Uncomfortable's Advice from /r/ArtFundamentals

I cut up a paper towel tube to make a model for drawing cylinders. It's not perfect, but it's been very helpful

https://i.imgur.com/AXBzkqB.jpg

2022-05-23 23:06

Very neat! Though I do hope you're only using this as a general reference/reminder of how those ellipses on either end work, and not attempting to draw it from observation. Doing so would alter the nature of the exercise, taking it from being a matter of solving a spatial reasoning puzzle, to an observational study.

Also, I should take this opportunity to mention that:

The assignment section mentions that you should be experimenting with foreshortening a great deal (obviously I can only see a few here but I get the feeling that you're drawing them all in that manner)
Also, if what you're doing there is intentionally forcing the vanishing point to infinity, that's technically incorrect. We don't control where the vanishing point goes - we control how the form itself is oriented in space, which controls how its edges are oriented in space, and that controls where the vanishing point for each set of parallel edges ought to be. Thus, we cannot force a vanishing point to be at infinity, whilst continuing to freely rotate the cylinder as the challenge requires. Instead, a vanishing point at infinity would tell us that the side edges are all running perpendicular to the viewer's angle of sight - basically not slanting towards or away from us through the depth of the scene. Of course since the cylinders we're drawing in this challenge would all be rotating freely and randomly in space, the chances of that happening are so slim that we may as well ignore it entirely, and always include some convergence to our lines.

PchelpOnly

2022-05-24 01:25

The man himself. I gotta ask why did you name yourself and your channel uncomfortable?

Uncomfortable

2022-05-24 17:43

No special reason. Needed a name when I was signing up for Reddit back in 2010, and I ended up using the same name when creating my YouTube channel.

daftcruz

2022-05-26 04:00

I followed your program a long time ago. Though I didn't post anything here, I really appreciate some of your lessons because they helped me.

However, I'm gonna have to disagree here.

Observational studies can solve spatial reasoning puzzles.

And judging by his page, he's not only observing, he's analyzing, constructing and trying to understand the cylinder by drawing the minor axis.

Which is the point of the lesson, isn't it?

And not only that, but when he get the organic forms exercises later on, where you specified to use reference, he will gain traction to properly analyze and draw from observation.

Uncomfortable

2022-05-26 17:38

Pure observational drawing - that is, drawing based on what we see rather than what we understand - especially when done from live objects rather than photographs, can absolutely help contribute to the development of one's spatial reasoning skills. But to say that because this is the case, it does so at the same level, with the same effectiveness, as the exercises we use here that target the development of those spatial reasoning skills would not be accurate.

Basically, someone can absolutely learn from observing a physical cylinder, moving it around and whatnot, but this exercise puts far greater demands on developing their understanding of how that 3D space works, and it is designed with that intent in mind by stripping away the observational part and focusing only on having students build cylinders in a variety of orientations based entirely on their understanding of the mechanics of those cylinders.

So, it would also be fair to say that the exercise as it is designed would do nothing to improve observational skills, whereas working off this kind of a physical prop for every individual cylinder in the challenge would be beneficial in that regard. But again - that's not the goal for this exercise, and so we've stripped other points away in order to focus entirely on one thing, which in turn exists within the context of the larger overall course.

daftcruz

2022-05-26 18:48

It's pretty clear from the drawings that he's analyzing and constructing the cylinder though, not only observing it. He drew the ellipses and the minor axis.

> it would also be fair to say that the exercise as it is designed would do nothing to improve observational skills

About this sentence, sorry, I hard disagree. This is contradicting the rest of the course if you say so.

Say for example, that he's having trouble visualizing what is and how the minor axis works.

Then he pick that tube and draw from observation, but using construction.

After drawing from different angles, he now understands how ellipses rotate in perspective and what their minor axis is.

So both your exercise and the observation helped him improve his skills.

The exercise because it's designed to understand how the "anatomy" of the cylinder, what can not be seen by just looking at the reference.

And the observational drawing because he's actually seeing physically the ellipses rotating in that tube.

Both work hand in hand, they aren't more or less effective than the other.

So I don't think it hurts to do both, if it means that he's going to understand the topic.

Uncomfortable

2022-05-26 19:25

We may be talking past each other a bit here, resulting in some miscommunication. Here's what I mentioned in my original comment to the student.

I do hope you're only using this as a general reference/reminder of how those ellipses on either end work, and not attempting to draw it from observation.

What you're describing, in terms of being uncertain of how the minor axis would work, looking at the object, then going back to drawing his own cylinder would still just be using that tube as a sort of reference - not a direct model to draw purely from observation.

What I merely cautioned him against was setting up the tube as though it were a still-life, and replicating it like that, which is not what the exercise instructs.