The Blob Approach to Form
The Blob Approach to Form
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6:34

The Perspective Course

The Blob Approach to Form

1.2K
Course In Progress

The Blob Approach to Form

1.2K
Course In Progress
Marshall Vandruff
The blob approach simplifies drawing form by starting with loose shapes, building depth, and refining perspective.
Newest
Mitchell Griest
I love this blob technique! I feel like it's helping me with curve confidence and ellipses a bit as well. What a great idea!
Jonatan
25d
Sorry Mr. Marshall! Been really busy with work and life stuff so I haven't been able to hit the classes as much as I wish I could. Still drawing a good daily just not been able to focus on doing the classes, but I want to change that. Here I did more of the blob exercise with the spooned part and the squared up!
Moka
25d
Long live the blob approach! =) This lesson was a game changer for me and I really feel I'm improving little by little, one step after the other. Thank you!
@niesmiesznyzart
I'm not sure if i get the idea of blobs correctly I would be greatfull for any feedback
Li Ming Lin
Started practising the Blob Approach with a few simple blobs. At first I struggled a bit because they didn't look right, but got better many blobs later. This exercise also made me realise how good Peter's suggested drawing warmup routine was in one of the previous lessons (the warmup where we drew lots of straight lines). I can see (and feel tbh!) how wonky my edges are when trying to draw a box around the blob, even though the edges are so short. I think if I had done the warmup at the start, my edges could have been straighter.
Lin
2mo
I feel embarrassed that it didn’t click til yesterday that xyz is perpendicular (and also the corners of the boxes). I *knew* it at the back of my brain, but I wasn’t applying it for some reason, just focusing on converging. Did a bunch of these and even though they were converging reasonably they felt wrong and melty. 🫠 And I realized it was the angles. And then space started making a little more sense. I guess this is the value of repetition and practice vs theory. Love this class.
Vishal Hudge
Practicing, experimenting, and having fun to understand the process
Sandra Salem
I started the blob Approach and is definitely the opposite of what I learned. Really interesting. I will keep practicing later this next week. So I used the toy plane 3d model from this course to study the proportions and how to use the blob approach accordingly.
@sstinson
2mo
long time no post! Just finished an arduous living process and trying to get back into the routine, so here is a blob approach page, including a from life sketch of an external hard drive in the top left. Any feedback will be appreciated! Soon moving on to the airplane forms.
Guadalupe Belgrano
The Blob Approach to Form made some things easier and others more difficult for me. To begin with, I drew a few blobs, then tried to trap them in boxes. Afterward, I tried to understand the shape of a character I had previously painted in watercolor. I find it difficult to understand the direction and shape of the ears, as they are twisted. Then I drew three blobs, turned them into characters, and tried to understand their shape by drawing them in another position. There are still question marks, but I trust I will be able to solve them later.
Ash
2mo
These look great! I love your onion-shaped character sitting in leaves. :)
Sita Rabeling
Just a few of my drawings from practicing blob-to-box. I don't think I got this yet. Sorry for the messiness; in the second image I tried to work more neatly. I lost some time these weeks with figuring out how to rotate boxes exactly and I'm starting to understand the trick with grids. I couldn't let go of that puzzle. Now that I went back to drawing simple forms for this lesson, I see that those are hard enough to master. Maybe estimating is harder than measuring.
@b1egun
2mo
Here’s my attempt for today. I know the lines could be more consistent, but I focused more on understanding the topic 😊
Miqdad (Mick Dad) Ali
The BLOB approach! I enjoyed this! I think that because the blobs weren't very intimidating to draw I was able to get many more repetitions in and improve how I fit my boxes around them and how I was able to use my contour lines to show their shape. I focused mainly on drawing various boxes in the beginning and as I gained more confidence I started exploring more complex shapes. In particular I really enjoyed drawing more "wormy" looking blobs like the ones on the bottom of the 4th page. thinking about the convex curve pointing away the same direction the object points away was another really useful cue for me! towards the end I felt like everything was beginning to get a bit messy as I added convex and concave contours on my blob and then fit a box around it too. I used different coloured pencils to help me make the different objects read more clearly, but I don't think that helped much. Does anyone have any tips they would recommend? I know its slightly off topic from perspective, but I would like to know how I can layer more onto my page in a decipherable way so I can kind of comment and elaborate on my perspective drawings a bit more.
Jacob Granillo
1/26/25 I’m used to drawing boxes, so boxes weren’t much an issue for me. But the hexagons on the dumbbell challenge my skills. Some of them I notice my mistakes. As I draw from memory then use the item as a reference. I was very close to the perspective of the object! (All done free hand)
Ash
2mo
Great work, Jacob!
Shayan Shahbazi
I tried to warmup with these blobs, they feel so free and give confidence after you dance with them on the paper, actually I used to draw boxes to start my warmup for the day, but this is so much fun, gives me easier persuasion of what I want to be far or close.
Bas de Vries
Did some blob perspective drawings, due to bad lighting it might be a bit hard to see. Also did some warm-up lines on the same page as the book drawings.
Espy
2mo
Decided to do the blob approach after the last assignment, That warning at the start made me laugh out loud. Really would have helped me to watch this before doing the last assignment. This is a much faster approach to drawing boxes than I'm used to! In a matter of a day I was able to draw 2 pages worth, where it would have taken me much longer if I tried to estimate the vanishing points for each and every box. The note of just letting the lines fly for now really stops me from overthinking; I'm really thankful for that. On the second one I wanted to test myself and see if I could put multiple forms in the same space near eachother. Wasn't focused on making things right anatomically or making any interesting shapes really, just wanted to play around with what I can do with the blob approach and see if I can get the beginnings of stacking form on top of eachother. Neat stuff!
@lieseldraws
A bunch of boxes, some from blobs, others not. While it wasn't easy, last year's box exercises from the Proko Basics course helped. Nothing impressive, but it wasn't as challenging as the first time around. I'm hoping this means some improvement, however slow. I so badly want to improve my perspective skills so I can observe and draw forms better. Until then, one box at a time! One thing I've struggled with the blob approach is that when I start with blobs, my contour lines are off. As mentioned by someone else in the comments, contours are acutally ellipses..and I've realized that I don't really know how to draw them in perspective according to the kind of box I'm picturing. So drawing boxes straight-up (and not from blobs) feels easier to me. Is this something that I'll get better at once we learn ellipses? Any feedback would be appreciated! Thanks
Ishaan Kumar
Are all of these freehand?
Ishaan Kumar
I tried the blob approach to drawing objects in front of me. The blob isn't that visible but it's there, I swear. The first object is a jar of rusk, the other 2 may be me getting slightly ahead of this course and myself and drawing 2 vehicles at an automobile exhibition I visited.
@lieseldraws
Hi, these look amazing! I love how you drew from life :) I'm curious - did you sketch on location or took a photo and drew from it?
Donna Milligan
Blocky fingers leave me at more angles than I'd have bothered with just bobbing
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