honestly isn't that great, I created another one a while back for someone else, and included it in the notes. Take a look, see if it does a better job of explaining how to approach the process.
Your lay-ins should be composed of complete, solid forms and shapes. 3D forms are better for things like the mushrooms, where there's a lot of solid mass involved, 2d shapes can be applied for elements that are a little harder to pin down, or that are less solid - things like foliage, for example, that we like to bunch together into larger masses rather than dealing with them individually.
Anywho, I'd like to see another couple of pages of lay-ins, then you'll be good to go.
dth0807
2014-12-10 01:42
http://imgur.com/a/nXwjP
Thank you for the response. I guess I'm a little confused on the lay-ins, mainly on how far we are supposed to take it and how simplified we are supposed to make it. Hopefully I understand it a little clearer.
Uncomfortable
2014-12-10 02:26
Here's a bit more of an explanation for you. The problem is that your lay-ins are more like speculative sketches, rather than solid constructions. You're looking very much at all of the detail - all the little shapes and bits. That helps you later on, because you clearly have a good eye for surface texture, but your drawings end up lacking a solid construction or base. As such, they end up looking flatter and less convincing.
Try and look at the big shapes, the big forms, the major rudimentary components that make up the object. For example, a maple tree is just a stretched ball (foliage) on a long tube (tree trunk). Don't look at all the leaves.
Again, two pages of lay-ins please!
dth0807
2014-12-10 04:03
http://imgur.com/a/wt9qT
One of my problems was a lot of the subjects I would pick was usually just a close up of a flower and I wasn't sure how to simplify it when there were petals, do I just draw a circle shape encompassing all of them, or do I try to rough in the general shape of the petal.
I think I also went a little bit overboard with the contour lines on a couple of them but I wasn't sure how to communicate the simplified form without them.
Uncomfortable
2014-12-11 02:30
Hm, this teaching approach isn't working too well, so I'll try something else.
One thing I'm seeing very much is that your lines are very wobbly and lack any semblance of confidence. You're being way too careful, like you're scared of making an incorrect mark. There are a lot of broken, dashed lines that undermine the solidity of what you're drawing. This goes hand-in-hand with why you're so good at detailing. You're definitely very observant and particular, but we need to work on your boldness and your willingness to get marks onto the page.
I wrote some notes on your latest submission, but as I said, we'll try taking this on from a different direction.
I'd like to see you do a lay-in - just a single drawing - using this picture of a flower as your subject.
Focus on:
capturing the major forms. what I see is a tube-like stem, a squashed ball in the centre of the petals, and a series of 2D shapes that radiate out from around it. Together those shapes seem to make a sort of ellipse, if you want to get really simple. The petals themselves curve through 3D space, but the shapes themselves are quite simple.
drawing with solid lines. no broken, dashed lines, if your lines are coming out wobbly (which they seem to be doing a lot) try and draw your lines a little quicker. wobbliness comes from being too careful.
Before you do this, do a few pages of the lines/ellipse exercises from lesson 1 as a warm-up, and only approach the lay-in once you feel comfortable and ready.
One last thing - I'm assuming you're using a scanner to upload your images. Something about the settings you're using is making it come out with a lot of contrast. See if you can scan it in as a photograph (usually this high contrast comes from settings associated with drawing presets). If you can't, then it may be better for you to take a photo of the drawing instead (a cellphone camera will do nicely). The high contrast is taking a lot of the character out of your lines, and it makes it a little harder to judge your work.
dth0807
2014-12-11 07:01
http://imgur.com/a/w9uof
Started with warms ups like you said. I tried to make the lines as confident as I could.
Also, I can edit some of the settings on my printer when it's saving the image, let me know if the way I have it set up now is ok.
Thank you for all the time and critique you have given me.
Uncomfortable
2014-12-12 00:43
Nicely done! I did my own version of it last night, and yours matched up rather closely. I included some notes in mine - none of which are in direct response to yours, since I wrote them yesterday - but they still might be of value to you.
I really like the fact that you even threw in the contour lines over the bud in the centre of the petals. It shows that you're starting to understand the three-dimensionality of the various forms you're using.
Also, the quality on this scan is way better. Your lines have more character than the previous scans showed.
Since this one is definitely in the right direction, I'm going to mark your lesson 3 as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 4 when you're ready, but remember the things you learned here about the lay-ins, they're just as important in later lessons.
starfries
2014-12-12 03:23
I admire your commitment =)
KingPizzaHead
2014-12-23 06:46
Alright here is my stuff for this lesson http://imgur.com/a/3KWso
After a few days of looking at it, I'm not so sure about the line weight. I kinda feel like its a bit weak on the edges and I feel like I might have to push it more.
Also, you might see a bit of a slowdown on submissions from me because I just got a copy of Scott Robertson's new rendering book. Its pretty damn awesome.
Uncomfortable
2014-12-23 17:13
Overall, these look really good (except for 10, I have no idea what that is).
Let's start with your lay-ins. It's a bit hard to critique most of them without knowing what exactly they're supposed to represent, but the most important thing that I'm seeing is that each one is comprised of complete forms and shapes. They're fairly confident, a lot of your forms carry a good sense of volume and solidity, etc. The only one I was just a teensy bit concerned about was #3 on page 1, what looks to be a mushroom. I would have thrown in a cap to the stem tube where it connects with the cap. I could be wrong (again, without the reference I'm just guessing) but it feels as though the connection point would be visible at this angle. Being able to see the cap on the tube would help reinforce how these two forms intersect.
Other than that, and based on how your final drawings came out, I'm convinced that you made the right choices between 2D and 3D elements when doing your lay-ins, and that they were not too simple for the subjects.
There definitely is progress as I flip through your finals. The first page are a little more tentative, a little more flat. The pot in #1 is awkward, like the top plane is angled while the bottom plane is flat. #2 is pretty decent, the layering of the bits on the stem is really nice. Actually, the whole thing is all about layering, and you pulled that off well. #3 is kind of meh. I like the details around the ridge of the cap, but I feel like the stem flattens out a lot. The cap shows some great volume and form, though.
At page 4 you really start to move forward quickly. The scale is good as long as you can convey the amount of detail you require - which it seems that you could. Both here show good form and volume, the surface texturing is not distracting (even with the complexity of #4). I do feel that you're lacking focal points, but frankly that's preferable to having a piece that is too busy. In the future, pick a spot on your subject, draw a circle over it (a lot of people are nervous to do that), and detail the shit out of everything inside the circle. Just outside the circle, you can taper off the detail. Here's an example of how my instructor, Peter Han, tackled that sort of thing.
Page 5 is looking okay, though some of the overlaps of the petals on #6 are a little unclear. The line weight uncertainty you mentioned is likely at play here. I'll go over that a bit more later. #7's got some nice organic twisting to it, and it shows some nice movement through 3D space. The petals are a little boring though, like they're begging to be made a focal point. I like the care you took when applying the little rings around the stem, they really push the form and solidity of the whole plant. Also that curling on the petal is a fantastic touch.
6 is nice, I like the simplistic approach to the cube-pot-thing, it really emphasizes the plant itself. That in itself gives the kind of contrast we look for to define a focal point, though that could definitely be taken much further. #7 is well done too, but there are ways of showing scale on an object without resorting to external reference. It's certainly not as concrete as having a person standing there, but it'll do the job in a subtler manner. It's all about the details. The best example I can think of is a large space ship. As a basic arrangement of forms, it is very difficult to tell how big it is, if there's no frame of reference. However, once the details are added, you immediately have something to compare. Little access panels, windows, recessed sections and cut-lines (oh god, how I love the cut-lines) all show scale because we understand at least to some extent, how they are intended to be used. Humans are driving this space ship - or usually, at least something human-sized. Therefore the windows are tailored to them, as are the access panels. Cut-lines might help show how it was put together, breaking it into more manageable parts. More cut-lines, more parts, probably a significantly larger overall construction.
Now, how do we apply that to plants? Tricky, but looking at things like leaves and petals, no matter the scale, some things don't change too much. One thing that comes to mind - and I could be wrong about this, so take what I say with a grain of salt - but the little veins in leaves probably aren't going to scale up very much with the rest of the plant. I'm sure there's more that you can find by studying your reference photo, so look for little details like that.
I really, really have no idea what's going on in #10, but every set of drawings is going to have a failure or two. No shame in that. The head on 11's looking great, though the stem kind of lost its form. Despite the reference, I probably would have tried to show a bit of the stem curving back around, instead of having the top of it hidden by parts of the head. I think that would have communicated its purpose a little better, and would have given us some nice flow.
Your trees came out really nicely. They're looking nice and solid, especially the tree trunks. The foliage was captured better in #13, but the approach you took for both was definitely the right one. Clumping things together, not letting the overwhelming detail get the better of you.
Now, for the line weights, there's two main things that I keep in mind when tackling them. First off, treat them like you would lighting. One side of a form will have a lighter line (closer to the light source), the other side will have a thicker line (further away from light source). Don't stick to the lighting thing as a hard-fast rule, but use it as a guideline. Then there's overlaps. A thicker line conveys the fact that it is on top of a thinner line. So if you end up with a T junction, you'll want to make the top bar of the T a little thicker than the vertical line. We already know that it's overlapping based on the arrangement of the lines, but we're trying to make it as easy as possible for the viewer's eye to pick up on it. In some cases, it becomes less obvious, so the weights are important to avoid confusion.
I did a quick treatment of your water lily to demonstrate how to approach some of those concepts. You'll notice that this also started to create a focal point around the connection of the root to the rest of the plant.
Anyways - you did a great job, and I definitely think you're ready to move forward.
KingPizzaHead
2014-12-23 19:12
Alright thanks for the crit. Here is the ref I used http://imgur.com/a/2xcqn
[deleted]
2014-12-23 15:53
Ta-Da!
Not gonna lie - I was super intimidated by this assignment, but it definitely got easier as I went along. The most difficult part was maintaining my patience and not wanting to quickly wrap it up.
Uncomfortable
2014-12-23 17:38
Your lay-ins are pretty good, although a lot of the ellipses I see are pretty rushed. Slow down and make sure each shape and form is complete. I know you had trouble with patience, but you'll have to fight a little bit harder.
The forms in your final drawings are alright - sometimes you go a little too heavily into detail. Your leaning plant of pisa's trunk/stem/whatever does not need to be detailed out completely. It would have been a lit more successful had you left the vast majority of it empty with a few minor contour lines to reinforce the form. Same with the orange tree - you don't ever need to detail so much, it ultimately detracts from the drawing, because you end up overwhelming the viewer. There's so much noise and contrast that their eye doesn't know where to rest.
I can see that you tried to taper off from the detail with some of your other trees, and you're going in the right direction with that. You could go further, though. It's possible that this is a side effect of you trying to maintain your patience - you over compensated with detail!
The other major issue I see is line weights. You kind of went HAM all over them, and it flattens out a lot of your drawings. For example, the roses - you've got them surrounded by a heavy, black line. This turns them into a flat graphic shape, and no amount of contour lines or shading will be able to combat it.
I'd like you to reel back a bit. Do two more pages of plants, but instead of drawing them with full detail, try to approach it more like I did in this example (I added it to the bonus content in the lesson notes a while back). Do not apply shading or excessive detail. You can apply line weights, but be careful and thoughtful with it. Start off with thin lines, then selectively darken lines on one side of your forms (treat it like lighting, where the line closer to the light source is lighter, the one further away is darker). Also use line weights to reinforce overlaps - a thicker line crossing over a thinner line will always be clearly communicated as being on top.
I feel like you've got a lot of good drawings here, but they're buried under overwhelming detail and line weights.
[deleted]
2014-12-23 20:28
OK, I did a couple more pages of plants. I dialed back the line weight and the detail, stuck to basic forms to get the shape and then sprinkled in the details. Let me know if this is an improvement.
Thanks for your awesome feedback!
Uncomfortable
2014-12-23 22:25
Better, though you still have room to grow. I think you might be a little heavy handed with your pen - or perhaps it's particularly thick to begin with? What size are you using?
I'll mark the lesson as complete, because I think that as long as you apply what you've learned in this lesson, you should be fine to move forward.
[deleted]
2014-12-23 23:39
I'm using a Faber Castell M pitt pen, should I go smaller?
Uncomfortable
2014-12-23 23:45
Definitely. I think the M is comparable to the staedtler 0.8mm. I don't really use the faber castell's much (though they are generally a little better in quality than the staedtlers), but I've got a couple lying around and they're F. I believe that's comparable to the 0.5mm staedtler pens, which are the ones I recommend.
Whirly123
2015-01-02 17:23
Finally! http://imgur.com/a/kgUej Plants are bloodey hard!!
Uncomfortable
2015-01-02 17:42
Finally indeed! Okay, let's see...
Page 8 is amazing. That tree blows my mind. The mushrooms on page 7 are really impressive too. Loving the form on whatever that is to the right of the mushrooms as well, the volume of the main mass is fantastic, and is accentuated by the thin, curling petals.
There's just a couple things that worry me a little bit. Here's an overdrawing of page 4. Basically, it's your ellipses. When doing your constructions, they seem to come out a little timid, a little uncertain. Draw them with confidence - consistent, tight ellipses. Even if you make a mistake, you can visualize what the ellipse would have been had you made it a little bigger, or a little smaller. You still have a solid ellipse that you can count on, though.
Oh, and don't forget that your pots have inner rims as well. There's thickness there, be sure to show it. Well - you kind of did show it on the top right, but it's kind of... unclear, I guess. The rim comes out uneven so it's not entirely clear if we're looking at the inner rim, or something else.
Your later ones definitely seem to be much better, so it looks like you did show progress through the lesson.
Onwards to the next one! BUGS!
Whirly123
2015-01-02 18:13
Wow that was fast! Thanks for ellipse correction! Need to get that fixed! Happy new year Uncomfortable!
CtrlAltZdraw
2015-01-06 02:12
Homework http://imgur.com/a/LgOil
Uncomfortable
2015-01-06 03:56
Here's my overscribbles. Overall, you did well, and you should feel free to move onto the next lesson. There are a few things to point out here though.
You have fantastic control over your details and your focal point. That was definitely what stood out to me most. Good control of graphic shapes as well. At times, however, your sense of 3D forms was a little lacking. This comes largely from the lay-ins, don't forget to work in the primitive 3D forms where they belong. This includes stems/trunks, flower pots, bulbous masses. 2D is for things with very little weight or solid form, while everything else is more 3D. There are in-betweens, but for those things you seem to have been fine.
Contour lines are the best way to deal with those 3D forms, and in plants there are a lot of natural ones that can work their way into your textures. Keep an eye out for these. In the next lesson you'll find those contour lines friggin' EVERYWHERE. BUGGSS AAHHHHH!
ambrdst
2015-01-08 17:21
Ok, I'm planning to do a couple more of the plant drawings, but I wanted to get a little feedback first because I'm not sure I'm doing this correctly. I'm having some trouble detailing only one specific area, partially because I don't know what area to choose. I saw the tips about drawing a circle around it but I still get distracted and put detail everywhere because it just looks "wrong" otherwise.
http://imgur.com/a/AL3o9
I'm also including one more page of the form intersections from lesson 2 since you mentioned last time I should be drawing through the shapes more. Is this closer to what I was supposed to be doing?
As always, thank you!
Uncomfortable
2015-01-09 00:41
Those form intersections are very nicely done. Still need to work on those circles, so be sure to keep up with the ellipse exercises from lesson 1.
Your plants look lovely (I really like 12 and 7) as far as observational drawing goes, but I'm trying to emphasize more analysis and construction. As far as yours go, I'd like to see a little less detail and a little more form.
This starts with the lay-ins. Treat them more like form intersections. Anything that has any weight to it should be rendered as a 3D form (tube, ball, box, etc - of course, I'm using these non-geometric terms because you can squash and stretch them as you please to fit the organic subject). Make sure your forms are closed and solid. Remember that these aren't sketches, they're constructions.
Areas with less weight - things like leaves, petals - can be captured as 2D organic shapes instead. Just make sure that they are also closed. You can apply contour lines to give them a greater sense of form and direction.
Here's a bit more of an explanation.
Once you understand that form construction, you can start applying the more specific elements that pertain to your subject - and once that's done, and it looks like your subject if it were naked and bare, you can start applying detail.
Detail is tricky. It's very, very possible (and quite easy) to add far too much. What you want to do is determine a particular focal point in your composition. My instructor used to circle his focal point - literally put a distinct circle over it. Then he'd detail the shit out of everything inside, and leave everything else relatively plain and simple. Here's some examples of how he handled focal points.
I'd like you to do two more pages. Don't go too heavily into the detail phase. If you like, you can choose not to add any extra detail. Just enough to communicate what your subject is. That is essentially what we're doing. Communicating.
ambrdst
2015-01-11 02:59
I think seeing that overdrawing helped a lot, thanks! I tried to focus more on closing the shapes in my lay-ins. My lines are still a bit shaky, but I'm definitely understanding what's going on better. For the drawings, I tried to do different levels of detail without getting carried away. It was tough - I don't know why I have this urge to fill everything in.
http://imgur.com/a/AL3o9 (same album, last 3 images are the new ones)
Uncomfortable
2015-01-11 03:17
Your last page is very nicely done. You're right about the lay-ins, some of them are looking a little shaky, but your final drawings seem to settle down nicely.
I think being forced to deal with less detail is very good for you in particular. Eventually you'll find a nice middle-ground between detailing the crap out of everything, and leaving it awkwardly bare. It'll come with practice, as long as you continue to actively and consciously struggle with it. Struggle is good!
I'll be marking this as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.
aaylmao
2015-01-08 19:24
Here's my HW:
http://imgur.com/a/6IZ88
Forgive me if some are messy; I extensively used lay-ins and shapes to visualize the plants in 3D.
Uncomfortable
2015-01-09 00:44
I do not forgive you - I commend you. The extent to which you developed your lay-ins is really great, and the result is clear. Your drawings have a much greater sense of form and weight. As you draw more, you'll find yourself gaining a greater control over your pressure, and your ability to visualize those lay-ins, but for now, it is very well done.
The only critique I have is that you should focus your detail a little more to create focal points. Decide on an area to draw your viewer's eye to, and lead it there by concentrating more detail in that area, and less detail elsewhere.
Well done! Feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Sephirenn
2015-01-11 22:55
Hello! Finally got through lesson 3!
Here it is!
I feel like I did a decent job on the lay-ins, but then when I started on the plants I got real discouraged. I feel like that first page is just no good at all. Then I started to improve, but one major thing I noticed is that I feel like I'm horrible at adding in detail. Once I have the outline done, they start to look good. But as soon as I start detailing/shading, I feel like every single one of them look much much worse. And then the weird thing is that when I finish, about half of them actually turn out pretty decent!
Without rambling too much more, I thought I started out weak, then got stronger and stronger, but then my last page started to go down hill again. I feel like my best are 7, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17. Also, I can't figure out how to draw branches for shit (that don't look flat)!
PS - I didn't forget about the box challenge. I'm up to 150 boxes so far.
Uncomfortable
2015-01-12 01:19
You're getting there. I'm a little concerned about how you apply details, and your forms flattening out a lot. I did like certain aspects of 7 (the circle-leaves with varying density looks neat and gives the foliage mass form) and 16 (it reaches through 3D space nicely).
First off, draw BIGGER. These drawings are tiny, which makes it really hard to apply detail and explore form. Page 7's doing better, with two big plants per page.
Here's some notes about your approach. They mostly focus on your use of form, and how you can apply details to varying densities to accentuate the curvature of a form should help with those branches you were having difficulty with). Also, consider your viewing angle. If you look at something sidelong, it'll come out flatter. This becomes especially important with how wide you decide to make the bases of your cylinders when drawing stems or tree trunks.
I'd like to see four more pages of plant drawings, demonstrating that you've understood what I mean.
Sephirenn
2015-01-16 20:50
Here are the new pages!
Thank you for taking the time to critique and create specific visual notes that I could use! Hopefully these new ones are better from a 3D form perspective, though I'm still occasionally crashing and burning (i.e. the flowers on page 3).
One thing that I'm finding troubles with somewhat frequently (but not always) is line weights. Mainly, I draw my lay-ins, then block out more detailed shapes. Then I add weight to the overlap lines. I'm finding that after I do that, I've got lines in the background that are too dark when compared to the foreground objects. And on top of that, trying to keep in mind to only darken one side of the object in the foreground, I start to get a little confused as to what lines to darken in what priority order.
Hopefully that makes sense. Does the line weight stuff start to become more of a general feeling, or should I just be using a greater range of line thickness to show all the different scenarios?
And thanks again for your work teaching and critiquing!
Uncomfortable
2015-01-16 23:55
Hmm.. I think you can do much better than this. Form-wise, I'm not seeing that much improvement (aside from those gorgeous mushroom caps).
Here's some more overdrawing. The first is in regards to balancing your viewer's focus. Always keep in mind - adding more ink will draw the viewer's eye in most cases. So if you make a mistake, don't try and cover it up with more ink.
The line weight thing that you're worrying about, though, honestly is a non-issue right now. Reason being, you're so caught up worrying about making your drawings look clean that you're letting the form slip by.
So, I'd like you to do four more pages - this time, forego all the details. Just don't bother with them. Treat this as the form intersection exercise from lesson 2. I want you to draw through all your forms. Focus on getting the forms correct, and if that means drawing through your ellipses several times before lifting your pen, to keep your ellipses the correct shape like in these notes - which it should - then absolutely do it.
Sephirenn
2015-01-20 20:51
No details!
I officially hate plants. Haha. I hope these are following your instruction correctly. Let me know if you meant something else when you asked me not to add details at all.
This time I also drew in the lay-in forms pretty strongly, and it sometimes makes the resulting drawing seem a little busy. But I figured that was okay since we are focusing on those forms and not a polished end-state drawing.
Uncomfortable
2015-01-20 23:43
I think I've had you draw enough plants, and while you've still got plenty of room to improve, I think you're starting to catch onto the concepts. I'll mark this lesson as complete, but keep what I mentioned in my critiques in mind as you complete the next lessons.
Airward
2015-01-13 13:10
Here is my Lesson 3.
Uncomfortable
2015-01-14 00:19
Today's a good day. Only had two critiques to do, and both were very well done! Yours is the second. Your constructions are very solid, and the sense of form and 3D comes through all the way into your most detailed drawings.
I especially love the top left of page 6, all of page 8 and the top right of page 9.
Your particular style is somewhat sketchier than what I usually look for, but you executed it well. There are some places where you could use a bit more solidity (your flower pots, especially on page 3 - the pots themselves are simple 3D forms, but your edges are sketchy and frayed which compromises the sense of solidity and weightiness), so you should look to improve on that. Still, I feel that in general you've done very well.
One other thing that I'd like to mention - again, it concerns the flower pots. Looking at your last page, on the far right, your pot has no width to it. You should consciously try to include just a little bit of a lip or rim to any hollow tube-like structure like that. Even if it isn't thick enough to register based on your subject, it would help in the communication of the forms to your viewer which is ultimately the top priority.
ffflay
2015-01-15 10:43
Lesson 3 done
The first two pages of detailed drawings are from life, the next two are from reference. After looking over your examples again, I think I could have put a lot more effort into the textures and shading, but I got lazy. I'd also like to try adding some of the background vignettes next time too, they look pretty cool!
Uncomfortable
2015-01-15 16:10
Honestly, I think the textures are very nicely balanced. They're sparse, but that's not a bad thing. Just enough to convey the information, not so much that it becomes overbearing.
Honestly, I'm finding that I generally don't have much critique to give - honestly, you're a good ways beyond me. Still, looking at your homework is always a joy so I hope you'll continue submitting it, even if I don't have much to offer.
ffflay
2015-01-16 13:14
I'm definitely going to keep submitting, these exercises and your notes alone are a massively helpful resource. They've really helped me gain a lot more confidence.
I'm sure you'll have a lot more to say when I get to the perspective and anatomy exercises. :P
thesadnman
2015-01-18 22:29
Here is my Lesson 3. I feel like I learned a lot.
Uncomfortable
2015-01-19 23:54
It definitely looks like you were finding your way. Some of the drawings leave a lot to be desired, but there are a bunch that are really well done.
For the lay-ins, I think your second page is WAY better than your first. That's perfectly fine - in fact, it's great, because I love seeing the gradual understanding rather than immediate grasp of the material. It's why putting lessons into practice is so important.
I really love that fat tree in the top right of page 4. It's so simple, but you can immediately feel the form of its trunk, the bulging obesity of it all. The branches push that idea too, with their swollen knots.
The mushrooms on page 9 show some great forms as well, and the flowers on page 10 are all fantastic. There are others that are nice as well, but these stood out to me the most as the strongest examples of what you've learned.
In particular, I like your stylistic approach. You don't bury things in details, and you show a lot of form and curvature with line alone. Because of this, I think the pieces I mentioned came out stronger than the ones where you filled in your shadows with a lot of black. It's not that the particular method isn't one you should continue to practice and pursue, but rather that it's one where you have a lot of room to improve.
Comparatively, I think the shading of the tree on page 8 was quite well done. It's not as overbearing as your deep solid black shadows in other drawings, and it simply feels much nicer to look at. That one also exhibits some nice forms moving through 3D space, with the trunk/branches moving further away and towards the viewer.
Overall, great work.
PLsim
2015-01-22 03:27
http://imgur.com/a/z1FQw
i don't know. sometimes i got too obsessed with making details come out just right.
Uncomfortable
2015-01-22 03:34
Always remember that the details are the least important aspect - form is of much greater significance, A naked form that carries its volume and convincingly sits in 3D space is far better than a beautifully detailed drawing that falls flat.
It looks like early on, you were floundering a bit - a few hits and misses form-wise, focusing a little too much on detail. By the end, however, starting from halfway through page 6 and all the way to the end of page 8, you seem to figure out what you're doing. #14 and #15 are very nicely done. 15 is a particularly difficult one, and you've done a great job of capturing how those leaves reach into space towards the viewer.
Nice work!
argle523
2015-01-24 16:28
Am I doing the first part right? I don't have time to continue the full homework right now, so I figured I would post these in case you get a chance to look at them before I get going on the rest. Thanks!
Uncomfortable
2015-01-24 17:35
It's more or less correct. It depends on how these lay-ins represent your understanding of the forms. I ask to see them largely because they help me understand mistakes made in the rest of the drawings. On their own they're difficult to comment upon.
maybethestars
2015-01-27 19:01
So I started this lesson a few months back, and ended up moving to a different country in between so I finally picked it up again this month. I don't know, I feel myself that some of the drawings are messy or off in a way. Maybe it's just the struggle of moving onto actual objects. Here is my work
http://imgur.com/a/l4KTk
Uncomfortable
2015-01-27 21:06
Up to page 5, it wasn't particularly promising. Your lay-ins are completely done in 2D, which makes it somewhat difficult (but not impossible) to transition into capturing the proper 3D form. What you should be laying in is more of an extension of the form intersections from the previous lesson. Most elements will be captured as 3D forms, save for the few parts that are generally less substantial and weighty (individual petals, leaves, etc - though masses of them can create organic forms). These would be captured as 2D shapes, but even the shapes themselves often turn in 3D space.
Up to page 5, while they aren't the best, they still do demonstrate some movement into 3D, I just think that since your lay-ins are still 2D, you're setting it up to be a little more difficult for yourself. What I find disappointing about them is that the forms tend to be awkward and stiff, and the detailing is often too dense and distracting.
All that said, page 6 and onwards are very well done. They seem far more controlled. You capture your shapes more confidently, and your detailing seems to have been held back - you don't create lots of contrast everywhere for the sake of it, instead you produce attractive focal points. Page 7 is definitely the best example of this.
I'm marking this lesson as complete, because you've shown some clear progression. Try and carry over those strengths into the future.
maybethestars
2015-01-28 12:33
Thanks for the critique, that makes a lot of sense when you mention it. I'll try to work a little more on this before moving on.
cartoonishguy
2015-01-29 21:44
Alright, I gave this lesson a try. http://imgur.com/a/maf01
I am also continuing to work on the intersections although I only took a picture of one of the pages I did. They are rough.
I felt like these were either hit or miss for me. (a big miss being the rose that I tried twice on the 8th page). Although I feel like I improved over time but you can be the judge of that.
Uncomfortable
2015-01-29 23:16
It's good that you're trying the form intersections more, because I think the overall issue is that when drawing your plants, you're spending too little time on the construction. In general, you seem to be a bit rushed - looking at your details, they tend to be haphazard and scribbly.
I'd like you to draw three plants for me, and include the reference you used with them. When you draw them, do not move into the detail stage. Start with the lay in to block in your forms and shapes, then build up the plant, but stop before you start adding the minutae.
Focus on communicating those forms and overall shapes. For example, with the tree on the bottom of page 7, you should have blocked in each overall branch as a leaf shape. Then you could break that down into the individual pieces, but they'd follow the curvature of that overall shape. The example I included in the lesson notes went over something very similar.
As far as 'stop before you add details', using that example, I'd say stop before you reach the last step.
Also, put more thought behind every mark you make. Don't just sketch roughly hoping for the right line to be in there. You're free to draw through your ellipses to make sure that you achieve the correct shape, but for drawing simple lines, draw them carefully. You're doing a lot of rough sketching right now, and that's making things much messier than they ought to be.
cartoonishguy
2015-02-02 21:21
http://imgur.com/a/JDo6C
Okay, I did 3 plants and stopped each one when I was doing the natural contour lines. I tried to be more confident with my lines. I have a bad habit of sketching/chicken scratching when I am not feeling confident in my drawing.
I had a lot of trouble with my 3rd image, I tried it twice and both look pretty bad to me. I feel like the overall shape for each leaf doesn't convey "leaves". I thought maybe the natural contour lines would help communicate leafs better but those made the drawing look worse.
Uncomfortable
2015-02-03 01:10
Here's your critique.
There's numerous problems with your approach, but the most significant I think is that you're drawing really small. The smaller you draw, the bigger the tip of your pen ends up relative to the length of your lines. It also becomes much more difficult to get any sort of decent rhythm or flow to those lines.
You also need to go back and practice your organic forms and contour lines. You're not wrapping the lines around your forms, and your leaves are very stiff and rigid. Loosen up. Drawing bigger may help, but it's also a matter of your frame of mind. Imagine that you're drawing in 3D space, rather than just on a flat piece of paper. Carve that pen around the forms, in and out of space.
I'd like you to give the whole set of homework another shot keeping these things in mind. It will likely help to go back and do more of the lesson 2 exercises again, perhaps as warmups.
cartoonishguy
2015-02-05 22:51
Third times the charm! http://imgur.com/a/IgUX8
Uncomfortable
2015-02-06 15:15
I'm really sick and loopy on meds, so rather than giving you a critique, just do this exercise. Two full pages of it, and then three more pages of plants. Then I'll mark the lesson as complete.
cartoonishguy
2015-02-10 23:23
Here is the album, http://imgur.com/a/bJGMr
I hope you are feeling better! The ribbons are definitely good doodle material, I did a few extra pages of them that I didn't upload.
And thank you again for running this subreddit! This is definitely the best and more productive use of reddit I've ever seen.
Uncomfortable
2015-02-10 23:52
Very nice ribbons. Your plants are still stiff though, so consciously try and carry that organic flow into the flatter elements. Try and be conscious of how they twist and turn in and out of 3D space.
Still, as I said, you've been at this long enough so I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. As you explore these same concepts with the content covered in the later lessons, you should find things on this front improving as well. Doesn't hurt to come back and practice plants once in a while, though.
Penisbreathlikeroses
2015-02-02 16:42
Here is my assignment http://imgur.com/a/xsFuJ
Sorry I couldn't figure how to rotate them in Imgur.
Uncomfortable
2015-02-03 00:43
Not bad. It's clear that you did a lot of experimenting and learning through the course of this lesson. Your lay-ins are good, but early on you seemed to be unsure of how to approach detailing. The tree on page 4 seemed to be the first big challenge, and you defaulted to a more stylized approach, rather than keeping to your reference image.
On the next page, you paid better attention to the reference, and did a much better job. I also agree with your decision not to fully render - to do so would have been a mistake. The way you rendered it, it fades off nicely and builds a great focal point. You're guiding the eye around the composition quite successfully.
In general, your forms are good, though at times your use of line weight flattens them out. When you use a thick line all the way around a form, it ends up looking more graphic, which results in a flatter look. For example, the whole left side of page 4. You do get better at this though.
Honestly, the top left of page 5 is fantastic. Very well done, and your subject was especially complex due to all of the detail. You did well to capture that without it becoming noisy and distracting.
Feel free to move onto lesson 4.
Penisbreathlikeroses
2015-02-03 13:54
Thanks! Yes I still have issues with trees and how much and how to render the leaves.
You're right about the outlining. I will keep it in mind for the next exercise.
I really appreciate the critiques.
thetickdr
2015-02-09 19:10
Well, here's my attempt at lesson 3.
After several pages of plants I've taken a step back and now try to draw basic forms and form intersect.
Uncomfortable
2015-02-09 23:55
As far as observational drawing goes, your drawings are beautiful. But as analytical studies, they are ineffective. Rather than understanding the forms as they exist in 3D space, and as they relate to one another, you are replicating the information you see without really digesting it.
Don't worry about the little details - they're the least important elements to a drawing. Actually, I think it'd be better if I did a demo using one of your own reference images.
Could you link me the references you used? I'll pick one or two and I'll try to explain the approach.
thetickdr
2015-02-10 05:13
That would be really great!
Actually, I've drawn some plants from real life (tagged as RL) and some from photo references (PR) : PR1, PR2, PR3, PR4, PR5.
Uncomfortable
2015-02-10 23:47
Here's my demo
So there's two major problems.
First off, you're very, very stiff. These are organic objects, they sway and twist and bend and do whatever-the-fuck-they-want. Your lines are stiff and rigid, so you're not even beginning to convey that. You need to practice your continuous, wavy, organic lines. Here's an exercise I wrote up over the weekend that should help you loosen up.
Secondly, I don't think you're spending enough time on your lay-in. These things should consist of complete shapes and forms. The lay-ins you did at the beginning of your assignment are more or less complete, but make sure that you continue to do them like that all throughout.
Also, don't forget that your pots are not paper thin. There's thickness to them.
thetickdr
2015-02-17 18:26
You're right about stiffness. Your exercise with arrows turned up to be very interesting and fun. After several pages of drawing arrows my perception of 3d objects on 2d plane of sheet changed somehow.
Now, here're some more attempts. Hope something changed. Looking forward to your critique.
Uncomfortable
2015-02-17 18:30
Definitely better! I think I'll be incorporating the arrow exercise into lesson 2, when I rewrite it this weekend.
I think the best example of you breaking away from the stiffness is the tree (#7) - the limbs are starting to move through 3D space, instead of just trailing across the page. #3 is also showing some nice forms, though I'd definitely recommend that the really dense crosshatching inside the center should follow the contour of the surface. It's a really subtle touch, and most people wouldn't notice it, but I think it'd push it just a little further. The forms in #5 are also pretty well done.
You definitely have more room to grow, but I think you've demonstrated some strong improvement. I think you're ready to move onto the next lesson.
thetickdr
2015-02-17 19:26
Thanks for the explanation.
As if the original lessons were not enough, you're rewriting the lessons now. Just wanted to say that you're doing really interesting and great job.
Milvolarsum
2015-02-10 15:55
Finally
A little bit late because of university and because I wanted to draw as much from life as possible.
Uncomfortable
2015-02-10 23:50
You're definitely piling on too much ink, and focusing way too much on detail. They're not bad as observational drawings, but I want to see their guts, their construction. Also, it looks to me that you're doing y our lay-ins in pencil. Do everything in ink. Don't concern yourself with producing a pretty final drawing.
I'd like to see a few more pages of plants, but I want you to stop before you reach the detailing stage. I want to see complete constructions of the plants, similar to this demo I just did for someone else.
Milvolarsum
2015-02-13 15:50
For some Reason Imgur doesn´t let me creat an album, so I have to post like this:
http://i.imgur.com/I9BxWhd.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/kaIlSw1.jpg
I tryed to do more constructional drawings like you said. Through which I somehow got faster. Maybe because I didn´t focus as much on a pretty result?
Still one question: Why is it bad if I use the ink like this? Out of my view point it forced my mind to recreate the form, to understand. So that I can realistically recreate the illusion of form.
One explanation I have for myself is because what I did, and the constructional drawings are completely different exercises. But I´m not too sure, that´s why I´m asking.
Anyway, thanks again! You´re are a great help. :)
Uncomfortable
2015-02-13 23:30
Two things:
Could you retake the photos? Usually the quality's not a big deal but here I'm having difficulty making out all of the drawings, since they're poorly lit.
What thickness is your felt tip pen?
Milvolarsum
2015-02-15 19:31
Sorry it took so long. I try to generally avoid Reddit if I have to learn for exams so i do not get to reply much. Additional to that I got sick last Friday. But I will try to be faster in the future.
First
Second
Third( not best quality but my camera is shitty at that distance)
I´ve been using a farber castell PITT artist pen B type for the thicker looking lines. the thin lines are from a fine liner with 0.5 pencil strenght.
Uncomfortable
2015-02-15 19:38
Hm.. I think I'll mark this lesson as complete for now. I'm not 100% happy with your constructions, but I feel like you might be able to improve better on the insects (the next lesson) than the plants. The insects emphasize more of the concepts that you're lacking here.
About the pens - stick to one pen (in this case, i'd say the fineliner). Your thicker lines are getting to be very thick, and it flattens the whole image out. If you stick to one pen, you'll learn to apply a greater degree of pressure control.
Also, there's no problem with you taking your time.
Milvolarsum
2015-02-15 19:47
So what am I lacking if I may ask?
It will be easier to improve if I know what I need to improve.
Uncomfortable
2015-02-15 19:49
It's difficult to explain with the plants - that's why I'd like you to move onto the insects. It'll be easier to address with that subject matter.
Milvolarsum
2015-02-15 19:51
Understood. I will do some additional plant drawings on the side, too. Maybe I will find out myself what you meant.
[deleted]
2015-02-23 02:36
Finally finished the my work for lesson 3 http://imgur.com/a/eTsfJ. The hatching gave me a lot of trouble though.
Uncomfortable
2015-02-23 03:29
I like your lay-ins quite a bit, they have a clear focus on the 3D constructions that underlie your subject matter. I noticed the little note you made on your third page, "make line follow shape" and it's definitely something you need to consciously remind yourself of. I think that's the main weakness I see, primarily with the hatching - since they all become little contour lines. Often when they don't follow the surface of the form, they flatten the images out a bit. For example, the bottom right of page 6 - your hatching is mostly vertical lines, which contradicts the form that the other lines are conveying. It didn't come out badly, but that's largely despite the direction of your hatching, rather than because of it.
In general though, I like your forms, they're coming out pretty well. Go ahead and move onto the next lesson, but keep the hatching/contour lines in mind.
[deleted]
2015-02-24 03:31
I'll try some of those again with that in mind, thanks again for the advice and critiques!