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You’ll learn the most important foundational concepts for drawing anything and soon you’ll be drawing pictures out of your imagination or from reference.
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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![]()
![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]()
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![@davidem]()
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![Jamie]()
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![@zeichnenveraendert]()
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![@zeichnenveraendert]()
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![@marciahasslocher]()
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![Melanie Scearce]()
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![Leonardo Valdes]()
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.
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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19h
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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22h
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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22h
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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7d
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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7d
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
Attempt at the snail and skull before watching the guided lesson. Found both tricky. The skull very tricky, found myself lost when it came to the neck. Looking forward trying again after watching the lesson.
I think these both look great. The skull is a very detailed object but you did a good job simplifying it without losing its sense of form. And as for the snail, I really like the line weight you did. The snail is such a fluid, blobby creature so it's fun and intuitive to emphasize the curves with line weight. I know that's not the objective of this assignment, but I just wanted to point it out! :-)
I felt comfortable with the snail.
When looking at the boots, my mind wasn’t yet able to reduce the “noise” in the photo to decisive lines (there’s an awful lot going on in there…).
I ended up using more straight lines, and I’m not too happy with my use of C and S shapes (they’re still unclear).
The critique video to this assignment helped a lot.
I am happy with my result on the level 2-References.
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11d
Great simplification! These look great, and it's good to hear that you're enjoying the course :)
Here’s my attempt! For the snail and right boot I drew solid lines but had trouble with determining how the lines for the boot reconnect after all those laces…for the left boot I drew a light outline for the boot that I think helped but it was still pretty tough!
