Let's begin the process of synthesizing everything we've
covered up to this point by working on the final
construction of cloth as we can encounter it. And the name of
this is called the inert cloth, right, because it's not
specifically a fold that were interested in at the moment.
We're going to see all of them in concert and try to explain
them on paper.

So as you see the reason that I can't call this
a specific element, right, so this is the inert -
it's sort of
it's not really a fold all. In books you'll find it called
that but the basic idea is that it's when you take fabric and
you place it on the ground or you place it on something
flat it's not suspended anywhere.
The points of action are all in the like the changes of
direction of the tubular elements and they flatten out
and so on we will see of course, there are more points of
action, but it's more about the change of direction, but we
don't have any area that pins or a locks in the fabric on top
of a form and allows it to hang off of that. Right the
element of gravity isn't as intense here, but in other ways
it's more total because the whole thing is under the effect
of gravity.
So this is of course a challenge.
Let's try to do what we can. The idea is that we are going to
have to slightly
consider the plane that the fabric is on.
So we'll get to that point, right? We might as well just
sort of hint for at least the sake of composition
to
like at that area, right? That's the -
this is the area of the box where the fabric is inert. Not
moving.
All fabric as you notice is not moving so calling it inert. It's
weird right? So
however, there is at least the illusion of movement, right?
There's like the pull of gravity on parts of the fabric.
Not so much here.
So the issue is that of course everything that hangs off of
this edge is already something that we've covered because this
edge creates that point of origin for the fabric,
everything above that point is the inert, is the inert fabric.
If we were to hang fabric, allow it to fall to this edge, to this
plane, have it sort of bunch up down here and then fall again.
We would have those principles of the folds above the inert
fabric at the flat plane where it's
sort of folding in over itself and then as falls off the table
again, it's active again. So that's the way to think about
it. Obviously, we're putting it onto a thing. It's not moving.
It hasn't been moving this whole time but
that's just what we're going to - that's just a way to think
about it, to clarify
these principles, and also to understand what inert fabric
is.
Okay, so it's very important to just be a little observational
here, right, to break it down.
So squinting and getting a shape is very important, right,
but also see general movements.
General movements this not - I need to fit it on this page. So
you'll see though we're going to encounter some of our
old friends.
Not too exciting of a shape at the moment of course.
Not too exciting. However,
let's begin to break it down, right, here outlines will play a
large role.
I can see a pipe going across there.
It's very interesting.
There's light and shadow there. We're getting some clarity.
There's even a little bit of a fold into itself,
fold again, kind of a just the breaking of a pipe. Right? Zigzag
not so sure, not yet, not folding enough, but coming in from
underneath is another one that moves around to here.
Okay. Okay, so something's going to happen.
You might even argue that from another angle this change of
direction. If you were looking from above might even be a half-lock,
right, one direction, another one, right, overlap.
Now from this point is a nice big twist, not too
much excess fabric there, but I would say that
most definitely be a half-lock.
Notice how everything is still here, all these things we've
covered
but just
in a different way. Okay some more overlap. Everything
here is about that twist, about that like a pipe
fold breaking up into another pipe and then reaching over and
spiraling around another,
maybe cracking a bit more so all of that stuff.
All right. Look at that.
I think we're getting somewhere. Now we have this
nice group right here. Right, a big
group that I would even go so far as to say
is a sort of complex half-lock shape, right? You got this
spiraling around, squeezing in, moving out. That's the edge of
the fabric, the corner there.
Bringing, right, look at all those - like it's not a spiral in the
way that we've encountered it because I don't think
pipe folds spiraling around themselves can necessarily be
called the type of spiral that we've covered. I was more
concerned with how those pipe folds spiral around the form
underneath, not so much around themselves. However, you might
be able to find some of that
in
explanations of fabric in books
or in other courses
and then right another breaking, this requires you to be a
little more observational but we're already getting
somewhere.
This is an interesting kind of just cracking over itself.
It folds in again, cracks over itself, something like that.
But then the fold is never-ending, right, until the
end of the fabric.
And we're moving out to there.
From in between comes this large
more or less flat area of cloth
that I'm just going to take off the page,
right? I don't need to include all of it. Initially I thought
I would but just following it and going piece by piece
allows me to not do that.
And a nice pause here, right, a nice pause with this flat
triangle thing.
But there's a lot of fabric there. So obviously that's not
going to fall on an edge so sharply, right? So it's going to
begin to curve somewhere up here, it's sort of a break but the
break is gradual. So we're not going to worry too much about
it. Let's just allow it to hang a little bit, good.
Allowing that to hang now.
Similar thing hanging down a little bit of a crease that
becomes
a break, right. This is all familiar territory. Now
this is all very familiar.
This is a drop cloth.
Things just hanging down.
Remember we decided not to go into what that really entails
because I think we've covered that
through other means.
Here, nice
sort of pipe eye of the fold
into another pipe and look at that big sweep on the way
down. A couple of creases in here, similar thing
flat out and we're down to here.
And that's that.
That kind of lays things in. This requires a little bit more
concentration in the sense of just you just need to
observe. So just take your time and make sure everything's in
place.
Now, where would we be if we didn't have shadows?
There's also a bit of fabric behind that, right?
We can change the proportions if we need to.
Now the only way this look like anything is if there are
shadows so
squint and begin to define these lines that we've already
placed
with blocks of shadow.
But notice when things squeeze together become eyes.
Cast shadow right here, nice.
Good.
Little bit of a core shadow here,
cast shadow from here onto this.
This is one of our main accents I think. One of our
because we've got a nice strong cast shadow from it and it's up close. of from it and it's up close.
Just going to bring that down.
All right. We're getting somewhere, really seeing these
things appear.
And now,
right, that twisting right here going on.
Shadow. Most of it's cast shadow, look at that, most of it's this look at that most of its
cast shadows.
I think we're off the page there too, right, the thing just
expands, which I kind of like, right, it's sort of a property of it.
The eraser is a big help here.
Most of it's done in cast shadow so far right, of so far right
so let's get into some of the smaller stuff.
Lots of reflected light of the folds though.
Lots.
Something to think about. Really keep an eye out for those
reflected lights.
Small little core shadow combination there on that
little pipe
becomes the big pipe.
Stepping it back a little bit.
Big block of shadow there, right? I'm just trying to - all
those things that I started by outlining, I'm just trying to
see where they really are.
Nice.
Going good so far.
Core, cash shadow combination. Just going to combine them
right now.
Things might just keep moving
but that's okay.
See just fabric folding on itself in all of those patterns
that we've covered.
Obviously the small zigzags and places.
Where would we be without those zigzags?
A little bit of folding in there.
I'm trying to block that all away.
But then it sort of bunches up and goes that way, except right
here.
We're gonna move this a little but not too much. I'm kind of doing
this nice little overlap here. This is the great part about
working in charcoal because you can do a lot of this stuff and
not be afraid to just change it if you need to.
Now, I'm just gonna
stump this out a little bit, right, get a little bit smoother,
a little bit softer.
And so that we don't have those
hatch marks of the charcoal.
So
where are we here? Some of these little creases, right? That's a
whole
shadow area but just little creases right now not
important, but we got them there.
And then some of these and then
some of that as well. Alright, so we're getting there.
The thing is when things are this sort of chaotic I
recommend just
making sure you have everything you need
on the page, right? And that's okay if it's off. I'm going to
put this cast shadow onto the ground as well.
Right because we need that ground. We need that element of
resistance in a way.
Okay, so now piece-by-piece using
the stump and the eraser, we're going to begin to see what we can do
with half tones. Right? How much of these half tones can we
use?
Trying to turn all this little bit more.
Not it's a pipe but not that defined, right? Or what about
right here?
Now I'm just using the eraser and the charcoal to sharpen up
the sort of just the patterns of shadows even like even to
that extent right? I know I'm not always for that kind of
procedure but
in certain instances, right, as I said when things get this
chaotic what can you do?
But you can see some of these things coming out, right? That eye
of the fold there,
everything squeezing in on top.
Doing a bit of that.
Let's get a little more specific.
Some of this
with the goings-on here.
And nice and flat with this. The proportions
may be skewed, right? I'm working within the confines of the
paper
and if I don't get the exact length of a pipe fold, for
example, I'm not going to lose sleep over it.
It's
more about analysis than anything else.
But right away half tones, right, because with the half tones
things get so confusing.
Like I'm trying to get as much clarity as possible in this.
That's my goal.
That's my goal.
This is coming out from there, but this is a nice larger pipe,
but it's kind of got a flat edge.
Lots of stuff happening back here.
We can divide it into just a major element
right there.
And then another pipe coming off from here, highlights in
between things there. That's an interesting - a lot of that
happening.
Gonna move that.
But a lot of highlights in between these areas, right,
because it's creases. They're what I will call a occlusion
highlights.
That's not a technical term, please don't quote me on it
really.

Just going to extend this out a little bit.
I just wrap that - there's more going on over there, but I'm
just going to wrap it.
Now
this is a nice flat plane. Notice that the flatter planes
that are actually sort of corresponding to the plane of
the table
are going to be a half tone.
Right because they're receding at a quiet sort of rapid pace from us.
Quite a rapid pace.
And getting some of these creases
and we're back down to here.
Look at that more and more precise. I'm taking it piece by
piece though. That's sort of I'm not blocking in
here
in the same way. I'm introducing half tones
as soon as I am introducing shadows because without it I
just get lost.
So that's a difference already in the approach from what we've
done up to this point
and what we're doing now.
Nice cast shadow there.
So what this is
hopefully demonstrating
is that
there are variations to the procedure.
Up until this point
we had been
simply
following the formula in a sense, right? Step one,
step two,
all important things.
The trick there
right was that we already began to deviate from it a little bit
right? There is no real clear delineation
between step 1, step 2, and then adding on steps after that if
you like.
And now you can see that that line
is blurred even further
but possibly
it might be made clear again.
Right once we do establish all this
ideally it'll look
as if
we did first figure out our shadows, kind of, you know,
we solidly work them into shapes more or less, analyze the
form and then introduce our
half tones.
Now, if you know me by now, which you definitely do, we've spent
many hours together,
you know that
I tend to
work contrary to the approach that I myself
often present.
Right because I think
that keeping that internal logic, that internal
understanding of the process will allow you to deviate from
it in a way that actually speeds up the process.
Which is what's happening here, right? If you - in this case, in
this sort of situation where everything is sort of in this
big confusing somewhat illogical mess,
if you were to sit and figure out all your shadows before
moving on, it would take you considerably longer.
And I am a proponent in some ways of speed. Right? And the
speed has to be technical.
I'm also a proponent of slowing things down when it comes to
thinking up ideas and conceptualizing
what you're trying to put on paper and making a statement of
some sort,
because I think
that's part of the same thing. same thing.
I believe that if you
I have a more intuitive,
more solid grasp of the technique, right, allowing it to
become
quicker, right, simply but by just increased understanding,
this gives you a little bit more freedom to really tackle
the big questions. Because the big question
I must say is rarely is this a pipe fold or is it a zigzag,
you know?
That's a little question that needs to be answered and needs
to be answered with respect to the big question.
What is the fold you need to be in that place? And that's
the concept here
because
if you need one kind of a structure, right, because it's
expressing one kind of an idea
then you need to get that structure on the page as fast
as you can so you can see it in relation to everything else so
that you can see how it affects your idea and then you can move
on solving the next problems after that. It's problem
solving.
But large problems, not small ones.
Don't ignore the small ones obviously, that's what we're
covering here, we're covering small problems.
But the large problem is always what am I trying to get
across to my viewer?
And then of course once you've solved that problem the next
problem is how am I going to get that across to my viewer?
Look at that nice little zigzag inside.
Creates that bit of extra motion.
Now that's already a larger problem.
Nice little overlapm cast shadow,
I've squeezed that area in together a little bit more.
Look at that. Interesting.
There's that fold bulging up.
And now I'm beginning to really see changes
within that.
The edge of that fold can be a little bit higher.
And yeah, I started out way smaller and you could see
how everything is expanded,
which is common.
You could of course make sure everything is within the
confines of the page and probably traditionally that
would be the way to work.
There's a little bit of fabric in here.
There it is.
There it is there. I'm not getting enough room to the to
the pipe on top though.
I think I'll be fine. Even if it's a little bit
smaller.
If I
shrunk it down just a little not going to hurt anyone.
Okay. Okay. Okay good. We're there.
Lock that in place. Bring this down,
knock that back for a moment now.
In this case
just making sure those cast shadows are working. Shadows are working.
Okay, so I'm going to do another pass over all of this
right now.
Making sure I have everything I need before we move on to
refinement.
Notice that the results here is a similar step one, step two
pattern except step one was not so linear.
Making some differentiations between the core or cast shadows
and also core and cast as they pertain to cloth or the table.
Take your time with this.
This demands a certain kind of precision focus on those
highlights as they rotate your form you put them in right
away.
We'll have time to refine it later.
Look at that getting there and getting there.
So now we're here.
All right out here a
nice big dark hole in there. So
that's ocular occlusion, lights not really getting in there.
This is a tough one to do with just the vine like this. That
light core shadow.
And this is nice cast. This is a tough spot. Gonna leave
that for the
pencil because I think I'll be able to get into there little
clear, little more
precision and dexterity.
The best part about the the the charcoal, right, is that it's
crude.
It's quick, you get things on the page, you're done.
Now I'm moving stuff around a little bit because
like if you really look probably this little fold
underneath is larger, but
don't worry about that, right, just make sure it looks
convincing enough and that of course is going to happen when
you're light and shadows correspond to the form,
correspond to the principles of light and shadow and of course
correspond to the principles of the structure of folds.
Which is the same thing as corresponding to the form.
As you can see this is sort of a mess, right,
primarily because
it's all just a little bit haphazard, right? It's just all
over the place. We have these folds
overlapping one another.
What can you do with that?
How can you accent something? How can you pick out the right
one? That's tough.
Hopefully we'll be able to do it.
Let's get a little bit inside here. inside here.
Good.
And I essentially could leave this
as is but I think why not get more specific right away if we
can with our cruder tools.
Right, the further you get
with these cruder tools,
the easier it will be afterwards.
It already looks like a fold. The hard part is this one, right,
this nice - as it changes direction it breaks, goes into
here,
goes into there.
Angle of that flat fold,
I think that's successful. And now down here.
Now when do go back to refine things
I'm going to be a little bit more specific, right? Of course
when there's a natural sort of hierarchy you can see the
difference right in the other folds that we were doing
as compared to this one. When there's a natural when there's a natural
hierarchy in just what's interesting, right, a point of
order and then there's
sort of a part where the fabric relaxes that hangs. Then it
bunches up again when it changes direction or hits
another sort of accent point would become the new point of
origin, you know what to highlight, you know, it's
accent because it's kind of helping you move the piece
in that direction.
This is not exactly the case
with what we have here, right? There's no obvious thing
happening. Now everything down here obviously is that right?
All of this stuff we we covered right at the beginning.
These are pipe folds slightly changing directions,
but not enough to I think make them some other type of fold.
Little half tone as it moves down you can see it's at an
angle enough to become a shadow.
Okay,
especially when things are this confusing and you just
kind of lay them out and don't know what to do.
From here you need to kind of to reassess and not so much as
make sure the proportions are correct, but just that the
general areas are where you want them to be right? Maybe
this fold actually extends.
Good. I like that more, right, kind of gives that little bit
of a curve and a twist there, a little bit more emphasis just
by its placement and its length right not just by its
level of completion, right? There are lots of ways to
access something and the first one is placement and
proportions after that it's contrast and the final thing
you have of course the level of development in that
one part. So now it's time to really step back, the swirl
is good.
This movement is sort of expanding on that swirl. This
is expanding on the bottom cyber than evens out ao it
creates enough contrast. And then this is a large area of
much calmer, not so many small shadows which gives our eye
a little bit of a rest and a contrast to that, sort of a
compliment rather of this area where there aren't a lot of
shadows either. Here lots of shadows, flat, no shadows also,
so flat and then action, action and then repetitive movements,
so
I do need to take a little bit of a moment right to just
because there's too much going on and then we'll get back to
refining our key accents. This is more important here than it
has been up to this point and we'll just become more and more
important as we explore
fabric
and so with that let's take a moment and
and come back and do what we do, just hatch away at those parts
that we think deserve the most of our attention.

Okay, now that we've taken a moment to allow our eyes to
relax a bit from this sort of crazy entanglement of cloth,
let's get back to focus on specific areas and render them
as we know how.
So, and as I've mentioned before, I'd like to start with that
sort of spiraling thing in the middle, right? Because I think
that's our accent or at least I have decided that it is.
I'm going to start right at the middle.
Using
my tools and a little kneaded eraser. eraser.
All right, this might require a little bit of concentration on
my part.
I got to make this come to life
because if I don't
I'll be mad at myself.
Tiny little changes in direction, right? I've kind of
increased that shadow.
I think it's a little more effective like that, right?
There's a cleaner logic to it.
Terminator
and then the end of the cloth.
Now this is a little bit more complicated. It's not- there's a
cloth kind of some movement inside wrapping.
So that needs to be organized in terms of light, shadow, and
possibly dark half tone
in this area and then to extend
this out a little bit. Kind of slow work, right? But look at
that, already precision. Already something for the eye to catch
on to, right? That's the big deal.
Don't make things super smooth, figure out where you want an
accent.
Cast shadow, cast shadow.
But you see this is one of those instances, right, where
having enough definition in one part to start is important
right because it tells you
how much to do
in others.
Right? How much to add to other parts
to make it really read.
So take your time.
And just follow along, right?
We've done this enough times, right, like this is kind
of the easy part in a sense.
We've done this on all the other parts, but right now it's
a matter of degree. Like how much do we do all this? What's
the amount of completion in an area? All right. Let's bring
that up higher.
As you do it, you're correcting overlaps and the whole
deal.
Now don't forget, right, up close we're really focusing
on the form. You need clear edges and differentiation
between core and cast shadows.
Right. We need to make sure there's volume there.
So that something really stands out in front of
something else. So the thing that's casting the shadow is
clearly casting it and not just connecting other places, right?
We've noticed that you just need to allow that to happen a
lot of it core, cash shadow eaten up do one area. It
happens.
It's a sort of a matter of degree.
But everything right now is we're very - we're getting
as much as possible on this.
Mhm. Excellent.
Plus you don't want too much of that. So like right here,
knock that back.
And let's move on to here,
right, follow the form of the full turn up. That's going to be highlight.
That's not going to be line.
We're going to extend that
into there.
That's perfect and with a sharp edge of an eraser bring down
that highlight.
Now I'm working around that highlight.
And I feel that highlight is sharp. And because it's sort of
on a very particular crease and I want that to be known.
Look at that,
see I'm focused. I know that I'm focused because there's
something
totally unconnected going on in my mind.
I'm saying all these things so that if you find yourself in
that
position, you know that that's I do that too.
But there's no secret anything. secret anything.
There's no secret frame of mind. I'm skeptical about all
that, you know,
flow state.
That is my flow state. My flow state is when I'm doing
something and thinking of something completely different.
That's how I
I like to flow.
I've no control over either. So maybe that is the first time
but like this concept of, you know,
working without distractions
I think
it's too prescriptive.
I think
that all really awesome things happen in distraction.
Now, I wish I could go into
that a little bit more,
but
I'm not going to because I think that'll just take us
down
a rabbit hole.
Not all of course, but a lot of wonderful things happen because
of distraction, right, in like the things that we need to
allow our mind to do.
Without trying to control those things.
So just getting under to get that core shadow, cast shadow on
that little fold right there.
Really important.
And bring this out, bring this in, right? It's that I want
that edge
of the crease
to read as clear as possible.
And now I'm just going to get into some of this may be
superfluous stuff,maybe a couple of creases here,
couple there. Maybe I'll do most of it with
the stump and the eraser.
However, right, I do say it a lot of good things are think a lot of good things are
done in distraction.
But as I said earlier, it all depends on you. Like you might
be the kind of person
that works well while distracted.
I think thinking that that's impossible
is a big problem.
It's why,
you know, it's clear that kids in schools often
have a hard time because they all learn different ways a lot of
the times. Now I'm not
totally open to all of this. I'm not saying there shouldn't
be order and structure by any means. I don't think these
things are mutually exclusive.
I think you can have both of those things. You just need to
take into account that people
function in different ways.
Do I have the answers to all this? No, absolutely not.
But I do interact with a large amount of people.
So
this is -
these are just observations.
That I just think with the students that I have if I were
to try to make everyone conform to something
without taking these things into account
I don't think they would produce
the work that some of them have produced.
But I'm sure you realized by now the kind of person I am,
right?
I'm the kind of person that essentially produces the best
kind of work that I can do when I'm not told what to do.
And yet there's definitely a structure imposed upon it.
That's the other thing right? I'm not about
except usually I'm the one imposing that structure, right,
all creative acts I think are
connected to a limitation of media,
a limitation of the materials at your disposal and that
means the actual media in your hand, but also
ideas
and sort of
modes of operation, right, you have to pick and choose what
you can use.
Pick and choose what you can use. That's
what I'm going to call that formula.
Undoubtedly
but
you need to explore these things for yourselves.
Okay, let's move on.
I'm liking what's happening. Just gonna push
for a darker value in there. So the really brings out that curl,
that spiral curl. The fold itself would not fall
under the rubric of a spiral fold, right, but it is a
spiraling formation. So the problem is the language here,
right?
Okay, okay. Okay, so let's keep going.
Let's just get this out of the way. Now this is not that
important.
But we're going to do it anyway.
But we don't need to really address these older
types of structures that we've already covered. We're working
on sort of more complicated assignment now, right, a
combination of things. A synthesis of things that we've
covered.
Just going to knock that back a little bit. Look at that.
The folds are arriving, I can see them happening
right in front of my eyes.
But let's keep going.
Interesting good now,
thats a great part is another opportunity to use that eraser
to get the edge of a fold with the highlight.
And then to just knock back the fold behind it.

I'm leaving that now, got tired of that you can see that so
just moving on to other parts, right?
Could you a little bit looser though.
We're going to try to not get too specific, as specific at
least as I did with some of the other ones.
It's a nice tube there, nice little tubular fold. Don't know
what to do too much with it, but we'll see.
And let's bring this in,
right, kind of begin to kind of inch towards your highlights.
There we go.
Carve that cast shadow so that it gives us the form
underneath.
And there's like a wrapping movement there too
This edge should be actually bright, not dark.
Okay. Okay. We're getting somewhere. I'm liking the
general direction here.
This is a tough one though, isn't it? We're really - we've
met our match.
Now this little eye
I can't omit because I think it's great.
Right, and those turns are all half tones.
Cast shadow.
All that eye beginning to appear from that
area, cast shadow, let's
throw that cast shadow onto the cloth behind it. Don't worry so
much about the cloth behind it. Right? It's like I said, right,
it just needs to be a simplified
area.
Maybe a broader hatch. The eraser will handle a lot of
these things here.
A couple of overlaps in there, just a little bit.
So you can see piece-by-piece kind of moving around the
spiraling movements
or in other words going along with the movements
of the cloth.
And using the quality of highlight, right, sharper at the
eyes, then expanding
as the tube opens up a little bit
and then of course at the eye, cleaner, sharper terminators,
cast shadows, strong contrast,
get that in place.
And extend that
out a little bit more. Awesome.
I'm really beginning to work there. There's a little bit of
a light that I actually can see in there. I'm
going to omit it right because I want to see this contrast.
Not copying. I am designing as they say.
Now I wouldn't go so far as to say this is some incredible
exercise in design, but it is an exercise in design for sure.
This cloth a little bit right there.
Okay,
look at those patterns appearing.
I'm gonna get this a little bit sharper.
Getting a little of a half tone on that twist, right? This is
the one side of the form, that sort of the other just twist
happening.
That's right. That's right. That's right.
All right, step back, assess.
Hmm. I'm thinking though in this case how much of
the ground - or the table rather or whatever you want to call
it - am I going to make?I'm going to do a little bit. I
think just a little bit.
Just enough.
There we go. Cast shadow onto the table.
Maybe little bit too sharp, though, but it begins - this
almost looks like another active element like a fold or
something. We don't need that.
Okay. I'm going back up here. I haven't done anything here yet.
Just moving that up.
Thinking about how much to do right here is a nice little
crease, little triangular movement towards the eye.
Bring that in.
Now if you're curious about
where I got this whole eye of the fold thing,
aside from the fact that you just kind of get used to it,
but the fact that like you just begin to see that happening
over and over again, but the real answer is that it's an
Edward Lanteri. Edward Lanteri, his book on sculpture. Harry his book on sculpture.
He has a little bit of a chapter on cloth. It's not very
big but it does have this eye of the fold concept, which is - I
mean, I'm sure maybe it's in other books also, like I'm another books also like I'm
certain it is, but that's where I got my idea of it and I
highly recommend that book even if you're not a sculptor at
all. I think that's a great book that covers anatomy in a
good way, covers just a lot of stuff so I highly recommend it.
It's in a cheap reprint now and
easily available
anywhere. So that is -
I recommend that book.
And I definitely recommend it if you are sculptor
it's sort of a classic
of the literature on that topic.
But I think it is it is important for anyone who is
studying a craft seriously and that definitely applies to it that definitely applies to
what we're doing here.
clean that up a little bit just to get a little bit more
clarity on that edge.
Moving in with that edge.
Hmm. What is interesting here is that because I'm sort of
taking each fold piece by piece,
I'm lacking a general tonal
structure. Now of course, there kind of isn't one, right
because everything is a little bit flat because it's -
it's like even if there's form the light is somewhat flat,
that's undeniable
because the there is the general placement of this
fabric onto a flat surface. So the light's going to hit it much
like it's hitting that flat surface in a sense very evenly.
And there's no structure underneath the kind of control
that a little bit more to give a little bit more shape. So
that's of course a problem that
one runs into
in this situation. Now,
so that's why I kind of I'm knocking things back a
little bit. Alright so in this little area is our most
important one.
So that we focus all of our attention on this area.
Another eye here, strong, really strong eye,
and then opening up from there.
I would like to
find the eye of the folks, right? This is kind of a half-lock,
there's a nice twisting there.
So cast shadow has a darker value.
Already, there's a fold underneath right? So that's
already a little more clear there.
Now let's get up here. I don't think this would be a difficult
part.
It just needs to be sort of simpler, flatter.
A lot's happening but how much do we need? Always the question.
And that form cast shadow, perfect.
All right that cast shadow already kind of focuses our
attention.
But then from here
we're going down to here.
Flat areas there but little bit of a
sharpness. I might use that sharpness, accent that spiral
thing in the middle.
I'm interested in this being flatter.
Figuring out a couple of creases on there. God this one
is really a challenge, really posing a challenge.
A couple of cuts in there right? Those really they're kind of
cosmetic.
Those creases that's just happened to be - they have to be
there. The fabric is unironed. Now the whole thing, of course
only happens to be here, right, because we threw the fabric
down,
it landed in certain way. I mean a couple of tiny
adjustments and we started working on it. Now the
greatest part about fabric
right is its unique - like the particular formation for the
most part will never happen again. Something very close to
it might and maybe statistically there is some
probability of it happening exactly the same way
if tempted some infinite amount of times
but we're not concerned with that obviously.
So by capturing this, you're really capturing
a moment, like a moment that as soon as you're done
it really won't happen again.
Now will it be drastically different from the way that it
falls the next time? Maybe not enough.
Maybe won't make that big of a difference.
Because the light won't be different, the fabric might be
the same so there will be similarities. But maybe you
won't get that sort of spiraling action in here and
then
everything else that's coming off of that.
Maybe that won't happen ever again.
Just imagine.
I assure you it probably will some other way.
But if you think about this as a unique opportunity to
capture
this as it is, then I think you treat it a little bit
differently to be a little bit
more alert to the changes in direction,
the patterns,
and so on.

Alright smaller,
more of a plane there than a falling shadow.
We're going to go back over all of this and just figure out
some principles that we can use to maybe highlight an accent or
two, unify some things.
Don't get too caught up in this right on the side, in the
corner. Not that big of a deal.
This is the area that needs my undivided attention after I
clean this up.
A crease here and there, you know,
just keeping it fun.
Leaving that for now. Alright, what's happening here?
Just this is more or less flat but in a receding plane, so
some of these creases actually are now structurally important,
right because they show elevation from that flat plane,
which I think just accentuates its general position.
So yeah, I think
you know,
we're now just putting into practice
what we've covered. We are just putting into practice what
we've covered.
There we go. Getting that general direction. getting that general direction.
Let's keep going right you can see creases, right? There's no
real
fundamental sort of formula,
even structural principle that I can give for these creases.
Maybe one can be kind of invented for creases like this,
but that would apply to almost any elevation from a flat
plane.
The key is really watch those values, right? And see if you can
analyze what the form
is
creating in that area. I think once that happens,
you won't need a rule for it. You just know is the that
movement kind of up off of a plane that's a general value?
Is it turning towards the light or away from it? If it's turning
towards that it will be lighter than the general plane.
If it's turning away from the light will be a darker value
possibly shadow
from there on.
Alright just kind of land that crease coming off there. But where -
this is all not actually that important because this bit
right here is going to be the real focus of this area.
And now
I'm just almost outlining that shape, right?
Right that's already kind of
rotating this area for me.
Getting that twist and
another small twist, right? Isn't that fun? Kind of you work from
a large
twist to a small one
and then allow this cast shadow to define the forms in there.
Keep it sharp
where it needs to land.
Good. I'm liking what I'm seeing there.
And that turn of the form here is nice, too.
I'm getting a bit more information in these areas maybe
even just
knocking it back a little but then
erasing, carving,
and so on.
Woah, this is a tough one because it's so so much happening and
we've encountered pretty much everything
that we've covered. Now of course, it's in a scale , at a
scale where it's not totally
even clear. Right? Is that really just a zigzag?
Is that just a little crease?
So this is why it's sort of a combination of everything we've
done but also maybe does in fact deserve to some degree its
own name, right?
It's more about where they are
and their interrelation that right - it's like and
what's the relationship of the folds to the cloth itself to
let's say the environment, right? They're inert in the
environment. There's no movement. So because of that
the movements that you need to establish are kind of internal
ones, right? Thet're a little bit more invented, you're coming up
with a way
to express
something here
a little bit more than in the previous ones because you're
not relying on
the environment to do that work for you a little bit.
But I think for the most part we have it. I think
we're in the clear.
Kind of every part has been considered
and now it's just time for a couple of little accents and
then a general reassessment of values.
All right. I'm keeping these areas a little more loose
though, right, just a general direction of a crease or fold,
just a little more loose. I'm trying not to take away from
the amount of information that I have happening here.
I'm going to squint.
And in general, I think I'm kind of okay. I think this
whole area
can use a little bit of a tone down
knocking that back just a bit.
Right, keeping as much as we have there, getting rid of
like just kind of toning it down a little bit darker than
the background there.
Knocking that back and really maybe forcing this soft edge.
Can be a good thing.
That corner, too.
and now to come back,
maybe even
with a darker, pencil a little bit pitch black,
right, and make sure
that our -
the most important element that the spiral is sufficiently
emphasized.
Maybe just a couple of hints of darkness that maybe are like
practically imperceptible to the viewer, but will have some
effect.
Just gonna clean up a little bit, see how everything looks.
I'm gonna take a look from afar.
And there is a bit of confusion going on here, of course,
but that's the goal, right, then I think we've
captured what we're seeing or at least I've captured my
reaction to what I'm seeing. All right that sort of
repetitive,
confusing small quick changes in contrast, stuff like that.
That's all happening here.
And
it definitely works.
Now, I'm just picking out accents that I want, that I
like.
Getting fabric twisting over itself,
possibly some elements of unification,
a general tone.
Now it's really work from afar.
Knocking some things back because they're not as
important,
right? We've already spent a fair amount of time modeling
stuff
in general, right?
So this assignment, this particular one,
is now a chance
to spend a little bit more time composing, which is of course a
slightly harder assignment, right, because now it's about
picking and choosing, it's about taking - it's about not rendering
but the opposite of it right? It's about unifying.
Not isolating particular details and working them in a
certain way.
About maybe taking parts that are really interesting like the
one I'm working on right now and not overstating it.
That's
a few ways to just complete a part without getting into all
those little things.
And then maybe a little bit of a unification on everything
happening up here
with a couple
of highlights.
Right that's not actually that close in value to the shadow
but I like how that looks.
I like that not
kind of entering my view.
And of course we know right but by now that it's endless. You
can keep refining, keep making all of this
more and more like what you're looking at.
Adding significant details, adding insignificant details,
which ideally you would have to take out after that.
When I was young
I worked on a still life in my room. I was in high school and
I worked on it for nine months.
It was smaller than this. It was about smaller than this
paper and it was just a bit of fabric,
an apple
and a vase.
And I could not paint the fabric and I worked on it for
nine months that after nine months I got it.
After nine months I had that fabric, the apples had rotted
though multiple times and had been replaced but the amount of
paint on this - and I honestly most work from that time in my
life I look at now I think oh my goodness,
what's this about but
I still look at that and I see the
amount of time spent on it. I see
that it was successful, right, that spending all that
time
allowed me to get somewhere right? I think it allowed me
to
understand something about cloth.
And I had read you know stuff about cloth at that time
already, but
kind of wasn't enough. So hopefully
breaking it down like I've done here
will keep you from working on a single
painting or drawing for nine months because some of these
things will be much clearer and you'll give it a move on and
apply these principles and practice with the quantity, not
necessarily always aiming for quality. It is important to
know and see about that distinction.
Either way,
I think we got this.
This one
is also in the bag. In the bag with the rest of the folds.
So
I am going to leave this
as is
and happily say that this completes all of the
constructions and possible patterns of fabric - patterns and
structure of fabric that we can encounter. We ended with the
inert,
let's call it, fabric
where we saw that we really could put together a lot of
what we've covered
into a single image, but now let's take that one step
further even and see how
cloth will act on a mannequin and what we really will be able
to see all of these things we've covered in concert.

In this assignment, using the images or 3D scans provided
with this course, you're going to be working on the inert
fold. In this case, I once again encourage you to try this
at home with fabric that you have lying around the house. As
you saw, this in terms of organizing the cloth is the
easiest. All you really need to do is take a piece of cloth and
allow it to fall on its own and then just work around it,
organize it around yourself so that you have a very clear
sense of light and shadow and then just practice. Keep in mind
that the inert fold isn't really a particular
construction. It is in essence all the things that we've
covered interlocking and combined into a not very
coherent element. So it's up to you to use everything we've
covered up to this point to really explore and understand
what you're looking at. Good luck.