![]() ![]() This exercise exposes you to several important things. This exercise focuses on taking the opposite approach - starting off with ellipses, and then constructing a tube around them. Much of the challenge comes from the fact that these things are skinny and long, leaving very little room for drawing well shaped contour lines that wrap convincingly around the cylindrical shaft. There will be times when you cannot avoid having to work subtractively, but you should always do your best to see if there is a way to make additive construction work.Īnother thing people tend to struggle with is stems, branches, and that sort of thing. Instead, those edges are being lifted up slightly from their previous position, rather than being cut into. The other side however does seem to cut back into the leaf, but if you think about it in three dimensions, it doesn't. In this case you'll notice very clearly that along the top edge of the correct example, I've come up off the edge and back down to it. In general, rise up off the edge from your previous phase of construction and come back down to it, then lift your pen and start a new stroke for the next bump.Īdditionally, wherever possible, work additively - don't cut back into what you've already drawn, as this often makes us think more about the flat shapes on the page, rather than the solid, 3D forms they represent. This is easy to separate when you've got sharp corners, but when you're dealing with more rounded waves as shown here, it may be a little less clear. If you remember back to markmaking in lesson 1, the third rule is to ensure that each stroke consists only of one trajectory. When adding detail like little waves or jagged edges to a leaf, don't do so by applying a single continuous zig-zagging stroke. This will allow you to nail how each one's going to flow on its own, within the context of the larger leaf, before answering further questions. When tackling a leaf with multiple arms, you can absolutely start your basic leaf construction, establishing the flow and bounds of your overall shape, and then break internal components down by applying these steps to each individual arm. If we jump straight into establishing the leaf 'shape', we have to handle both the flow and the surface area of the leaf simultaneously. It's not that this is the only recipe that is going to work for every single leaf out there - it's that working around a dedicated line to determine how the form flows through space allows us to pin down that challenge before figuring out how the bounds of the leaf can be determined. I often see students who see a leaf with many different 'arms', but who seek to apply the leaf construction method to the whole thing the same way every time, rather than thinking about why we employ these steps. A strong construction with no detail whatsoever however will still look fine.Ĭonstruction is all about moving from simple to complex, breaking problems down into their most basic components and tackling only one challenge at a time. A leaf with poor underlying construction cannot be saved no matter how much detail you add - it'll still feel stiff and lifeless. Don't stress too much over this, it's the absolute least important part of the drawing. Do not zigzag back and forth - add individual bumps or cuts one at a time, coming off the existing, simple edge, and returning to it.Īnd finally, detail. Using reference images, add some more complex edge detail to your simple leaves. Don't treat that line like some kind of a suggestion - it is a rule. Focus on the flow of the shape, and construct it around that center line. No waves, no jagged edges, no complexity whatsoever. I don't care how complex this leaf is, capture the core of it, its essence, in just two curves. I frequently draw this with a little arrow head to remind myself of how confidently it pushes onwards.Įnclose the leaf with simple curves. No part of the leaf is more important than this, as it represents the forces that drive the form as it flows through space. ![]() ![]() I can't stress enough how important it is to think about how this line moves through three dimensions, not across a flat page, and to really drive home how it flows. The most important part is the center line, the spine of the leaf. ![]()
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