10/28 Please, post only questions about the assignments in this thread so that we can keep it organized. Assignments will be posted and dated twice a week starting tommorrow. Until then, start with this optional exercise. Post a picture of your work, hand drawn. Then talk a bit about your knowledge of art, and or your ignorance about it, so that people know where others are starting. See you Tommorow. Yuri [Edited by - slowpid on November 6, 2006 3:02:49 PM]

10/29

The idea tonight is to get yourself drawing. It probably wont do much good to get people drawing to much scenery or complicated organics, so we start with an easy object.

The point before we start on accurate representation of objects is learning how to sketch.

Sketch two objects, just lay them next to each other. Instead of shadows use lines to indicate areas of high contrast. Move from the shoulder and elbow, not the wrist. Keep yourself loose and informal. Line's should be made of several long strokes, not short strokes.

It will feel unnatural at first, but it gets better and its important to know how to sketch. I will make comments over the week on how to improve your form.

Finally, find one magazine cover from before the 1950's and attempt to re-create it in this style, I will post an example tommorow.

Just for clarification, these are two seperate activities. The first one is for the purposes of practice with sketching, and simplicity so that I can more easily identify problems. The second is for fun, so that more advanced people have a more complicated activity, and so that you practice 'sketching' with a more organic figure.

I will hopefully post an example tommorow mid-day. The good part about being a graphics designer is that you can usually get away with doodling at work.



[Edited by - slowpid on October 30, 2006 12:31:32 AM]

I'm not sure whether I should post here.. but I don't know where to do elsewhere.

What pencil should I use for these assignments? It might be a 'stupid' question but I really don't know. Does it even matter which one I take?

Quote: Original post by Sijmen
What pencil should I use for these assignments? It might be a 'stupid' question but I really don't know. Does it even matter which one I take?

Early on it really doesn't matter. Later it will start to make a difference in terms of how you construct and render your drawings.

H pencils are measures of Hardness while B pencils are measures of how Bituminous, or soft, the pencil is. HB is right in the middle, 6B is softer - and thus darker - than 2B amd 5H is harder and thus lighter than 3H.

I recommend an HB for you if you have no drawing experience at all. The reason is that it's easier to erase H pencils than B pencils, but H pencils create very faint lines. HB is the right compromise between the two, especially for simple linear drawings.

Yuri (slowpid) will likely get into pencils and other drawing equipment in greater depth later.

I realize some people may be having difficulties finding covers of the style that Yuri asked us to draw. Below is a collection of preliminary images that you can draw or that can help you locate your own images. Most of them were actually printed after the 50s, however they all (aside from the two Life Magazine covers) share the same painterly style.

I hope to follow this up with a selection of cartoony images from the same era.

Note that these images are largely sexist, and appear on the cover of an apparently quite homophobic publication, not to mention the suggestion of Nazi support. If that offends you, feel free to find other sources.

Image Selection







































(Me, I'm going for that second Life cover! [smile])

I appologize for waiting a while to post this, I forgot my art book at home both yesterday and today, so this morning I whipped something up to illustrate the concept of the magazine cover assignment, as well as my sketching form.

My picture:


the cover:
(well, its a Layendecker. He did alot of covers despite the fact that this is not one. Simply one that caught my eye during my search this morning).

For some strange reason I can't see your examples :S

11/02

The point of this exercise is to focus on our brains. I've heard Olyusei state around the forums, heard my professors talk about it, and even read a book and chapters of books on the fact that one of the biggest blocks to beginners is their brain and their pre-conceptions.

Imagine if you were instructed to draw something you had never seen, completely alien. Completely different. In this scenario, we are likely to draw what we see, exactly as we see it. When drawing familiar objects however we tend to get skewed results (when beginning). This is because our brain is interpreting everything about the object we are seeing, based on how we have seen it in the past.

On way to avoid this problem is to draw the familar object, by drawing all the unfamiliar shapes around it, this is the 'negative space' as some would call it (although thats not really what it is).

The assignment today and until Sunday night is to take a clear picture of yourself from a 3/4 view. Print or view the picture on your computer while you draw all the areas around the face, all the details. You should end up with a facial contour of you head surrounded by all the stuff behind you. Do not draw details into your face, that is not the point of the exercise. Post the digital picture you used of yourself and your drawing.

Good luck, post if you have any questions

Yuri

Quote: Original post by slowpid
I've heard Olyusei state around the forums...

Okay, dude, it's time to learn to spell my name correctly. Some of you have gotten into the habit of calling me "Oly" for short. I don't know where you got that dumb idea, as I don't sanction it and it has no basis in my actual name.

Oluseyi. Oluseyi. Vowel-consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel. Perfect symmetry. The short form is Seyi, not "Olu" (that's a very general prefix), and certainly not "Oly" (which is a pet name for people named Oluchi!)

No, I'm not upset or angry or anything. Just kinda exasperated. It baffles me, frankly. [smile]

Quote: On way to avoid this problem is to draw the familar object, by drawing all the unfamiliar shapes around it, this is the 'negative space' as some would call it (although thats not really what it is).

I should point out that some instructors have students do drawings of upside down subjects as a means of making the familiar object appear all the more alien. For some people this helps to "short out" the cognitive familiarity and allow the student to simply focus on the object. Naturally, this is only possible when drawing from a picture of some sort.

Quote: Original post by eboy
For some strange reason I can't see your examples :S

Odd. They're all hosted on oluseyi.info...