This is my latest shading attempt. All I had to start with was the outline, thus all the shading is what I came up with. I would appreciate any critique from anyone...
Hi Steve.
You are really doing well, great job.
Even some improvment over your first post and that wasn't bad.
You had a few elbows on the first one but have just about eliminated them on this one.
You are on the right track for sure.
Sam's class and the pre-scribed plates are putting ahead in the learning curve.
Of course...... your talent doesn't hurt either!
Best, John B.
I agree with John B. From what I can see, all you need is more practice at it. All the elements are in the right place. The shading is heading in the right direction. One thing that I do see is that you are cutting the inside spine of the scroll all the way down the leaf. To me personaly this gives the leaf the appearance of being detached from the actual scroll. You may want to consider not cutting the spine in these areas.
Your next one will be better and the one after that better still. Keep up the good work, your doing well.
Thank you Mr.Biggs for your input. I'm not sure I fully understand about the inside spine or what it is. If you get another moment to spend on this maybe you could clarify "inside spine" for me.
It looks nice shading, I am also practicing to shade, I can not comment much. All I can tell you is keep it up.
Shading looks more beautiful when the back ground is removed. are you going to remove the back ground?
See my practice plate and give me your comment.
I've run into that also on my plates in the beginning.
What you can try is shading the leaf like you are doing (very well I must say) and stop the shade lines where your hard line is now but leave out the hard line. Terminate them to the infinity point at the base like you are already but laterally you'd shade to that backbone point and not into the backbone; sort of imaginary line.
This way the inside edge of the leaf is defined but not in such hard contrast to the vine. Try it and see what you think, I hope I articulated that well enough, I barely understand my own posts sometimes.
Andrew,
Thank you for the time and effort it took to explain your comments. The work you did on my photo really helped a lot. It's a blessing that someone would take the time to do as much as you have to try and help me.! I think I understand now what you are saying. I think my problem may stem from my methods. As a beginner I have been cutting the entire outline before doing any shading, thus the inside spine cuts. Maybe I should try shading as I go to eliminate the spine cuts. All I can do is try that and see if I can improve my shading...
Tim,
I sure appreciate your input. I see that you and Andrew are talking about the same thing. I think the only way to correct this problem will be to change my approach to the cutting. I'm not exactly sure how to do this but I will be working on it. Thanks again: perfect articulation!!!
Thanks for your comments. As far as your plate It sure looks good to me, but I'm not in a position to critique your work. I've only been doing this for a little over two months so I don't quite qualify to make any comments about other engravers work!!!
Steve B.
You may have a little too much shading on a few of your outside leaves.
And some misplacement on a couple of your inside leaves.
But the way you have cut and shaded your leaves is not wrong in general.
It is just one of many ways of depicting the leaf and backbone relationship.
What the others are saying will give you leaves that appear to grow from the bottom, inside edge of the main stem.
What you have cut represents leaves that originate from the back outside of the main stem and appear from under the backbone.
This type of leaf is sometimes shown as a slight bump starting on the outside of the backbone, appearing to drop under the backbone and coming out from under the inside to form the front of the leaf.
With clever shading, a very nice 3-D effect.
This illusion can be reinforced by the addition of some cross shading up to the inside stem line, over the other shading on the main part of the leaf.
There is more than one way to skin a cat.
Just look at the drawing on the bottom of page 123 of Ron Smiths great scroll book.
He shows leaves and shading done the way you have it but with a little stronger cross shade.
Ron could well be the artist who drew the original artwork for the GRS plates you are using.
I don't know this for sure, but he has done a lot of work with GRS.
Some of Ron's work shows a mixture of both style leaves within one scroll.
Hope this gives you some room for thought.
Best wishes, and keep drawing, studying and making chips.
John B.
"Depicting the leaf and backbone relationship". That one comment along with the other folks comments has helped me to zero in on the problem. Thanks for the critique.