The Cornell Lab Bird Academy › Discussion Groups › Nature Journaling and Field Sketching › Illustrating the 3D World
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I enjoyed using all the various sketching techniques. I don't really care for the o5 mechanical pencil that goes with this course. I find I resort to a 6B frequently because it just takes too long to get the darker values I am trying to achieve. I like the concept of the mechanical pencil, but am going to order some with softer leads. Overall I am really enjoying this course and am getting out and sketching as much as possible.
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My attempt with an apple from two different angles—one from the top and one from the side—was much more difficult than I thought it would be.
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Found these mushrooms in the woods near where I live. Fungi are simple-looking yet amazing organisms! It would be interesting to sketch them again as they wilt and live through their life cycle.
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I really enjoyed experimenting with chiaroscuro - this was new to me. I need more practice on choosing what type of marks to make. When do I use cross-hatching? How does stippling affect chiaroscuro? I will work some more with still life to discern light and shadow. I liked the squinting technique. That was very helpful for me. I had some trouble catching the reflected light.
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I enjoyed scribbling and feel that might help me loosen up. As a long-time pen and ink artist, who often has had such intense control of the medium, I just feel the need to relax with my art more.
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I don’t have a good idea of when to apply which method of indicating value. I think I need to take a drawing class in conjunction with this class.
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Enjoyed the build up and practice with each technique. The squint up exercices really helped. For Chiascurro, I used to switch pencils (from H to 6-8B) to obtain darker tones, now, with practice, I kept the same pencil and achieved the light and dark effect. Happy! It will be much easier when I draw outdoor.
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I need to practice more on all of these techniques How do I move to the nex t part? I don't see any link beyond "submit"
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ElizabethBird AcademyHi Norma. You can choose which lesson to start or revisit by returning to the main Course Overview page at any time. By clicking “Expand All” you will be able to view the topics within each lesson. For additional help, please contact Customer Service. Happy journaling!
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helpful
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As it's too cold outside, I'm still drawing indoors at the moment. But indoors I find it difficult with the light source. The daylight coming in from outside is rather diffuse. That's why I found it difficult to use the chiaroscuro technique correctly, even with an object as simple as this apple. I "cheated" the shadow, so to speak, because the apple didn't really cast a shadow. I also didn't see the reflected light beyond the darker area on the apple.
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I think I did fairly well on drawing these as 3 dimensional objects, but my values are too light, esp on the tomato and apple. The shadows were easier to see on the onion, since it had a shiny surface. The tomato was the most difficult for me as it was a deep red throughout and not uniformly spherical. Drawing using short strokes is very helpful to me in trying to learn to sketch - but I need more practice with that and with distinguishing values. And with applying chiaroscuro to various shapes and combinations of shapes within one object.
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I still need to work on this obviously. But I'm making slow progress.
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Trying this out on the imaginary sphere :-) and a seashell (two views). Need to practice a bit, but an OK result. Could it be better... of course! but a good start.
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Cold out resorting to house plants again. Christmas cactus shading. Reasonable result but need to spend a bit more time on the details. Tree out the window... hmmm. Ok but not great... making progress? :-)
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I want to practice a lighter touch with my pencil so the light areas are not blank but very light shading.
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I can SEE how the skills can be applied, but I can't quite figure out how to get the ideas to work on the page. I tried to draw a grapefruit (that looks like a pomegranate) and could see the light and dark spaces. I also noticed how many little dots there are on a grapefruit I had never seen before. I used stippling to capture that effect and tried to use the highlight, light, and shadow to capture the light and dark. Although I feel more comfortable putting marks on the page, I have a long way to go.
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