Try using a blue colored pencil to sketch out the rough, basic shape of the cactus VERY lightly. Slowly tighten up the image with darker and darker lines with each round of tightening, and leave things like the needles for the absolute last. Once you're happy with it, go over it with a black or regular pencil to finalize the lines. Then using a light table, lay a fresh piece of paper over the original drawing and trace over your final lines. It will save you a ton of frustration.
PS: "Tightening" = getting more and more final detail in the piece.
PPS: Here's an example of what I mean by tightening a drawing up:
This would probably all be vastly easier had I ever had any kind of training whatsoever in drawing, but I haven't, and our teacher keeps insisting that we don't need it we just need to teach our eyes how to see things the right way. I'm not sure I'm convinced that's how it works.
Thank you, though; even having some idea of the basic steps is wayyyy more than I knew five minutes ago. x___x
That... is not the way it's done. You do need to teach your eyes to see things the correct way, but you don't do that by swan diving straight into a final tight sketch from the first pencil stroke.
Again, it's really not complicated at all. You just start rough and slowly figure your lines out. When you start out with that tight of detail right off the bat you're going to be so focused on the small area you're drawing that by the time you finish the entire image, odds are the overall shape is going to be off. You need to layout the overall object before you go in and lay down the details. It's like doing an outline of an academic paper, then the rough draft, then the final draft. You just keep refining.
For this image I'd think if you just very lightly roughed out the overall image of the cactus, you could then go in and put in all the little details of the shape like the little crevices and angles you seem to have taken so much time and effort to lay out right away in the image you posted here. The last thing I would add would be the needles.
She's one of those people who's convinced that her way is the only right perfect way, and evidently she trained herself into being a pretty good artist without ever taking a class on it which means we all must be able to do the same thing. *eyeroll*
She's teaching you guys something involving still life drawing when she's never had any classes on it herself? Crimeny... she has no clue WTF she's doing in that department. X|
Well, it's going to lead to something more relevant - eventually. We're meant to have four pieces when this thing is finished: a "botanical drawing" of our object; an "abstraction" of it; and then two costume renderings, a Las Vegas showgirl/Cirque du Soleil performer and a period costume for a specific character of our choice. I get where she's going with having us draw the thing we're basing our designs on, first, but expecting us to have these photo-realistic sketches when there are maybe three people in the class that know how to draw anything but costume renderings is just absurd.
PS: "Tightening" = getting more and more final detail in the piece.
PPS: Here's an example of what I mean by tightening a drawing up:
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This would probably all be vastly easier had I ever had any kind of training whatsoever in drawing, but I haven't, and our teacher keeps insisting that we don't need it we just need to teach our eyes how to see things the right way. I'm not sure I'm convinced that's how it works.
Thank you, though; even having some idea of the basic steps is wayyyy more than I knew five minutes ago. x___x
Reply
That... is not the way it's done. You do need to teach your eyes to see things the correct way, but you don't do that by swan diving straight into a final tight sketch from the first pencil stroke.
Again, it's really not complicated at all. You just start rough and slowly figure your lines out. When you start out with that tight of detail right off the bat you're going to be so focused on the small area you're drawing that by the time you finish the entire image, odds are the overall shape is going to be off. You need to layout the overall object before you go in and lay down the details. It's like doing an outline of an academic paper, then the rough draft, then the final draft. You just keep refining.
For this image I'd think if you just very lightly roughed out the overall image of the cactus, you could then go in and put in all the little details of the shape like the little crevices and angles you seem to have taken so much time and effort to lay out right away in the image you posted here. The last thing I would add would be the needles.
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Yeah, that makes sense. Haaa, yay for metaphors!
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