Uncomfortable

2016-02-04 15:32

I think the biggest problem here is that you are trying to make the call as to whether or not you should submit. You are trusting yourself to judge, despite being the student. I've mentioned this before - failure happens. It's inevitable, and it's necessary. Knowing this, I only expect my students to spend as much time and effort as is required to complete a given lesson's homework to the best of their ability. There is no specific global standard for the quality a student must meet in order to be allowed to receive critique, rather it is a personal one unique to them. I can tell when people rush, I can tell when people ignore the material. I can tell when a person has put forward their absolute best.

Though I do try to, I cannot convey every aspect of the criteria I apply while critiquing, so beyond putting forward your absolute best effort, you don't know exactly what I look for, and how I respond to various results. That's why I offer critiques.

First and foremost, texture and rendering is by far the least important component of these lessons. I've been focusing more on it recently just because it's what people are interested in, but if you ask me a person could go through all of the lessons without moving into texture/detail, focusing entirely on form and construction and I would consider it a success. When it comes down to actually learning about texture, I break it down into two stages - and I watch as students reach these stages across multiple lessons, not just after a single exercise.

First is as you called it, the "detail overload" stage. This shows me that a student has moved entirely beyond their natural tendency to use symbols and rely on memory. A student who has reached this stage can identify all of what's going on, will spend long periods of time observing and studying their reference, with only one or two seconds of mark-making before looking again at their subject. I don't expect students to reach this stage by the end of lesson 2 - I merely expect to see them moving in that direction.

The second stage is understanding how all of the little details that are being identified are in fact made up of light and shadow, and that the shadows can merge together into larger clumps and shapes, and that this information can in fact be reorganized. A student who has reached this stage has understood that the goal is not to reproduce exactly the image they're referencing, but rather to distill it into the core "information" that defines it, and then communicate that visually. That is why when I apply texture, it doesn't look identical to the reference image - it's an interpretation of it. You look at the leaf and still get a sense that it is a leaf, and understand how it might feel to the touch. At the same time, it is organized and structured with composition in mind - emphasizing certain focal points while simultaneously allowing for rest areas. A good drawing is, after all, not about how much detail you can squeeze in there, but rather knowing where and how to use that detail to get your point across.

Most students don't fully reach this stage over the course of the lessons. They walk towards that goal gradually, and continue to do so as they practice on their own. It's not a stage I myself have fully reached either, only in parts.

I'd like to emphasize my first point - don't set out expectations for yourself. The only thing you know at this point is whether or not you're trying your best. If you were taking a regular class in a school, you would have assignments and deadlines - and you'd submit those assignments whether you felt as though you failed or not, knowing that while not submitting is technically an option, it's immensely foolish. Think the same way about this course. If you've completed the minimum required amount, submit it. Get something out of it, instead of keeping it to yourself.

Uncomfortable

2016-02-04 15:32

It certainly helps. My overall focus for all of these lessons is still about form, texture is a distant second priority. Still, the higher the resolution, the better.

Uncomfortable

2016-02-04 23:36

We're so used to either drawing everything in line, or being told that 'lines don't exist' that what's right in front of us is often ignored. Lines are but one possible manifestation of a shadow.

Uncomfortable

2016-02-21 18:19

I could have sworn I answered this question... Maybe I accidentally closed the tab before hitting save. That's so friggin' weird. Either that, or I accidentally posted it as a response to someone else, but I can't find it now.

Anyway, I did some experimentation with that eagle and I came to the conclusion that I would pretty much fill in the dark feathers completely - making that entire section a solid black. Now, the feature texture between the light and darks aren't actually the same - the light feathers seem to be softer, perhaps a little fluffier, but the decision of blacking out all of the darker feathers comes from a consideration of the tools we've got at our disposal.

We pretty much can capture three major tones - white, black, and a transition between them. A situation like this requires a minimum of four tones (lights/darks in the light section, and lights/darks in the dark section), which we simply don't have. So, you have to decide what your focal point is, and where you want to draw the viewer's attention. In all likelihood, that's going to be the face of the eagle, around it's eye. So we want to cram the most detail we can into that area - and in turn, that means we're going to have fewer resources for the detail in other areas.

Now, you could try to include very subtle areas of non-black in the dark section, but I found that it becomes very, very distracting. As soon as you have even a little bit of white in a sea of black, the contrast from that is going to steal your viewer's attention, undermining your focal point. At the end of the day, guiding your viewer's eye to where you want it to go is your top priority.

As for your other question, the expectation is that even after completing lessons 1/2, that students keep up with those exercises regularly as warm-ups to keep sharpening their skills. So, it'd be a good idea to go over those exercises on your own and reacquaint yourself with them and what they demand. You may also want to do a few drawings from lesson 4's material to get back in the swing of constructional drawing and capturing texture, as insects are a great subject matter to approach both of those concepts. You don't have to do the full lesson's worth by any means, just a page or two to get back in the swing of things.

This sort of thing will get rusty, and I pretty much expect that anyone who stops doing the exercises from lessons 1/2 will forget small, but important aspects of what they should be keeping in mind. They might get a little sloppy in areas without noticing.

Either way, all of that is up to you.