Project - Simplify from Observation
Project - Simplify from Observation
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Project - Simplify from Observation
courseDrawing BasicsFull course (185 lessons)
$159
assignments 8130 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
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.

Rochelle Baumhardt
I did both, the portrait I did twice. While it improved, I still think it needs work. Any feedback is highly appreciated. Thank you in advance!
David Chong
Did it for the first time before the demo, It looks bad as i struggle with understanding what or how to do it . Would love some feedback and improving points.
Melanie Scearce
I really like the shape of the pear in this drawing. I think you nailed that. What you can work on is your pencil control so you can keep your value shapes distinct. The value scale exercise in the image below is really helpful for practicing that skill, and you can use it to 'color pick' for the drawing for this assignment. Just lay out 5 blocks on your page (the first one is done for you :]) and practice evenly shading each square, increasing the darkness of each as you go. If you do a value scale at the top of your page, you've already worked out each of the values that you need for your drawing, and all you have to do is match. Hope that helps!
@lulu_lauryn
Would love honest and critical feedback!
Melanie Scearce
You did a good job distributing your values in the pear drawing! In the portrait, there's a pretty even distribution, so it's more difficult to tell which side is the lit side; it's easier to tell in your pear drawing because you made a clear distinction between the shadow and the light side. So if you lighten some of the shapes on the light side and darken some shapes in the shadow side of the portrait, you'll create that same sense of light direction in your portrait.
Spandan Mishra
Hello, this is my attempt at the pear and the human face assignment. For the pear, the above one is my attempt before the demo and the below one is my attempt after watching the demo and the critique video. Please excuse the mess. It's mostly from the pencil dust getting smudged. Also, apologies for the critique notes on top of my human photo. I self critique after watching the critique video and taking notes helps me gain some insights.
Chuck Ludwig Reina
These are great. Self critique is the most important type! That is really the path to mastery. I love your pears. They came out great. Also love that you are using value chart. Very important. For the face, I would try to detach yourself from the fact that it is a face. That's very hard for us humans to do-- we are wired to find faces! But if you can break down what you are seeing into shapes, that will give you stronger results, than going "I know what an eye is supposed to look like" etc. Again nice work! And keep up those self critiques, just always remember to be kind to yourself!
@birdbrains13
Haven’t attempted observational drawing since high school, woah! I really enjoyed the definite and straight line work. Need to grab more pencils and an eraser, this was with a mechanical pencil, and I wrestled with the darker values with this. I immediately saw how my observational skills were tested, particularly in the proportions and overall silhouette of the pear.
Chuck Ludwig Reina
Looks great! I use mechanical pencils a lot, and the trick is just be patient and consistent. You can build up pretty dark tone even with just an HB lead, if you take your time and layer it. Lately I've been using a 1.3 mm mechanical which gets some of the niceness of a regular pencil in the convenience of a mechanical. Super fun. Keep up the good work!
@kutai
3d
Not easy but will be better the next time
Alden Reed
Various attempts before watching the demo and one after.
Valentine
Here are my attempts with the pears. I have no clue where I put my pencils, so I had to use marker for the shadows and light.
tin kramarić
This is my first attempt, any feedback would be useful
Chuck Ludwig Reina
Very nicely done. I don't have much in the way of notes even. The one thing you can try next time is to get your dark values a little darker. For this exercise, I recommend having two levels of dark, and three of lighter tones, and they should be pretty far apart in darkness. Drawing a little tone scale on the side of the paper really helps. Well done!
@jkbowman83
Light values were harder than I anticipated.
Dana Cross-Payne
First attempt without watching the demo. Feedback welcome!
Uljana
5d
Hi! Started a while ago and wanted to start over :) I believe I did a decent job with separating light and shadow. I struggled to differentiate the two shadow and light tones, though. One of my biggest issues is perfectionism, so I really tried to not focus too much on the outlines of the pears/ the face Plus, I tried to make all my lines and shapes more intentional Please let me know what I can improve on :)
Umberto
5d
This is my attempt. It definitely wasn’t easy for a first assignment! Thanks in advance for any feedback, it’s always very welcome.
Uljana
5d
These turned out rly great! :D The proportions of the pear turned out nice I think you have a good understanding of where the lights and shadows are. You can definitely push the dark shades even more :)
J Ko
5d
I thought my biggest issue would be perspective/proportions, but I really struggled with the light shades. An unexpected surprise was that I felt myself improving as I worked, resulting in many "wait, that's not right, it should be this" moments in the beginning.
Jessica Gillespie
This was my first attempt. I find that the difference between the shadows and the darkest light is difficult to see sometimes.
@neevey
6d
Hi everyone! I started this course a while ago but took a long break. Now, I want to start over from the beginning. To be honest, I was more nervous about posting this update than actually getting back into drawing! I feel a bit silly, but I'm here now. And here is what I managed to draw:
Martha Muniz
Welcome back! Your submission looks great! Let me know if you ever have any questions :)
@othnielps
Complete begginer, I tried both assignments
Melanie Scearce
Thanks for posting @othnielps! Did you find anything challenging about this project?
@johnny7
7d
pre sketched the figure in read and went in with a bit of cross hatching since I was running around with a .5 led pencil and a red wooden pencil. so I kinda was working on proportions and giving enough context on depth
Sean G
7d
Drew on 9x12 strathmore drawing paper; It took me 10 iterations to try to find my flow over a couple of days. In the beginning I was perplexed like learning the ins and outs of a new puzzle.
Chuck Ludwig Reina
These are great. Way to go to push through it. That's a key to success!
Nachelle Aldous
This was difficult! I found myself wanting to quit. I found it hard to make a clear distinction between dark midtones and light shadows on a complex form. I'm looking forward to getting the hang of this.
Uljana
5d
i really love how smooth/ even each tone is :) Looks great!!
Chuck Ludwig Reina
You did a great job. Love how this looks!
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