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I did this exercise several times, trying various shading techniques. I’ve always like stippling but it does some time and patience. Putting on some music helped and was actually relaxing.
I found that put putting the objects on a white surface rather than a dark table made it easier to see the reflected light. -
I changed the light source for the pear and the apple. Both had very reflective surfaces that were picking up a lot of light from the room that was lit by room lights. This was a fun challenge, but next time I'll do it in the daylight.
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The texture marks are really fun. I brought some berries inside and enjoyed giving them form and playing with the leaf texture
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Beautiful! I love how real those berries look.
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That is just lovely, the form is perfect but the shading is so subtle. Beautifully beautifully done.
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I’ve clearly got a lot more practicing to do! I wish I had waited on the water color because the 3rd version of this apple was the best, but I wanted to try out the color. I think I’ll stick to pencil for a while though. Anyhow I suppose I should focus on the fact that each attempt at sketching the apple felt a bit better, and I enjoined looking at it from different angles, and seeing how the highlights and shadows shifted.
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Also, my 4 year old has a “nature shelf” that she fills with “treasures” from our explorations outside. I had no idea when I set that up for her (mostly because I was tired if finding leaves and rocks all over the house) that it I would be making use of it for evening sketching when its too dark to go outside!
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I practiced stippling because it is intimidating to me and takes lots of patience!
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Great work! 👍🏻🐚
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I too am intimidated by the stippling. This is really good!
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Really, really nice!
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Wow! Very nice!
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I like using scribbles to show texture and value. I thought the egg was going to be easy, but it was actually the most challenging. Eggs have such a perfect, smooth texture and it was hard to achieve that.
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I love the egg! The scribbles are the perfect texture for the carton. Nice drawings!
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I took a drawing class in college a million years ago. I remember we had to draw 5 white eggs on a white background without leaving any blank space on the page. It was so hard!
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@Heather When I was an art student in the early 90s my professor made a still life out of random objects that were all painted white, and we had to draw them by taking charcoal and covering the entire page with black and then erasing the "drawing" out...it was very interesting and one of my favorite exercises I did in any art class.
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Eggscellent! 🥚👍🏻
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Awesome sketches. They really "feel" 3 dimensional!
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This is a little more practice with lights and darks, it was done at dusk with over cast clouds so no highlights. I wanted to capture the folding of the leaf and some of the grass around it. I have never really intentionally gone outside to draw, so this is really new learning for me. I finished the drawing inside since it got dark pretty quick tonight.
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This was a little different from the example Liz gave us because as you can see, my highlight was near the bottom of my apple and the sun was moving, so the highlight kept moving on the apple! By the time I actually finished the sketch, the highlight was at the top! Ugh! This sounds exactly like something that would happen to me out in the field.
I'm feeling more comfortable putting marks on the page but I'm a little worried because when I get out in the field, there will be so many more variables to deal with and not the least of which will be wind and bird movement.
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I practiced a few of the mark making techniques using the same subject to see how different styles might lend themselves to different textures. I can now see what works better in the field too for quick capturing as the processes took longer to do the more detailed they got.
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I was surprised with the results of the first exercise (Drawing basics) - for me it was much easier to get decent results when making a continuous line than with the sketchy lines. I won't even pollute this forum with my sad drawings! :-) But for some reason the ginkgo leaf was always OK... How did everyone else do?
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Same with me, Alicia, I also had a harder time with the sketchy lines. I need to slow down and practice these exercises some more before I move on to the next lesson. I was also surprised that I had trouble with the shadow when trying to draw an apple. My new resolution: when I want to eat an apple I have to draw it first!
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My single line drawings were awful but my sketchy line drawings were not too bad. I went back and practice shading the acorn and it looks pretty cool.
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Me too, some of my single lines were better, too many strokes sometimes muddies things up. I do know from experience drawing moon craters while looking through a telescope that it gets better with repetition and also that it will take many, many times of doing something as simple as drawing an accurate oval (for the craters) that depicts what I'm looking at.
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Same with me. My continuous lines were all better except for the acorn. I guess I'm used to drawing for my preschool students. I am definitely struggling with fill. BUT, I am enjoying it and trying to stay positive. Of course, the heavy rains have started here so I'll be drawing indoors a lot.
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I love the texture and shading on this avocado!
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I tried a couple of shapes, I have always found light casting hard but am working on getting it.
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I’ll need to practice using watercolors. They’re not very forgiving! I think I’ve got the chiaroscuro concept ok though. Great practice exercises!
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Nice work Elisabeth! I haven't taken out the colors yet, but will soon. Here is some of my greyscale and my little squash from our garden. Lighting for the photo isn't the best.
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That's fantastic! It looks so 3D you feel as though you could reach out and pick it up!
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Not gonna lie, when I first looked at that I thought it was a photo of a tomato sitting on your page. Beautiful work!
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The tomato looks as if I could pick it right up off the page. Nice.
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Great work! It really looks edible! I also like your printing style.
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I need a lot more guidance in this area... I don't have a lot of nature to look at, and it would help a lot if I had some examples, like the yellow warbler in the first lesson, to work on.
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Hello Mike, My favorite place to look at bird photos and videos is eBird Explore. eBird Explore photos, sounds, videos You can search by species, location, date etc. You could also try watching wildlife cams. Cornell Lab of Ornithology has several LIVE cams and you can actually pause the video feed and even scroll back a couple hours to find something you like. Bird Cams My favorite place to watch LIVE cams is Africam Africam Explore has great full color cams. Bears, tropical reefs, birds, and more. Explore Cams These might be interesting to practice on. I am not sure what the wildlife is like in your area but there are usually some bugs and birds to be found without going to far from your house.
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@Lee Ann van Leer I checked out the first couple of suggestions, and found a lot of birds to practice on. Now I need to do some still life so I can work on dark vs light. I feel a bit better with the additional practice, but I'll be moving slowly for a while. Thanks!
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@Lee Ann van Leer Thanks for these links, they are great.
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I used cross hatch lines in my sketch, something I wouldn't have used before. I like the stone walls in our backyard and used some of the skills I'm learning.
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glad to have the refresher course in shading and chiaroscuro. i've been painting a lot of fruit and veggies lately, so great for practicing!
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wow!!! excellent job.
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Good to eat!
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I sketched a hummingbird, using a combination of blending, stippling, and contour hatching. It was nice to see the different values in the photo and decide which skill to use.
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Not sure I would eat the lime and plum I drew.
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Aw, come on :-) - I think you did a great job with the subtlety and variety of the colors, especially since watercolor is so difficult.
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I've found that I like using shading to depict light and dark, even though it takes longer than hatching or scribbling. In the field I'll probably use more hatching, especially contour hatching, as it's pretty fast and effective. Stippling goes way too slowly for me to use in the field, but I drew some illustrations for my dissertation using stippling, and it is a very good way to depict both light/shadow and curvature. I want to get better at depicting 3-dimensional objects on my pages. It'll take a lot of practice. Does anybody else have trouble seeing the reflected light?
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I have always seen the reflective light but missed it in my drawing of it. I think it would be easy to overlook, but am happy to know the breakdown and realize how I missed it.
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Yes, Allison, I also have trouble seeing the reflected light. The demo helped though, especially when we looked at the strawberries. I think the point is that we should be sure to draw in the reflected light even though we can’t see it well because this will help us get a 3D effect.
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I've not yet practiced chiaroscuro on fruit. Here are acorns and wood. I'll try these again in a few weeks.
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I love what you have done here and delighted to see it. Once I get more control of my practice time I will try to share as well. This is fun.
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It's interesting that I can see that the chiaroscuro happens even within the seed spots on the strawberries. I love learning things that we already know, but take for granted.
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I noticed that in the seed spots too! Very cool to notice things like that.
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I took the line drawings of the acorn, daisy and butterfly and did shading on all of them using the techniques presented and it was fun to see them come to life.
I did this exercise several times, trying various shading techniques. I’ve always like stippling but it does some time and patience. Putting on some music helped and was actually relaxing.
I found that put putting the objects on a white surface rather than a dark table made it easier to see the reflected light. 
I’ve clearly got a lot more practicing to do! I wish I had waited on the water color because the 3rd version of this apple was the best, but I wanted to try out the color. I think I’ll stick to pencil for a while though. Anyhow I suppose I should focus on the fact that each attempt at sketching the apple felt a bit better, and I enjoined looking at it from different angles, and seeing how the highlights and shadows shifted. 
Also, my 4 year old has a “nature shelf” that she fills with “treasures” from our explorations outside. I had no idea when I set that up for her (mostly because I was tired if finding leaves and rocks all over the house) that it I would be making use of it for evening sketching when its too dark to go outside! 
I practiced stippling because it is intimidating to me and takes lots of patience! 
I like using scribbles to show texture and value. I thought the egg was going to be easy, but it was actually the most challenging. Eggs have such a perfect, smooth texture and it was hard to achieve that. 
This was a little different from the example Liz gave us because as you can see, my highlight was near the bottom of my apple and the sun was moving, so the highlight kept moving on the apple! By the time I actually finished the sketch, the highlight was at the top! Ugh! This sounds exactly like something that would happen to me out in the field.
I'm feeling more comfortable putting marks on the page but I'm a little worried because when I get out in the field, there will be so many more variables to deal with and not the least of which will be wind and bird movement. 
I practiced a few of the mark making techniques using the same subject to see how different styles might lend themselves to different textures. I can now see what works better in the field too for quick capturing as the processes took longer to do the more detailed they got. 
I tried a couple of shapes, I have always found light casting hard but am working on getting it.
Not sure I would eat the lime and plum I drew. 
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