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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.
DOWNLOADS
project-cross-contour-on-organic-forms.mp4
744 MB
project-cross-contour-on-organic-forms-transcript-english.txt
19 kB
project-cross-contour-on-organic-forms-transcript-spanish.txt
19 kB
project-cross-contour-on-organic-forms-captions-english.srt
31 kB
project-cross-contour-on-organic-forms-captions-spanish.srt
33 kB
ASSIGNMENTS![]()
![Tofu]()
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![Tofu]()
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![@fluffybuttss]()
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![Rio Paloma]()
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![Ben Kraske]()
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![@manuellopezcabrera]()
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![Ash]()
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![K. Williams]()
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![Kayin Aaron]()
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![Hernan Rueda]()
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![Ben Kraske]()
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![Petar Ristic]()
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![Estel]()
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![Chuck Ludwig Reina]()
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![Jacob]()
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![Dylan Bragg]()
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![Carlos Javier Roo Soto]()
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![Patrick Bosworth]()
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![@kotka]()
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![Carlos Javier Roo Soto]()
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![Alexandre Frazao]()
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![Melanie Scearce]()
Level 1
Simple Blobs: Visualize how cross contours wrap around random blog shapes from different angles (add eyes and limbs if you want to make it more fun!)
Ginger Root from Photo: Start by drawing the ginger root from the photos provided in the downloads and then try to invent your own. These are essentially blobs that grow other blobs, like bloated tree branches.
Simple Creatures: Draw seals, sea lions, fish, worms, snakes, sharks.. any simple blobby creature from photo reference. Find your own photos on pexels.com or unsplash.com
Level 2
Complex Creatures: Draw more complex creatures like lobster, shrimp, beetles, etc.
- First do the lobster photo I provided in the downloads. Then find your own reference on Pexels or Unsplash.
- Start with simple dynamic shapes. Remember what we learned in the Shapes section!
- Add the cross contour lines to show the forms. Simplify, but not too much so you don't lose the essence of the form.
Change the Pose: Change the pose a little from the photo to force yourself to imagine the forms instead of only copying.
Deadline: Submit by 05/31/2024 for a chance to be in the critique video!
Kind of struggled with anything foreshortening, and i find it hard to figure out the distance between contours (whether they should be closer or further and by how much). For ginger 3, the reference of the right ginger really has me struggling to see where the contours are facing.
I also have my pen sensitivity on high, so i had to manually lighten most of the contour lines afterwards...which i now see it's pretty inconsistent in some areas. Will work on the others another day, hopefully tomorrow
Ahhhh drawing from imagination is tough work...idk why but it feels so much harder than the first time i attempted this (like 2 years ago oof). Maybe i'm overthinking it? I'm going to call it for now and watch the demo.
Any criticism is appreciated
I feel that I struggled a bit with designing the ginger root people
Had a hard time with this one. Started with primitive blob forms before going onto ginger root images, forgot to save the images i used....i think ill need to get a real life subject to study. Couldn't get the volume right. The ammonite and the tortoise shell are 3d scans of real life specimens from museum collections found on sketchfab. The shell wasnt even close.......
ignore the huntress wizard doodles thats for an upcoming project.
Links to the studied models here:
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/puzzle-4d-ammonites-perisphinctes-97369beae61a4cf899ae4ab95df81889
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/sea-turtle-carapace-38049843f829430391048f1e4648cf26
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26d
The ammonite looks awesome! The ginger roots also look really good! I think you've done a great job at capturing the volume of your subjects. If anything, some of the contours have some angles that seem a bit too sharp and boxy as opposed to blobby and organic, mostly in the second ginger root drawing. Nice work! :)
Long time since I posted! I kept going at a very slow pace and for a while I wasn't confident in my results, so I just kept going privately. Felt good about this one (especially the bat) and wanted to post something again!
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28d
I love them!
I think I need to watch some demos to see what do when different cross contours meet (if that makes sense). There are a few areas in here where I feel like forms were interacting in a weird way and I didn't know what to do. Something to practice, I think.
Looks pretty great. I would suggest doing a bunch more to build up Your intuition for where forms meet.
I did these practices, I found it really funny to do but I think I'll do more practice because it's my first time doing this. Any kind of advice is welcome!
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26d
Nice work with these, the contours look great and nice job with changing the poses for some of these, you translated the forms to different angles very well. Love the face on the whale shark too, hehe.
Had some fun with this - thought I'd share all the project sketches I did. I think the snake funnily enough is a great exercise if you find a photo which plays around with depth as well.
This exercise made me think about how much I focus on mere contour instead of thinking of the overall form. I always though form came from shading, this is certainly an amazing exercise.
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2mo
Really nicely done. And to your comment, form can come from many things! Shading / rendering is just one of those methods. Even a simple line drawing can suggest form with the way lines overlap. Or sometimes we understand form by the shadow it casts. The great thing about this cross contour exercises is that if we can imagine form, we can use any of these techniques to express ourselves.
And again, really nice job!
A couple of level 1 attempts. I found it hard to sell the transitions between blobs, but I think I started to get it with the larger ginger root. I need to tighten up the cross contours, as they are a tad messy and don't sell the illusion as well as some other folks have.
Here is my level 1 project submission! I had a lot of fun doing the cross contour and it really made the drawings feel like they've come to life
A couple of practices before I move on to the Gestural Architecture. Done after watching the critique video. They turned out very sloppy, I don't don't why is harder for me to do clean lines with the mechanical pencil and the texture of the sketchbook didn't help. And I kind of force my way through the crab, guess I should have stick to blobs instead of planes.
Next I'll do a couple more of ginger root people and move to the next topic. Any advice? Do you think I captured the forms correctly here?
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2mo
These are looking great! That crab is fantastic, if anything I'd say bump up the lineweight a little around the main crab body to separate it a bit from the rear claw and legs. Your organic forms are all great too, your cross contours wrap like rubber bands, you're paying attention to the way the cross contours move in perspective, excellent work! What size mechanical pencil are you using? A thin .5mm mech can be somewhat unforgiving because it gives such a thin uniform line. Lines can easily get hairy if you go over them a few times, and if you have heavily textured paper that can really deviate the tip of a thin pencil. You might want to try using a thicker pencil for your outlines, either a regular woodcase pencil, or a 2mm clutch mech pencil to give you some more variety to your lines. Even a .7, or a .9mm mech can be a handy addition to a .5mm when you're trying to focus on lineweight or clean tapered finishing strokes. Hope this helps!
I really like sea animals so after the lobster I just kept going with the water creature theme. After reviewing the demo and critique video I realize that I spent way too much time on the lobster - but it was fun and meditative! I find myself enjoying organic shapes and cross contours a lot more than boxes.
Here is my first try to this assignment. I don't know what happened. I feel like the cross contours were wrapping well with the blobs but, they start getting worst and not wrapping properly.
Maybe is my carpal tunnel and/or the fact that drawing live caricatures for 3 years on an easel make me lose my habit of rotating my paper. It doesn't help that my sketchbook is to heavy to hold with one hand.
And I was trying to do these very lightly but the color pencil is too dark and short.
So, what do you guys think? I guess I'm gonna be in this lesson for a while.
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2mo
Great idea to ghost in the cross contour all the way around the object. Your cross contours wrap nicely round the form. Great work!
