Project - Simplify from Observation
Project - Simplify from Observation
This lesson is premium only. Join us in the full course!
05:36
50K views
lesson video
Project - Simplify from Observation
courseDrawing BasicsFull course (185 lessons)
-20%
$127.20
$159
You save $31.8
assignments 8430 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
jpeg
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.

@scastroverde
Trying to learn how to draw digitally. Still need to get better with values, but overall like using a toned paper.
Turbo Fish
Thought I might give lvl2 a try. Had to remake proportions and values multiple times, the whole thing took me about 2 hours. After it`s done, proportion mistakes become obvious, but I still think it turned out ok given my level :)
Noah Denney
I see the appeal of having a set of different pencils, so I grabbed a set from prime day. This is pear 2, Definitely needed to define the edges more, outside of the highlight I felt like a lot of it was more guessing and observation. Plan to watch the demo and attempt this again!
Martha Muniz
Good start! Try going a bit darker on the shadow side overall--I think simply darkening your 2nd darkest value in the area left of your darkest shadow will help unify the shadow area. Keep it going, you got this :)
Nick Grey
Was fighting my pencils a lot, couldn't figure out yet how to make edges clean. Also don't understand where is the contour dark shadow comes from and why is it visible. Also on the second pear not sure about the core shadow. Values in the shadow on the pear look close to my eye
@lhd
1d
My first attempt at pear number one. I found it hard to get five values out of my pencil and I feel like the darkest light value and the lightest shadow value are a bit too close. Sticking to straight lines was also challenging.
Martha Muniz
Nice! It's great that you're self-assessing already, and it was a good observation you made that shows you're training your eye already. Try going even lighter with your first grey value. That will help give your middle values more room so they're not so similar. I do notice a bit of grain from the paper -- perhaps it could be caused by utilizing too small of a space on the page? If that's the case, that may also lead to utilizing too much graphite and hence going a tad too dark. Try using a larger space if possible and going softer with your pencil pressure -- see if using more of the side of the pencil tip helps too.
Dante
1d
Having a bit of trouble with the lighter values but overall I feel fine with how this turned out.
Jose Ocampo
Couldn't help but soften the edges hahaha! First drawing... Not sure what to think... I guess it doesn't look too bad for my first try?
Ash
1d
This looks awesome Jose! Try the advanced lessons too. I love the shading on this
Kim Solon
This is my fourth attempt. It's harder than it look, but I can see the purpose of this.
Melanie Scearce
It is definitely a difficult project! You did great though. I like that you included the background in the value simplification. The one note I have is about the reflected light shape towards the bottom of the... pear? Orange? Idk It feels a bit too light. I used a blur filter on your drawing to simulate viewing the image through squinted eyes to compare to the reference. While it is lighter than the surrounding shadow shapes, it's not quite as light at the portion of the fruit that is directly lit, so I would darken it a bit and arrange the surrounding shapes to accommodate that change. A large jump between values can suggest a corner or edge, which makes the fruit feel like it has an indentation in it instead of it being rounded. I hope you find this helpful, you did fabulously with this project 👏
@atlas_gladwyn
Realizing after having taken the photos that I could/should have gone much darker with my shading. To make myself feel better I'm gonna chalk that up to my not ideal pencil. I'm gonna retry again later this week to see if I can do better.
Martha Muniz
Good start and good self-assessment! Try seeing if going back with another layer of shading helps darken the shadow areas, as well as utilizing more pressure when shading. Otherwise, using a softer pencil like a 2B or 4B will definitely help. But you have a nice division of light and shadow areas, so nice work!
@kaijusmasher
This makes me depressed lmao I feel like I'm unable to draw lighter values since I can't control the pressure I use at all lol Hopefully it gets better on the retry after the demo
Martha Muniz
Looks like a good start! Keep going, I think you got the darker 3 values down, so just refining that 2nd lightest value will get you to the finish line. Try shading that light grey value with your hand/wrist hovering above the page, and not resting it on the page which can make your pressure heavier, and try utilizing more of the side of the pencil tip, too. Another thing you could try is using a harder pencil like a 2H or 4H even, so it will automatically make it lighter. It can also help to practice a value scale by itself, so you can focusing on just the values alone. Let me know if you have any questions! :)
Katie
2d
I just finished the pear draw, I didn't try to draw realistic before
Martha Muniz
Really nice job! I would just recommend going lighter when drawing the outlines for your group shapes, light enough so that the outlines can then be hidden once you start adding the value tones in. That way, the outlines aren't visible and splitting the illusion of three-dimensionality the values make up, which otherwise you did a solid job with :)
Daniel Felker
First attempt, used the pear-1.jpg from the assignment.
Martha Muniz
Nice! I would just recommend going a bit lighter with your 2nd lightest value.
Jiayun Lim
First attempt before watching demo. I tried drawing my own fruit + the pear. I used only a 3B pencil because that's all I have at the moment. I plan to do another one after watching the demo. Any critique will be super helpful for me. Thank you!! :-) (I notice only now after uploading the photos that the apple looks disproportionate to the photo lol)
Gordon
4d
I did 1 digital 1 traditional, not sure if i am better off sticking to one or the other but i figured it was worth a try both ways. Pretty sure i under-utilized the dark halftones here.
Daniel Felker
I really like how firm your dark contrasts are in these, it gives a lot of three dimensionality to the objects.
Anastasiya
I decided to try both level 1 and 2 here Level 2 was really challenging for me: I was sweating and almost ugly crying :D Any critique would be helpful, thank you!
Molly
4d
i avoided using any construction lines or specific method for this portrait as i wanted to stay true to the project and focus solely on the shapes and values
Genevieve Kelley
I found it difficult to get proportions while simplifying. So I ended up un-simplifying before I could re-simplify at the end. I think next time I’ll try to stick with simple the whole time so that I can get to the core of what this lesson is about.
Genevieve Kelley
First assignment. Probably going to attempt the Level 2 next.
Amileaminute
My first and second attempt. I don't know why it's coming up faded and grayed. Please try opening the original image if you give critique. Thank you!
Chuck Ludwig Reina
Nice work. Both attempts have a lot going for them. I think overall attempt 2 is cleaner, but you lost your variety in shapes of the darker shadows from attempt 1 that I think added a lot of character and better described the pear. The thickness of the core shadow, for example, is one of our great tools for describing the roundness of an object. The rounder the form, the wider the core shadow gets (I'm generalizing, but you get the idea). So in this pear, in the bottom bulbous half of the fruit, we will get a bit of a broader core shadow, while towards the stem it will be thinner. This is important information for our viewer. Learning to control that shadow terminator is a great skill to develop. Again, both these look great. Keep at it!
Nikolai
6d
I like the aesthetic of ink/fineliners more but I guess a pencil is better for practicing
Help!
Browse the FAQs or our more detailed Documentation. If you still need help or to contact us for any reason, drop us a line and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!