Project - Simplify from Observation
Project - Simplify from Observation
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Project - Simplify from Observation
courseDrawing BasicsFull course (185 lessons)
$159
assignments 8187 submissions
Vance Viggiano
When you can't decide on Level 1 or Level 2. I thought it might be fun to try it on gray paper. Everyone's work is inspiring! Happy to be learning with you all!
LESSON NOTES

Alright guys, let's jump into the deep end and see how you do! I feel like we've been talking a lot and not drawing enough. So, before we move on to learning about Lines, I want to give you an opportunity to spend some time doing a simplified drawing. You’re going to draw a pear or portrait if you’re doing the level 2 project. I know… A fruit isn’t the most exciting thing to draw, but it’s going to allow you to focus on the process I’m going to show you, instead of being distracted by a difficult subject matter.

This will let us see where you're at with your skills. It’s totally fine if you're at zero. Kind of expected actually. But, you'll identify right away what you struggle with. And you’ll be introduced to a lot of the skills that you’ll be working on improving in this course.

You can draw from the photos I provided in the downloads tab, or find your own fruit and draw from life. Pick a fruit that has an interesting shape you like. Put the fruit on your desk and shine a light on it. Move the light around until you like the balance of light and dark shapes. 

If you don’t want to draw the photo I provided, or you want to do more than one, feel free to find your own photo. Just make sure you choose a photo with a strong single light source that creates a clear separation of lights and shadows. Many moons ago I wrote a blog post about good photo reference.

Make sure you take a photo of it from your point of view, so you can include it when posting your drawing in the community. If you want to be critiqued by me or others in the community, we'll need to see what you were drawing. 

Join us in the premium course to get access to this lesson, full lesson notes, assignments, demonstrations and critiques!

DOWNLOADS
jpeg
level-1-pear-1.jpg
2 MB
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level-1-pear-2.jpg
2 MB
jpeg
level-1-pear-3.jpg
2 MB
jpeg
level-2-portrait.jpg
1 MB
mp4
project-simplify-from-observation.mp4
183 MB
txt
project-simplify-from-observation-transcript-english.txt
5 kB
txt
project-simplify-from-observation-transcript-spanish.txt
6 kB
file
project-simplify-from-observation-captions-english.srt
9 kB
file
project-simplify-from-observation-captions-spanish.srt
8 kB
ASSIGNMENTS

Use the reference photos in the downloads tab or go find your own reference and start drawing! Remember, this project is all about simplifying to clarify.

Make sure to keep these 3 things in mind:

Shapes - Draw your shapes with straight lines
Values - Use only 5 values. 2 in the shadow and 3 in the lights
Edges - Make every single edge sharp!

I'll publish my drawing demos of both levels next Tuesday so you can watch me go through the problem solving process. For a chance to be included in the critique videos, you must submit your drawing to the community by January 26th, 2023, so I can begin filming and producing the critique video.

Joy Rouse
This is the 2nd project choice 1. Critique and comments are so loved
Lyn Umu
4h
This was really fun, the mouth was really challenging! Timed quick form practice 35 min
Lyn Umu
10h
My attempt at two of the pears! Used minimal undoing, and didn't pick different value colors manually, instead used varied pen pressure on 100% black.
@watidude2
13h
Any and all advice is appreciated, especially on my values. Also for some reason I thought I should try it only using boxes so I've got like a minecraft pear.
jasper Yan
17h
Any advice?
Melanie Scearce
This is a beautiful portrait, Jasper! You got a great likeness. Your values are organized well. If you were to try this project again, I would suggest that you try to keep your value shapes a bit more contained. Especially in the lighter value range, it is difficult to pick out specific value shapes and it seems like there is a bit of rendering there.
@torres_jmail
My second attempt at the photo! :) Advice?
@torres_jmail
Any advice?
@igobygrace
first attempt + would love some feedback! going to try again after watching the demo (and using regular pencils instead of mechanical, because it was hard for me to get the values looking the way i wanted)
Lewis Lexter Yap
1st attempt 41 year old and a 9 year old
Eleni Kamisakis
My first attempt at a pear. Terrible.
@carniequeue
This is good! The shading gradient is nice. Ive only been drawing for a short time myself, but I've noticed its actually harder to draw small than big. You might have more fun with things if you went 4x that size.
@lin4
2d
have a hard time with identifying planes and simplifying values; esp with more complex subjects like the portrait -- caught myself jumping around and over rendering a lot
Dixita
2d
I am a hobby artist and most of my learnings are from online social media platforms. I am trying to be good at art and learning kind of formally or following classes. Here's my attempt at the first assignment of this course.
@carniequeue
First attempt at Pear #1. The edges really got away from me. Im going to watch the demo and try it again.
DK Taylor
Try to go even darker in thr shadows. It'll help out the contrast
Minimal Rage
My attempt at the level two image, following along with Clip Studio
@xolotl1973
First attempt at something more difficult. I think I completely lost the values (four rather than five) and using a mechanical pencil didn't help. Feel like I learned from it though.
Keith
3d
I attempted the pear, I wasn’t sure how to do the edges. If you have any feedback I would appreciate it!
Stef Diac
My three attempts at this, all in CSP. First was before the demo, second was after the demo, and then last was after watching critiques. It's been a fun assignment, still lots to learn of course :) I still find proportions to be tough, and for the last one I had to do a lot of measurements. Would love to revisit this with pen and paper
@shirelm92
My first attempt of pear 1 before watching the demo. Thanks for the feedback!
Hayden Gillam
Thank you for any feedback!
Martha Muniz
I like the shape separations! I would recommend starting lighter with your grey tones, as it seems like there's a big jump from the lightest value to the first grey tone. Once you lighten it a bit, it will help show the nice division you have in lights and shadows already :)
@dooloukas
My first attempt before watching the demo of pear # 1.
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