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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.
LESSON NOTES
This exercise will help you avoid chicken scratch. Instead of uncertain pecking at the paper. We're going to draw each line with a focused and intentional path. Remember to draw from your shoulder, elbow and wrist. Avoid the fingers. When I tell you guys to simplify your lines, I'm usually referring to three types of lines, two curves and one straight.
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DOWNLOADS
project-simplify-to-csi.mp4
147 MB
project-simplify-to-csi-transcript-english.txt
4 kB
project-simplify-to-csi-transcript-spanish.txt
5 kB
project-simplify-to-csi-captions-english.srt
7 kB
project-simplify-to-csi-captions-spanish.srt
7 kB
ASSIGNMENTS![]()
![Alexander Rojas]()
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![Omar Williams]()
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![Camille Varner Kolafa]()
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![Abraham]()
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![Boris]()
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![@skibidivan]()
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![Chuck Ludwig Reina]()
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![Isac Nilzon]()
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![Fabio Bompani]()
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![Sinister]()
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![@skibidivan]()
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![Sinister]()
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![@dougwt]()
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![Jon]()
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![Erick Lazaro]()
Download the photo reference images and try to simplify them using CSI lines. Draw each line with a focused and intentional path.
Your pace should be quick, but not rushed.
For this exercise, we will just consider the individual segments of the contour of a shape.
Same instructions for level one and two. Just a difference in difficulty of reference. The level two photos have more fun little tidbits to tempt you to get into the details, but fight the urge and simplify.
Also, no shading in these please. This is not meant to be a portfolio piece.
CSI
C = C Curves
S = S Curves
I = Straights
If you'd like to have a chance to be included in the upcoming critique videos, you must submit your drawings below by February 16th.
The snail nothin crazy, pretty straight forward, but the boots, that was a challenge, mostly because of the laces.
I really appreciate any feedback.
Here is my attempt at the picture of the snail and the picture of the boots. With the snail, I noticed issues with the size of the page and where I started out, which is largely why the back of the snail is so off proportionally.
The boots is where I had the most issues. I did it as instructed, but I feel like I was very much underprepared for actually undertaking that drawing. I'm not disappointed or angry or anything because I'm a beginner, and as with anything it's important to understand that you'll have to be bad at first to get better. However, I do feel like I was vastly under-prepared for this project, and I don't understand why I was told to do it.
When drawing the boots, I observed many issues, including proportion issues due to the size of the page, issues with myself getting lost in the ridiculous amount of lines in the laces, proportion issues that made some of the form make no sense. It got to the point where I abandoned the notion of CSI and just tried to draw what I saw. This would be fine, but I had no instruction on how to break this down. Without that knowledge, I was just shooting in the dark. I would appreciate better instruction next time, especially because this will likely never be critiqued and I won't get any real feedback. With better instruction, at least I can better evaluate myself and keep in mind what I am supposed to do.
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17h
Hi Omar! I understand you had difficulty with this assignment, but I think your drawings still align with the goals! To help with your drawing size to page size ratio, I would suggest trying to loosely block in an area of the page to contain your drawing in. You might go a little bit outside of the area, but that's okay as long as it helps keep most of your drawing where you want it. I think you did a great job on the snail, prioritizing the C and S curves! I definitely see how the boots can get overwhelming. It seems like you got a little too rigid with your lines, not picking them up very much or letting them flow. As mentioned in the video, there are too many parts to complex/organic lines, making it difficult to draw with a single stroke--so break it up into smaller parts! Draw with your wrist and loosen your lines up a bit to really take advantage of the CSI. When it comes to the laces, they appear to consist mostly of "I" straight lines, with a bit of "C" here and there. try focusing on just one part of the lace at a time and use the straight lines to follow the direction they go in, so as not to let your eyes jumble them up. I hope this helps a little bit, good job on your first attempt!
It's been so long since the last assignment I submitted, but here's my submission for this one. I think I spent a lot of time on the boots, and it was spread across multiple short drawing sessions. All critique is much appreciated, thank you!
Was challenging, but I've learned some things. Need to fix my "heavy hand", making things simple is more complex then it sounds, the difference a clean fluid line makes over a scratchy one is amazing and not easy to achieve. Now to see demo, sometimes I wonder should I watch those first to get the idea how to go about the task, but than again, drawing first makes you brainstorm more.
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5d
Great work. One thing I am noticing is your style is very curved, which is great, but I would challenge you to add some more straight lines around. And this really is a nitpick since the drawing is good. The value of adding these straights is not always immediately apparent but by doing so it helps give a more solid feeling to our drawings.
I attached a quick draw over with some place I might look to add some straight lines if I were doing the exercises.
Again, grate work! Cheers.
Here are the attempts. I had a lot of trouble, especially with the shoes as you can see. I have so much trouble trying to simplify. I know it's a skill I have to work on but I kinda lost my patience. I hope the demo will clear some things up for me.
Also in the last post I did I got told to not draw on a page where you can see what I drew on the previous page, I forgot about that with my snail drawing but it was my best attempt so I didn't want to waste it. I will try to remember that for the next assignment.
I find it difficult to draw with the right proportions and maintain a clean line... very often I have had to erase part of my drawing to correct it, and this made the lines a bit confusing...
Since I am an absolute genius (not), I merged the blockout and the sketch for both of my drawings for level 2 somehow.
I don't think it turned out that bad. I tried to simplify where I could, and I don't think I got super carried away on the skeleton. I tried to add only important surface details, and I tried my best to simplify the shapes.
Honestly? It's not terrible. I have to admit to shrinking the skeleton and downscaling the camel so the comparison's more visible though. I got a similar result with the camel as I did with the skeleton size wise.
I don't know if I should feel guilty for using tools like that even though I'm on digital and I could've just redrawn it to be thinner with slightly more effort.
I think you put too much detail on the snail with the lines on the shell and body.
In the demo video, Stan explains that this is something he would add as a detail once he gets into the shading part, but for this exercise, You have to simplify a lot of what you're seeing and only keep what's necessary.
Some lines, like the right part of the shell, has very mixed lines where they feel like straights but also feel like C curves and it doesn't feel like you fully dedicated to one type of line there.
Aside from that, it's, pretty accurate. It's missing the feelers below the tentacles though.
I worked on this for an hour and I'm still unhappy with my result. I got carried away on trying to capture the shapes but never really got around to implying form. I wish I had at least remembered to add some cross contour lines along the shell. Feedback is welcome.
It looks like you did it just fine. I think the shapes were the important part of this project and form not so much. It looks like you have CSI in there, so I think you did really well and are being too hard on yourself.
I don't know why but the boots was hard for me, but the snail was easy and fun to draw 😄
