recreation of the ‘standard’ plus played around a bit to see how different proportion and angle ideas would look

Great explanation Michael, I definitely draw hands too short, legs too long, butt too high and so on. Would it help with gesture to know at least some basic anatomy of muscles and bones or are these big ideas, as you say, enough for this course? Guess we’ll pick up some anatomy along the way - really cool how easily you drew that arm. Cheers.

This was as fun as it was challenging! I really tried to focus on simplification with the markers. Working through multiple iterations of the comp really reinforced shapes and designs so moving on to the larger thumb I felt more confident about the start of the sketch. Going to keep 3 value markers handy from here on out!

Level 1 only for this project unfortunately….ironic since it is a rare, luxuriously long project deadline! Anyway, I may have overfocused on various crops, but this and inserting ‘story’ suggesting value shapes into the background was the most fun aspect. Blow ups are my two favorites.

Sneaking in a 2nd attempt just before the submission deadline. I rushed through the blobs phase on first attempt to get to boxes, but this meant some randomness in the result. Spent more time on the blobs here and really tried to pre-visualise what view each blob would represent…so more intention. Not sure I succeeded in getting more consistency - different scale vs different views vs different degrees of intended foreshortening seems to be too much to maintain consistent proportionality of the different forms to each other. Also got a bit out of my depth trying to put a sphere in the box for the head…guess that lesson is a bit further down the line 😁

Had some long overdue home DIY before I could start this project. Fixing a leaky bathroom tap led to a cosmic resignation that the replacement valve cartridge was as good as anything to draw. Pretty dry subject matter (sorry). Studied it for a few minutes then copied Peter Han process in demo of steam train and started with an ortho to eyeball up the proportions of different sections. Then simplified to 4 forms, then a blob. Next, drew a load of blobs in different orientations. Cross contours were used as markers for the tops of each different form as a rough proportion guide. Thought about different degrees of foreshortening whilst blobbing these out. Converted to boxes with a messy pencil phase, then stuck some tracing paper over and inked with some line weight variation. Finished with some ellipses in boxes practice from the Drawing Basics course to create the lowermost form (1). Learned a few things… i) Overlapping forms create an appearance of offset from centre. Saw Peter Han do this with the cow guard of the steam train, I understood why, but only once I saw him do it. I’d never have done that if I’d been drawing cos I would not have known to. Constructing forces it to happen. ii) After drawing the ortho and simplifying to four boxes, there was zero need to revert back to the object itself - which was both revelatory and practical…cos it’s round and does not sit still on my sloping desk. Again, constructing means you just needed to draw some boxes. iii) I used a fat, blunt, soft lead mechanical pencil for the messy blob to boxes part. At first I thought I should switch to a hard, fine point pencil due to the smudgey mess…but actually the blunt soft lead meant I felt much looser and the lines were more forgiving so it was way easier to construct. iv) some viewing angles produce boring drawings! v) Hard to be perfectly consistent with proportions for all orientations done free hand but guess that is not the point here. After I finished the blobs, I could not be sure that they were gonna be at all useful but they actually were. Trust the blobs! (But ignore the bits that don’t perfectly match the subject)

Took an experimental approach to this assignment. Accepting the challenge, I went for total freehand - ink, freehand circles and of course, freehand lines pulled with no paper rotation - picture one. Feeling quietly confident, I then did a red pen, compass and protractor analysis of a random but representative sample - picture two. Results: - on average lines are out by 2.27 deg - maximum error was up to 5 deg - largest errors seemed to be over the NW to SE axis which happens to be normal to my most comfortable SW to NE line pull orientation - the proportion of +ve vs -ve error is 44% vs 56% respectively - my ‘perfect’ zero angle error was a lackluster 14% - my ‘perfect’ straight line (same error/no error on exact opposite) proportion was a dismal 12.5% I now have a quantitative baseline for analysis of future improvement….however, feeling a little disappointed at my performance and the need for a more rapid improvement to bring back that misplaced confidence, I suddenly remembered university days, shooting pool in the student bar on a Friday evening. As we all know, an optimal intake of alcohol, just enough, but not too much, places one in the ‘beer window’ where you become pretty much unstoppable. Purely for research purposes, I decided to try getting into the beer window for this assignment. With lucky red pen in hand, 6 cans of moderate strength lager downed and feeling invincible, I set pen to paper and what a result! Nailed it! Freehand circle division mastery - picture 3. I defy any and all to find even 1/10th of a degree error… N.B. I definitely did not go back a few videos, pick up 📐 and 📏 and pair of compasses and cheat…though my recollection is a little hazy.

Ah some nice and inspiring examples of profundity in there @Marshall Vandruff 😁 👍 I’m sold. Great point (and challenge) to visualize the envelope or see out from centre with the star example. My brain will hurt.

Well, master tonal studies went fine…then I tried my own still life (my amateur analogue photography set-up)….I thought the composition was ok, but end result in terms of lit forms was just UGLY in comparison with the master paintings! Depressing how masterful they were….the Native American on horseback painting blew me away 😭

Trying to create complex optical illusions is not easy, both craft (lot of planning, thinking, experimenting and iterating needed) and dare I say it, for me motivation - honestly, cool as they can be, I cannot shake the feeling that they are more novelty parlour tricks… I sensed from Marshall’s assignment video that perhaps these are not to be taken so seriously but, I take full responsibility for my own lazy, excuse-making cynicism. So, can anyone share examples of optical illusions used cleverly as part of a story (graphic novel or illustrated storybook) or to make a real expression of a meaning in a painting or illustration ? Would be great to see for inspiration! What I did learn and find very useful was use of lineweight to manipulate depth and form to trick the viewers eye. Kind of applied optical illusions with purpose. Second two images are a before and after translation of two cubes. Here is a nice link that explains: http://blah.ksteinfe.com/foundations_of_drawing/drawing_lineweight.html