Project - Simplify from Observation
Project - Simplify from Observation
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Project - Simplify from Observation
courseDrawing BasicsFull course (185 lessons)
$159
assignments 8965 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
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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.

Camille Varner Kolafa
Decided to try my hand at this. I work so detailed and rarely simplify things, so it was a challenge. I found myself wanting to break down every single plane and value I could see, but I tried not to go overboard with too many!
Hareesh Gounder
The three pears before and after watching the demo and critique video. Its insane how much of a difference it makes but i think i still struggled with even shading especially of the shadows
Yasmeen Nabeel
i think im a level 1 but i attempted 2 but the values got a bit lost this is before the demo
@owo
11h
First attempt.
Camille Varner Kolafa
This is a lovely first attempt, I think you nailed it!
Rhett Dantzler
newbie. This was fun
@drawmeabathpls
square pear
@dwiener94534
New to drawing. A long way to go. Having trouble "seeing" the changes in shading.
@drawmeabathpls
Really beautiful, great work!
@jaygood93
Any and all advice and critiques are really appreciated
Patrick Bosworth
This looks really good! When you take a look at this sketch, squint your eyes down and look at the separation of light shapes and shadow shapes. Sometimes it helps to completely close one eye, and squint down the other. You have a fairly nice separation of light and dark, but your (2) light and (3) dark halftones are reading very close to your (4) reflected light in the shadow, this is very common! It always helps to re-establish and darken your shadow shapes once you lay in your light and dark halftones. Take one more pass at darkening all shadow values to give a more even, and clearer separation of your dark and light shapes. Keep up the good work!
@drawmeabathpls
Strong line work! 💪
Jake Guillereault
Re learning how to draw but in procreate! I want to take this whole class over
Camille Varner Kolafa
Looking good Jake! My biggest suggestion would be to keep using those straight lines you've got for the contour, for the rest of the shadows as well and break them into shapes to clearly differentiate each value on their respective plane, instead of blending. I think you could also go a lot darker in your shadow :)
Morten Dahl Pedersen
I think I missunderstood the assignment? I have a long way to go
@drawmeabathpls
It’s sooo okay to feel like you’re not talking in all the information! These are REALLY great and you should be proud of these pieces! Keep moving forward with the course and keep drawing ✍️
Lucy Ellams
First pear! Been drawing for a month now but first time trying shading
@drawmeabathpls
🤌 🔥
@jaygood93
First time shading that is really good
@guardianlemartes
Behold a pear. I had trouble drawing straight lines But I'm working with both my program and trying to relearn drawing after not for years.
Michal Grossmann
After I finished all lessons in Level 1, I tried this project in Level 2.
Camille Varner Kolafa
Looks awesome Michal, good job using shapes to define the values.
@dudmanius
So, I decided to start the course again since I only watched a few videos before quitting. Left pear was drawn before looking at demo and critique and the right one was drawn after demo and critique. Any tips are much appreciated.
Camille Varner Kolafa
Both are really successful in meeting the assignment goals! I definitely see the improvement on your 2nd attempt. You did a good job defining the overall shape with smaller shapes, particularly in the left side values. The way you differentiated the 2 dark values really brings out the dimension of the pear compared to the first attempt, as the first one has 2 dark values that are really similar so it almost flattens it.
@kailimar
Hi, first time submitting art on here but I figured I should start sharing my work to more people
Camille Varner Kolafa
Welcome! I love your mark-making! The pear looks lovely. For your portrait, I think there are some missed shape opportunities! The darkest value you have in the hair could be brought to some areas of the face as well, the right side of their face gets pretty dark in the photo. Don't forget the lips! You left them the white of the paper, but they are really a midtone with some darker shapes as well.
@faisdodo2
Sarah
3d
Hello. I am excited to learn about the technical aspects of drawing. I took all the art classes when I was in high school, decades ago, but have not done much since. I chose the pear option 3 to make sure that I was not just doing exactly as he said in his demo. I did attempt the project once before the demo and once after. Overall I struggled with shading the correct values and drawing what my eye saw.
Camille Varner Kolafa
Glad to hear you're back to making art, Sarah! I already see the improvement in your 2nd attempt. It can be hard to draw what you see. That's why breaking it down into shapes first is important in this project! Establishing a value scale on your page with your 5 value will help a lot too. To help some with seeing the values, try out Proko's Value Study tool :) https://www.proko.com/values
Will B
4d
First submission: A Group of Pears. My first attempt (by itself) done prior to the demo, and my 2nd, 3rd and 4th attempts (grouped together) after watching the demo. 1, 2 & 3 are in pencil and 4 is in markers, just to give them a try. What I learned: 1) My tendency is to go very light in saturation (or whatever the pencil version of saturation is.) I really had to push in the 2nd and 3rd to get the dark-darks, which really helped get a nice contrast across the image. 2) It's really hard to to decide where the splits between each section would be. I found myself disregarding the reference, and just going with my gut. Not sure if that's better or worse, but I did clock it. 3) The practice was worth it. I wasn't super excited to keep drawing pears, but I can say I feel the most satisfied with the 3rd pencil version. 4) Working with the markers was fine. It was nice to not have to shade over and over again like with the pencils, but I was working with a pretty limited set of pens that didn't really match the gradations of the reference where I was choosing the value splits. Also, not really the right paper.
Ejiro Montoya
Sekar Bhavani
Hi All, here is my first attempt at drawing a pear and the Level 2 Portrair. Would appreciate any feedback. Thx Sekar
Melanie Scearce
Great points from Camille! Another thing I noticed in your portrait drawing is that you started to use contour lines to represent the facial features like the mouth, nose and eyes, instead of using value shapes. Try to use those shapes to "build" the features instead of using a symbol to identify those features.
Camille Varner Kolafa
Hey Sekar, great job on your pear, it is clear you were prioritizing the shapes and edges! I think you lost that a bit in the portrait. It looks like you were keeping straight lines for the edges in mind for the major outer edges of the person, like with their hair, face, and shirt. But your values lose the edge definition, particularly in the face. On your next attempt, try really focusing on finding the edges of your different values before you fill them in! It might also help to make a key of each of your 5 values. Don't be afraid to get darker with your darkest value! They are close together so really push the darkest!
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