12-03-2016, 03:15 AM
Hobbit, your value sketches look wonderful. You have a lot of great stuff recently!
The biggest thing I see holding you back is your shape language. Sometimes you'll make pretty nice and interesting brushwork (the snow land) other times it looks blobby and uninteresting (like the firescape). The shapes you're using contributes a lot to this. In nearly all of your pieces, your shapes have a severe symmetry to them, the fire for example has very symmetrical and controlled shapes. I see the same thing in your portraits, angles and shapes even out to be nearly symmetrical becoming more round and oval in the head. Your robot designs are made of very symmetrical shapes. Even the squashes and the hawk you drew have been simplified into symmetrical ovoid shapes. Everything always feels very even, so there's no particular area of emphasis to grab on to and look at.
I would challenge you to pay extra attention to looking for and adding apexes on each of your individual shapes. In general, anything we look at due to perspective or laws of nature, everything we look at has an area of "less" and "more." This will give your work and designs more "meat" and interest to look at. When I'm thinking about composition and design, I find that making every shape more triangular (bigger on one end, smaller on another) consistently helps the flow and composition.
Your very best work here has more attention paid to angles and values. Your grayscale work looks really good, especially your black and white plant, and the snowscape stand out to me. These pieces all have stronger angles and triangular compositions when compared to your other work. Even these could be made stronger still with more areas of shape gradation to lead and interest the eye.
Keep up the good work!
The biggest thing I see holding you back is your shape language. Sometimes you'll make pretty nice and interesting brushwork (the snow land) other times it looks blobby and uninteresting (like the firescape). The shapes you're using contributes a lot to this. In nearly all of your pieces, your shapes have a severe symmetry to them, the fire for example has very symmetrical and controlled shapes. I see the same thing in your portraits, angles and shapes even out to be nearly symmetrical becoming more round and oval in the head. Your robot designs are made of very symmetrical shapes. Even the squashes and the hawk you drew have been simplified into symmetrical ovoid shapes. Everything always feels very even, so there's no particular area of emphasis to grab on to and look at.
I would challenge you to pay extra attention to looking for and adding apexes on each of your individual shapes. In general, anything we look at due to perspective or laws of nature, everything we look at has an area of "less" and "more." This will give your work and designs more "meat" and interest to look at. When I'm thinking about composition and design, I find that making every shape more triangular (bigger on one end, smaller on another) consistently helps the flow and composition.
Your very best work here has more attention paid to angles and values. Your grayscale work looks really good, especially your black and white plant, and the snowscape stand out to me. These pieces all have stronger angles and triangular compositions when compared to your other work. Even these could be made stronger still with more areas of shape gradation to lead and interest the eye.
Keep up the good work!