Project - Simplify from Observation
Project - Simplify from Observation
This lesson is premium only. Join us in the full course!
05:36
48K views
lesson video
Project - Simplify from Observation
courseDrawing BasicsFull course (185 lessons)
$159
assignments 8166 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
jpeg
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.

Stef Diac
41m
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.
Alden Reed
My level 2 attempts after watching the demo; one digital and one with pencil. The lay in on digital felt faster but is a little more proportionally wonky to me. I tried to focus more on the shape of shadow blocks rather than facial structure and am more pleased with these attempts. For the digital attempt, I stuck with one pencil brush which made smoother shading a little tricky until I disabled dynamic brush scaling. For the pencil, I used HB for lay in & half tones, 2B for core shadow and 4B for dark shadows. I think I should have pushed the light half tones a little more.
Catherine Davis
My first attempt at pear #1
Jacob Troutman
I almost considered never posting and keeping work to myself, but I decided that I need to step out of my comfort zone to improve. There's little purpose to making art if I keep it close to the chest. I made some notes on the page after watching the past critiques, but I'm ready hear anyone else's opinion.
Melanie Scearce
Good notes! I agree with everything you have here. Your shading looks very nice here. It's tough to tell if there are all 5 values here, maybe because of the gradient. Next time you try this project, it may help to warm up with a little value scale like this one. It serves two purposes: priming your pencil control for even shading, and you can use it to 'color pick' your values as you make your value shapes.
Wong Colleen
Hi there, this is my first work.
Mohsin Khan
Please share the feedback.
Hayden Gillam
I really like the shapes! I had a hard time with, even while focusing on it, making each face have a hard edge like that. The only thing I would add is try to focus on the highlights too, there's a lot of shadow in yours but I only see one spot of highlight
@charlie08
This is my second attempt of the pear using reference 2 after watching the demo.
Rachel Dawn Owens
The background value is a bit dark. It makes the drawing difficult to read. You can either lighten the pear or the background to solve this. Your values are shapes are looking good. Now your drawing just needs some clarity.
Ashley Hall Romero
Hello guys😎 submitting project #1 Looking forward to feedback 😶‍🌫️🥰
Chuck Ludwig Reina
Nice work Ashley! You did a great job finding that core shadow. I think you can go a bit darker on your shadows and halftones. Take you time and layer them in. I did a quick draw over to show. Having that higher contrast between the darkest darks, and lightest lights really helps make the form pop. Also, another good habit for these exercises is to draw a tone guide. Again, great work!
@emilym
5d
Pretty happy with my first attempt! I think I could definitely use some work on values though. Any other advice? Excited to watch the demo and try again!
Chuck Ludwig Reina
Nice job! I think you're right about the values. Your darkest dark seems dark enough, but I think you could go slightly darker on the other dark value (the second to the darkest). Good stuff!
@birdbrains13
I’ve dived back in and had a crack at the portrait. This took me considerably longer, couple of hours-ish, whereas my pears were 20-30 minutes. I still lack “the eye” of observational drawing, and got sucked into trying to make a 1:1 replica of the photo, and started drifting from the “simplify and clarity” which was the real subject of this assignment. The limitations of straight lines only, hard edges, and five values creates a stylized drawing that I really really enjoy! He seems cross-eyed, and his nose seems too large, which makes it quite funny to look at, haha.
@charlie08
This is my first attempt using reference 1. I think my shape is good but somethings wrong with the shading and I can't place it. Does anyone have any feedback?
Amanda F
6d
My first attempt on pear reference 1
Laurel
6d
my take on this first assignment for the course, used pear 2 as my reference
Alden Reed
First take at level 2 before watching the demo, drawn in Procreate
Lyme Poo
8d
My first attempt and second attempt. I think it’s okay for my first time dipping into art.
Listo
8d
Here is the result of my assignment of this first course ^^
Geoffrey Huppé
Help!
Browse the FAQs or our more detailed Documentation. If you still need help or to contact us for any reason, drop us a line and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!