Project - Simplify from Observation
Project - Simplify from Observation
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Project - Simplify from Observation
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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.

Newest
@greenfamily
did this before seeing the demo
@sm1998
18h
Attempt at the pear!
@sm1998
19h
First attempt! I think I can improve the proportions of the banana and the shadow placement at the bottom is off by a bit but I am proud of this! :)
Keith Harrison
Attempt at level 2 and day 5 of 2 week challenge
Melanie Scearce
You're on the right track! There's a big section coming up in this course on shapes, so this is just a taste of shape design. I think your shapes are a bit too simple and geometric here - lots of rectangles and triangles, giving this portrait a bit of a cubist feel. Bringing more C and S curves into the design of your shapes will soften the shapes and make him look more organic. Try isolating some of your value shapes and take a look at their individual design. Another trick to try out is to squint at the reference. This will compress the values into more easily identifiable shapes. It makes it easier to design more abstractly. Hope that helps!
@joejanglez
This was my first attempt before watching the demo. Funny enough, I thought I did very poorly until I stepped away for a little bit and took a look at it as a whole. There's definitely some improvements I can make and I'm sure the demo will help illuminate that a bit more but I feel pretty good about my first attempt.
Herman
1d
I have never really messed with values before so I don't think I really had good edges in the finished piece. Had a lot of fun with the initial outline and figuring out the shadows.
@ex1le
2d
Getting started ! To simplify isn't that simple... i found hard to see the mid values. First attempts before try with demo videos
Pat
2d
Maybe I'll manage to post this on my third attempt 🙄. This is assignment 1 completed before watching Stan's demo. I feel my darkest value looks like an outline. Is it too narrow? Or is there too much contrast between the two darkest values? Any help appreciated.
Tommy Pinedo
Nice looking pear :)
Melanie Scearce
The shape of the darkest value doesn't bother me much, you could definitively thicken it in some areas to give it more design if you wanted. I think overall getting darker with your values will make the most impact on this drawing. Your darkest value is fairly light on the spectrum, which compresses 3 lighter values together, making them too similar to see the distinct shapes, especially when you squint your eyes. If your shapes stay distinguishable through squinted eyes, you've got a good value distribution for this project. Overall this is a great pear! Hope this helps :)
Carolyn Keough
attempt 1 is before watching demo, and attempt 2 is after. improvement in making the 5 tones distinct. Had fun watching it come together.
Melanie Scearce
Great work! :)
@mr_rain
2d
Hi I'm a beginner, I've done both pear 1 and pear 3 with slightly different styles. I'm finding the different values thing pretty tough. It's like I draw then notice later that a shadow shouldn't have been as dark. If it's okay, may I have some advice?
Chuck Ludwig Reina
Hi there! I think you did pretty well actually. Learning to eyeball values is hard, and takes time, but you will for sure get better as you go. I honestly think if anything, don't be afraid to go darker on the shadow side! You can always try squinting your eyes when you look at the pear. That will help you see the differences more easily because it will kind of blur everything together. Keep it up!
Carolyn Keough
made an attempt at another image. trying to restart the lessons
Martha Muniz
Nicely done, great control over the values!
Yoram van Leeuwen
Lucie S
3d
Here goes!
@lwm5
3d
Chuck Ludwig Reina
Looks good! You could probably simplify those shapes a little more to get a stronger read on the shape. Nice work!
@licht24
3d
Hey guys i just started learning how to draw if any of you has any advices or just anything that can help me improve just say.
Chuck Ludwig Reina
These look terrific. One thing I would say, is to not be afraid to go darker. It's the shadow side that really makes your drawings pop off the page. But even the light side of your drawings could use a little more tone. And then the only other piece of advice is: draw lots and have fun!
Holly
3d
First attempt at the pear. I found that trying to simplify it and draw straight lines instead of curves was hard as I kept trying to copy exactly what I saw.
Charlie Forray
I did the Level 1 Pear twice and then took a long crack at the level 2. I don’t know if I’ve ever drawn a portrait I’m more proud of than this☺️
Nilas Gällström
Any feedback would be appreciated here :) Felt kinda scary to post anything like this, wanna make it a habit so that I can improve as fast as possible.
Valeria
5d
I’m a compete beginner, and I’ve always wanted to to draw faces but it always sucked, everything would be off. First time I made something that resemblance the original person
Chuck Ludwig Reina
These look great. One thing to watch when using colors for your value range (instead of just black and white), is we can often let the chroma distract us from the actual value. Good work!
@karl2019
did the three pairs. feel like they did not come out too good. any feedback would be appreciated. going to see his demo in a bit then maybe redo them. Feel like I did not capture the values correctly on the body of the pair when it came to the light values.
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