Project - Simplify from Observation
Project - Simplify from Observation
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Project - Simplify from Observation
courseDrawing BasicsFull course (185 lessons)
$159
assignments 8250 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
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level-1-pear-3.jpg
2 MB
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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.

@vencu
31m
Learning on a wacom tablet in photoshop for the first time, and not used to digital drawing at all (first drawing at all) so the pencil strokes aren't very even, need to practice more with the tool and add more values to the shading to even it out, will be making a second attempt with a different pear Even when i've drawn on pencil and paper i hadn't really practiced shading so that is new to me entirely
K. Williams
I'm a little nervous about posting my art so apologies if it looks like I'm doing a lot of things all at once. I think this one went OK but I would like to work on getting more consistent values as well as figuring out how to differentiate the light midtone from the highlight.
Eleni Kamisakis
I’m struggling to get the values right. Can anyone give me feedback? Thank you ❤️
Felipe Fideles
Just getting back on the course. here is my pear :D felt some difficulty in getting the values consistent and identifying the middle value
Frederic Valade
I wanted to draw the first pear using different types of hatching, but I couldn’t manage to do it. I also tried to simplify it as much as possible by using only straight lines, as requested.
Georgia Price
Attempt two, I still think i did too much over complicating 🥹
Felipe Fideles
i really liked the sharp angles. great work
Georgia Price
I think I started okay then I did a bit too much, any advice would be great :)
@jaden99c
For reference Critique #9, #11, and #16 in the "Critique - Simplify Pear from Observation" tackle similar issues.
@jaden99c
Im still learning as well, but when watching Stan's demo and critique video on the pear, he mentioned a lot of people tend to make the same mistake of the values not being distinct well enough so they blend together. Basically the lights look dark and blend with your darker darks. I also have the same issue. In the project, we were supposed to use 5 values - 2 in the dark and 3 in the light. From my (untrained) eye, your pear looks like it has 4 values, 3 in the dark and 1 light, and the only value in the light is the highlight. If you compare your cast shadow value to the section of pear that the light is hitting, they are nearly the same. In fact, I think the edge of your cast shadow is actually LIGHTER than the section of pear that is facing the light. If you look at the reference photo, one of the darkest areas is the cast shadow. If you could reflect that in your drawing and make a better distinction between the values, I think it would be a major improvement. But like I said, I am still learning as well, so take all this with a grain of salt lol, Im just relaying the information I heard in the critique video.
@kenleigh44
The whole sharp edges thing was really difficult for me. I felt like I’d never drawn before. 🫣 Aaaaaand now I’m going to watch the next video and draw it all over again.
Conor Tacopina
My second attempt at the pear.
@kbug15
2d
My pear.
tati riro
my first pear! :)
@mattr
2d
My attempt at assignment 1 :)
Conor Tacopina
My first try at the pear.
Eli Bansa
The evolution of the pear
Dimitris Davakis
My geometric pear :)
Martha Muniz
I like the overall shape of your pear, it seems quite accurate! When it comes to placing the value groups, we can focus on the main idea of how the light hits the pear overall, so don't worry about including the small dents/bruises on the pear. I do see a strong separation of light and shadow, which is great too! If you take a closer look at the shadow area on the pear itself, you can see that the darkest part of the shadow is closer to the middle of the pear (this is called the 'core shadow'), then it gets slightly lighter as it goes left, the to the darkest level again before getting to the ground/left side. Try capturing this change utilizing the darkest two values you already have, and it'll help give more dimensionality to the shadow side of your pear. Let me know if you have any questions!
Eleni Kamisakis
Feedback please!
Martha Muniz
Good start, I like that you got the division between light and shadow, which is one of the more important parts! You can still think about that area of darkness that divides the light and shadow as its own value group shape, utilizing the darkest value, rather than a thin line. By showing the shape that it forms on the pear, it will give it more three-dimensionality, whereas a flat line may break the 3d illusion instead. I would also recommend breaking up the light grey value group on the right side of your pear into two groups, with one group being the current tone and the other being a slightly lighter grey. That way, there are more value steps in the light side, which give dimensionality as well. Let me know if you have any questions!
Yann Folkestad
I struggled with the values. Pencil control I guess. After several attempts I came up with this one which I think is ok. I got a little lost with the stem. Not sure if it still met the objective.
Rodney Richardson
After watching the demo for the pear I got inspired to try level two. I have a hard time being patient.
Martha Muniz
Good start! I would recommend adding more shading to your tones to develop them more fully. You can reserve the lightest value (blank white page) for the smaller areas of highlight, but the majority of the skin in the light will be closer to the second lightest value, since his skin still has a grey shade to it and isn't pure white. Once you get into the shadow area on the right side, it will be a range of the middle to darkest tones, so no areas (including his lips and eye whites) will be pure white, since the shadow darkens them. Give it a try and let me know how it goes :)
@toomuchhappiness
Here are my first attempts at each pear. I've watched the demo video and can see the mistakes I've made. I only have a single 2B pencil but I'm getting an actual pencil kit in the mail tomorrow which should help me with my values and I'll post my second attempt at each pear in the comments of the demo video.
Ronin Inkhaurt
Hello, everyone. This is my first try using Affinity Designer 2 on my iPad Pro. Full disclosure: I have some art knowledge or know-how before taking this course. I have a problem with putting value cleanly without resorting to chaos and destruction lol. Session time amounted to 3 hours and 17 minutes to complete this one. Looking forward to improving in that area and also reducing time spent. Any tips or critique are welcome 👋.
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