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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
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ASSIGNMENTS![]()
![Kevin]()
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![@pushchair180]()
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![Fiona Parker]()
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![Fiona Parker]()
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![@uncannievalley]()
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![Ben K]()
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![Robert Kinsey]()
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![Matteo Santagata]()
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![Camille Varner Kolafa]()
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![Sekar Bhavani]()
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![Ben K]()
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![Simon Bley]()
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![Ben K]()
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![@kindacolourblind]()
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![Jill Bascome]()
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![Martha Muniz]()
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![Talbot Harty]()
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![Melanie Scearce]()
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![Jamie]()
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![@gtcooke94]()
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.
These are the three drawings that I was able to do for the assignment. I had the most trouble with Snail. I think I might be the happiest with the pair of shoes. I do think I went into this more of copying the image rather than simplifying.
I did these over the course of a few days about a month ago.
Maybe I could do with committing to a single line instead of drawing a few over each other... I feel that I did better in that regard with the level 2 drawings.
For the skeleton image I did the skull and hat first, then decided I might as well get some practice with observational drawing and went ahead and drew the rest less simply.
Finally attempted the boots I was very intimidated by them at first and they took a while but I am mostly happy with this attempt! Any advice is very appreciated!
Attempt 1 here I’m not feeling great about it but I’m not really sure what is off about it, critique very welcome
I tried the snail more than once on three different days. I think by the third time I started to understand how to simplify. I tried the boots with the first snail attempt and definitely got too caught up in the details. After feeling like I was really getting it on the snail the third attempt, I gave the skull and camel a go, and despite having to erase a few times because my proportions/spacing would go a bit off, I felt really good and much more confident attempting them
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5d
You've got clear growth throughout your attempts! The first try is always gonna be a bit weird as you're comprehending something new, keep it up!
I feel like I really struggled with simplifying and deciding where to put lines. Also, I know we weren't supposed to add shading, but I felt compelled because it seemed like my drawing would be unrecognizable without it.
Any feedback is appreaciated.
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11d
Nice job, your skeleton has a great start, you should revisit it when you can :)
Hi,
I had been very busy and so never got to do it in a timely fashion. Just Completed it and am uploading it today. Welcome any constructive criticism.
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12d
Nice work! I think you could go even simpler on these, and focus solely on the lines, instead of the details of texture or shading. Keep up the great work!
First decent attempt at the snail. Had a lot of trouble figuring out the correct proportions. Either I drew the house too large, or the snail became really fat. Also the angle of the snail's body on the left gave me issues.
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12d
Nice work! Your lines look clean and you utilized CSI lines really well! For proportions, using the envelope method of sketching out a shape to contain your drawing's subject before starting might be helpful in the future! Keep it up! :)
Really liked this exercise, because it forced me to focus to simplifying The boots were difficult though.
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18d
Nice work! You have great simplifications going on! If anything, there's opportunity to use some more straight lines, such as in the shell divisions or the front soles on the boots. Finding areas you can simplify into straight lines can help create a nice counterbalance to all the curves and flowing lines. It can also help to practice some of the exercises in Warmups to Improve Line Quality, especially Trace the Ruler and Connect the Dots. You're already doing a great job, but using those as warm-ups can help you develop more confident line strokes too :)
Here are my submissions. After watching the later lesson on lines, I realize that I did not do these correctly. I did not finish the skeleton. My main goal there was to see if I could get the proportions right.
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18d
Proportions are really important- there will be in depth lessons on measuring and training to eyeball proportions later on in this course! Here is a sneak peak of the intro to proportions in the Shapes section of this course: https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/how-to-draw-accurate-proportions. Don't worry too much about it at this point, so you can keep your focus on clearly & intentionally communicating your lines as curves and straights!
Here's my snail, boot, and camel. The boot definitely demanded most of my time because of the detail in the laces. The other two were at a comfortably quick pace.
Did the left boot after watching the demo and some critiques - I tried to let the laces be quicker and less exact but with more confident feeling lines
