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You’ll learn the most important foundational concepts for drawing anything and soon you’ll be drawing pictures out of your imagination or from reference.
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Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
LESSON NOTES
Here’s a clip taken from the premium critique of the drawing basics course.
The assignment was to simplify a pear or a portrait down to its shapes, values, and edges. In this critique, I break down some of the common issues I saw students have with their shape design. I’ll give you advice and talk about proportion, asymmetry, and improving your shadow shape design. If you enjoy this critique and would like more be sure to check out the full course.
DOWNLOADS
critique-simplify-pear-from-observation.mp4
3 GB
critique-simplify-pear-from-observation-transcripts-english.txt
65 kB
critique-simplify-pear-from-observation-transcripts-spanish.txt
67 kB
critique-simplify-pear-from-observation-captions-english.srt
113 kB
critique-simplify-pear-from-observation-captions-spanish.srt
115 kB
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Pear Critiques are here!
Critique for the portraits coming Thursday, but I recommend level 2 students watch this critique video too. I give advice and demonstrate things that should be useful to both levels.
Absolute beginner here! Feedback welcome!
It was tough to understand the transition of shadows. Am I correct in thinking you can't have your darkest shadow next to the dark 1/2 tone (third lightest)? Is that what Stan said? Plane changes and all.. I went back in and placed the lighter shadow in between... Learning to think differently here is kind of exciting!
Second attempt at the first pear with a before and after. How was this? I tried to simplify it a lot more after seeing the pear critique video
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2d
The shapes that you chose in your second version read much more clearly than your first, nice job!
Hello, Just got done with the first assignment and demos. Any constructive feedback is welcome!!!
Did I mention I have never been able to draw? Everyone in my family can, its never come naturally. Here are my very 1st attempts….
Hey Stan,
I'm new here so I thought I would introduce myself. I am currently an MFA student in children's literature and illustration at Hollins University, I am in my fourth semester and currently taking my design class with them. However I desperately want to amp up my drawing fundamentals as I have never been to formal art School and this came highly recommended, I bundled it with the children's illustration class and super excited to get started and post here. 🥰
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12d
Not Stan (just one of the minions haha) but glad you're here! Looking forward to seeing your work and your progress.
Hey! Just started working on getting my art skills up, I would love any feedback on my drawing!
Couldn't keep my attention span long enough to just watch the critique video so did a bunch of free doodle/replicas from the video. Trying to think of shapes and sharp lines but its difficult especially when drawing outline i feel like my proportions are out of wack zooming in. Got a little frustrated yesterday but doodling and watching today was freeing
Hello!
First of all, I think you did a good job trying to get the proportions down. I would have made the lower half of the pear slightly thicker, but other than that it looks good.
Another thing that you did well was that you recognized the main shadows and highlights and placed them out correctly.
I would say the main thing that you missed, was the line work, it's not as sharp as it should be. Stan mentioned that the edges should be sharp for this exercise and a lot of edges here look smooth, and the values from one value gets mixed with other values. Some of the lines are also too round, when no round curves are allowed for this exercise.
This exercise is mainly about simplification, and curves should be straight lines, edges should be sharp and there needs to be 5 distinct values.
But I would say that this is a good start over all. Good job.
I’d been waiting for the part challenge, and it felt good to finally finish it.
The first version was fine, but I wasn’t really happy with it. I watched the video again and tried it a second time.
My third pear attempt, after watching through the critiques. I feel like my pencil control, edges, and values improved a lot. I liked the overall volume more this time as well, though feel like too much information was lost on the right hand side - it would have been nice to show the little dip in and bulge out in a more defined way.
I struggled with my hand leaving smudges on the paper, and was unsure how to work around this - avoid leaning on the paper with my hand? I also noticed that the previous pages in my sketchbook are smudging each other as they are pressed together as I draw. I wonder if anyone has any insight on how to approach these things? I also noticed that rotating my pencil so that the side not yet flattened by drawing faces the paper has a dramatic impact on the darkness and blending of my pencil work. I wonder if this is a hint that I should be sharpening more to avoid the pencil flattening out at all, or if I should avoid rotating the pencil? Do people ‘blunt’ the pencil tip after sharpening on a scrap of paper to avoid these distinct and sharp lines that are created by a sharp edge? If that makes sense? Any feedback very much appreciated!
Hello, here is my submission, il fill like a miss something everybody’s pear is more angled than mine if it make sense, and I don’t really see the shape on the inside in mine
This is my drawing, it's my first time simplifying something, the proportion doesn't seem correct to me and neither does the shadow, but I can't correctly identify what I need to change to be "correct"
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28d
This is a great drawing with a clear separation between light and shadow. You don’t need the spots and details drawn for this assignment though.
Here, we want to think about the planes of the form. Don’t copy the reference too much.
Design your drawing, don’t copy. It’s fine if the final result doesn’t look like the photo.
Thanks for sharing! I hope to see more!
Did a couple of 'pears' with different pencils and paper. I present the ones I think are ok-ish. Looking forward to input!
hi! here's a fast sketch i did for my pear, could anybody give me advice on how to make it more appealing/ make it look better in general? i know it's nowhere near as good as it could be, i myself see some mistakes in shape and values, if you see anything that feels off and know how it could be better please tell me!!!
Don't talk yourself down. When you say it isn't a good as it could be, my question is what do you know you have to improve? Is it the time you spend on it? My observation is that the right lower side is a bit too wide and the highlights at the bottom are incisive for me. What I like about it that it clearly is a 3d object. And the pear seems to be happy through your style!
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1mo
This is a beautiful pear! Don’t be afraid to get darker in the shadows.
Night and day difference between pre (left) and post (right) critique watch, I'm so pleased! They are of different pears so wasn't expecting them to look the same, but already the quality difference is huge.
My biggest takeaway is that I have to go a lot more slowly as I build skills. I probably spent 5x the amount of time on the second drawing as compared to the first.
Just wanted to get some critique on my drawings of the pear here. Image on the right was the 1st attempt. Image on the left was me going back after a couple of minutes and trying to nail it down. Obviously a lot of work to do - but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I know it looks off, but I'm not sure how/what to fix.
OK so this is my third attempt on the pear . The last one is after seeing the critique video. Request a critique and suggestions please
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2mo
Nice work, and big improvement after seeing the critique video. One thing I would say is to go a little slower as you build up tone. It is better to make more marks lightly and carefully. This will let you stay within the lines you designate. Layer the pencil on top of itself to make things darker, rather than trying to press a harder, and you will have more even tone. It takes a bit more time but will let you be more precise. Good work, and keep it up!
