Apowers' Design School Journey

Thanks Yo,

Here’s this weeks work… Showing black and white surfaces…

big step!

Nice tonal sketchwork!

very good, but be careful with middle cylinders top ellipses, they look a bit too dark

Thanks guys!

Here’s a page for next week I did today.

The flu gets passed around at the beginning of every semester…

This assignment was black and white primitives that are ‘chopped’. Sorry for the crooked photo!

Next weeks assignment is ‘primitive combinations’ based off of 3 proportioned cubes, with black and white surfaces and chopped as well… I’m having a difficult time coming up with creative ways to combine volumes and forms…

Your case is very interesting because you have a really beautiful command of value and tonality, but your line work and line weight control is really undeveloped.

Maybe as an experiment, take a piece of tracing paper and sketch over one of your “value” pages. Try to get the linework, and line weight to offer the same amount of depth and form description. Experiment with what lines need to be heavier and which don’t. It will feel very artificial at first, because humans don’t see in lines, only value and color, which you understand really well. Spend longer on the linework studies than you think you should. Generally yours are under worked.

Thanks for the input, Brett!

My instructor also commented on my line work, and was glad to see that I was getting some good input from people outside of school.

With that being said, here is what I am experimenting with. I went back to an old page and messed around with lineweights and the last page I’ll be posting is for next weeks assignment. On Monday I’ll post everything and there should be a huge improvement!

coming along nicely Aaron. Maybe start softening these forms and see how it goes.

This week’s work: primitive combinations.

Bottom left page is rough thumbnails

I keep running into a brick wall when I try to come up with interesting forms… Overall not too satisfied.

This week’s assignment is product–esque objects combined with primitives.

Thanks yo, will try to come up with some nicer forms to look at.

Here’s this week’s work. Black and white products with an introduction to reflective surfaces.

Here is my first real digital rendering and also my midterm.

very nice!

Thanks yo!

What do you think I can improve on the most based on the sketches I’ve been posting? I’m trying to put together a portfolio to try and transfer to CCS!

Thanks again

I think you need to start the transition from drawing to sketching. I know that sounds nebulous and vague, but they are actually very different conceptually. A sketch is a thought transmitted on a page, quickly, as if through a casual conversation. While a drawing is a more technical thing.

This weeks work, Some perspective issues on the top right page, and I really don’t like furniture.

Definitely agree with you Michael. This week I cut down the time drastically on each drawing. I’m hoping to finish this weeks work in a day and spend the weekend doing my own sketches.

Thanks again for the feedback, it’s awesome!

This week’s work.


I’m excited to post next week. I should have a good 60-70 marker sketches.

nice, getting in a few more levels of detail there. the microwave is particularly successful. A good sketch has three levels of detail, the overall form, the specific surface, and the fine details that make it real. Most of your sketches hover around the first level. That sketch gets down to the second level. Keep pushing yourself there and start to play with that third level of detail indication. On that sketch it would be things like details on the keypad, a subtle indication to the inside through the glass, the texture on the glass.

Your showing great improvement! Keep going!

Loving the feedback, thanks Yo!

Here’s a quick organic form study done in sketchbook pro for my first time. Everything needed to be really tight and draw-through erased for class.

Voiced my concerns about illustrating vs. sketching and the master’s instructor seemed to have the same concern which lead to my instructor changing this weeks assignment on the spot!

First time really sketching with markers, but here’s about a quarter of what I’ll have to show for Monday in order of when they were sketched (Including the off sketches as well). Needed to keep everything pretty simple because this is our intro to applying marker to objects.