ThatOneMushroomGuy

Comfy here hijacking mushroom's account to mark this as complete.

Hello DigDugTrio72, I'm ThatOneMushroomGuy and I'll be the TA handling your critique today.

Arrows

Starting with your arrows your lines are looking fairly confident and smooth, which helps communicate a nice sense of fluidity in your arrows as they move through the world. You're keeping foreshortening in mind while constructing your arrows which allows you to make really good use of perspective and the depth of your page, this gives a nice extra layer of tridimensionality to your arrows.

Your usage of hatching helps you establish how your arrows twist and turn in space and further your own understanding of the tridimensional space these objects occupy, but do remember that your hatching lines must still follow the principles of ghosting and mark-making, they must have clear end and start points, be carefully planned and executed and not end at arbitrary points.

In general you're doing well, so keep tackling this exercise during your warm ups in order to take your understanding of arrows and 3D space further, experiment with the different ways arrows can twist and bend and move across space, try different rates of foreshortening and experiment with the negative space between overlaps, all of these will help you challenge yourself and develop your skills further.

Leaves

The linework for your leaves is looking smooth which helps communicate their fluidity and sense of energy, it's good that you're not only trying to capture how these structures sit statically within space, but also how they move across it from moment to moment.

However there are also some unnatural bends present in your leaf structures. Keep in mind that even though leaves are very flexible structures, that mostly applies to their length and not their width. They're like a piece of paper, not a piece of rubber, they can fold and bend in a lot of ways, but they can't stretch or compress, and if we try to force them to they'll simply rip apart.

Your addition of edge detail is generally looking good, as you don't usually attempt to capture more than one piece of edge detail at a time, and you generally keep the line thickness between your phases of construction roughly consistent, but don't forget to construct your edge detail additively as much as possible, that is, on top of your structure, avoid cutting back into the forms you've already drawn as that will cause us to focus too much on manipulating 2d shapes, rather than the 3d edges they represent.

Branches

Moving on to your branches they are coming along really decently made as you're generally following the instructions for the exercise, but they can still be improved. While it's good to see that you're drawing your edges in segments you're not starting your new segment back at the previous ellipse point and superimposing it on top of the preexisting mark, you're starting your new segments close to where your previous mark ended, which partially removes the healthy overlaps we seek to achieve in these structures.

So remember how branches should be approached, by having your segment start at the first ellipse point, extending it past the second ellipse and fully up to the halfway point to the third ellipse, afterwards you'll start a new segment, making sure to place your pen at the second ellipse and repeat this pattern until your entire branch is complete.

Don't forget to always draw through your ellipses twice as this will create a smoother and more confident look in your marks. When it comes to your application of the ellipse degree shift to your branches it can be improved, as it stands your degrees are too consistent and hardly change which is a mistake that flattens your structures. Remember that as a form shifts in relation to the viewer, so will the degree of the ellipses within that structure also shift.

Plant Construction Section

And now let's take a look at your plant constructions, which are generally coming along well made, as you're following the construction methods and techniques introduced in the lesson which allows you to construct really solid looking and believably tridimensional structures. I can see a good developing sense of spatial reasoning in these pages.

However there are some issues present in these pages which are holding you back from your full potential. So here are the points you should keep in mind whenever you tackle these exercises again so that you can continue to develop your skills.

Firstly, demos are like training wheels, they help you learn and understand how these construction methods can be used together in a variety of ways in order to construct certain tridimensional structures, but just like with learning how to ride a bike, you won't know how much you know until you take the training wheels out - and then fall on your face. But it's okay, because the next time you try it it'll be easier because you already have an idea of what you should do.

However if you never take the training wheels out, you won't develop yourself to your full potential. As mentioned in the homework section of this Lesson, if you wish to include your attempts at the demos in your submission it should not make up more than half of your total homework pages, so in this case at most you should have submitted 3 pages of demos.

You're not making use of edge detail in your pages, edge detail would have greatly helped you further communicate the form of your structures and how they move through space, but by not adding it they're left very simple, so make sure to add edge detail whenever possible, and remember that only the last step of leaf construction - texture - is optional.

Keep all stages of your construction tight and specific, don't leave gaps in between stages of construction, such as a leaf's flow of line and it's outer edges like in here, these lines must connect in order to maintain the solidity of your structure.

And lastly let's take a look at your textures, which needs some work as it's looking a bit explicit because you often outline your textures or attempt to capture them with generic hatching. You don't design your shadows with a specific purpose in mind and so there are not a lot of clear focal points of detail in your constructions.

So let's revisit how texture in Drawabox is approached, by looking back on this page we can refresh our memory on texture through the lens of Drawabox and see that it is not used to make our work aesthetic or good looking, instead every textural form we draw is based on what's physically present in our reference.

Our focus should be on understanding how each individual form sits in 3D space and how that form then creates a shadow that is cast onto that same surface. Only after analyzing all of this information present in our reference will we be able to translate it to our construction. This means that the shape of our shadow is important as it's the shape that defines the relationships between the form casting it and the surface it's being cast on, which is why we need to consider carefully how to design a shadow shape that feels dynamic and communicates this tridimensional information.

So make sureto go over these reminders in order to solidify your understanding of texture further.

Final Thoughts

In general you're starting to move in the right direction but you're still struggling on a couple of points. As such I believe you will benefit from tackling these exercises again before moving on to the next lesson, please revisit the lesson material mentioned and then reply with:

1 page, half of leaves, half of branches.

2 plant construction pages.

Hello ImNotJester, I'm ThatOneMushroomGuy and I'll be the TA handling your critique today.

Arrows

Starting with your arrows your lines are looking fairly confident and smooth, which helps communicate a nice sense of fluidity in your arrows as they move through the world. You're keeping foreshortening in mind while constructing your arrows which allows you to make really good use of perspective and the depth of your page, this gives a nice extra layer of tridimensionality to your arrows.

Don't forget to make use of hatching in your arrows, it will help you establish how your arrows twist and turn in space and further your understanding of tridimensional space. As a finishing touch to your arrows don't forget to make use of added line weight on top of the overlaps to reinforce their depth.

In general you're doing well, so keep tackling this exercise during your warm ups in order to take your understanding of arrows and 3D space further, experiment with the different ways arrows can twist and bend and move across space, try different rates of foreshortening and experiment with the negative space between overlaps, all of these will help you challenge yourself and develop your skills further.

Leaves

The linework for your leaves is looking smooth which helps communicate their fluidity and sense of energy, it's good that you're not only trying to capture how these structures sit statically within space, but also how they move across it from moment to moment.

However there are also some unnatural bends present in your leaf structures. Keep in mind that even though leaves are very flexible structures, that mostly applies to their length and not their width. They're like a piece of paper, not a piece of rubber, they can fold and bend in a lot of ways, but they can't stretch or compress, and if we try to force them to they'll simply rip apart.

Your addition of edge detail is generally looking good, as you don't usually attempt to capture more than one piece of edge detail at a time, and you generally keep the line thickness between your phases of construction roughly consistent, but don't forget to construct your edge detail additively as much as possible, that is, on top of your structure, avoid cutting back into the forms you've already drawn as that will cause us to focus too much on manipulating 2d shapes, rather than the 3d edges they represent.

Branches

Moving on to your branches they are coming along really decently made as you're generally following the instructions for the exercise, but they can still be improved. While it's good to see that you're drawing your edges in segments you're not always starting your new segment back at the previous ellipse point and superimposing it on top of the preexisting mark, and you're not always extending your marks up to the halfway point between ellipses, which partially removes the healthy overlaps we seek to achieve in these structures.

So remember how branches should be approached, by having your segment start at the first ellipse point, extending it past the second ellipse and fully up to the halfway point to the third ellipse, afterwards you'll start a new segment, making sure to place your pen at the second ellipse and repeat this pattern until your entire branch is complete.

For ellipses don't forget to always draw through them twice, drawing through them only once will cause them to be too loose and unconfident. It's good to see that you're aware of the ellipse degree shift and making use of it in your constructions, which helps these structures feel more solid and believably tridimensional.

Plant Construction Section

Lastly let's take a look at your plant constructions. They're generally coming along pretty well made, I can see a good developing sense of spatial reasoning in these pages, however you're not always applying the construction methods and techniques to your work as they were instructed in the lesson material. So here are the points you should keep in mind whenever you tackle these exercises again so that you can continue to develop your skills.

Always keep in mind that the construction methods and techniques introduced in this course must always be applied to your work, as they're tools which will help you construct much tighter and solid looking structures, there are times where you deviate from the construction methods by not drawing your branches with the correct method and by not drawing your leaves with the correct method. Remember that they're not guidelines or suggestions - they are rules.

Make sure that you're always drawing through your forms and constructing them fully, I've noticed that for many of your constructions you don't draw through all of your forms, such as leaves and branch like structures, this limits your ability to work through these tridimensional puzzles and limits how much you're getting out of the exercise. Not drawing through your forms means relying on your observation skills, instead of engaging your sense of spatial reasoning and truly trying to understand how the object you're drawing works, where it comes from, what it attaches to.

You're not making use of edge detail in your pages, edge detail would have greatly helped you further communicate the form of your structures and how they move through space, but by not adding it they're left very simple, so make sure to add edge detail whenever possible, and remember that only the last step of leaf construction - texture - is optional.

On top of this it's also strongly recommended that you do not draw earlier phases of construction with fainter lines and later ones with thicker strokes, as this is going to encourage you to approach construction as though you're redrawing everything at every step.

When drawing something with construction what we're doing is adding building blocks at each different step, using our first forms as a foundation in order to simplify our structures. In this way there's no need to alter that foundation, it should be able to stand for itself when you're done, without being redrawn, traced over, or having it's silhouette modified with 2d shapes on to of it.

Final Thoughts

You're starting to move in the right direction but you're falling into a couple of traps and pitfalls which are holding you back from your full potential, and stopping you from getting the most out of these exercises. However this is because you skip construction steps and don't apply these methods as carefully as you should sometimes, which prevents you from getting the most out of your practice.

This is a matter of making sure you're slowing down and always applying the construction methods to the best of your ability. As such I believe you will benefit from tackling these exercises again before moving on to the next lesson, please revisit the lesson material mentioned and then reply with:

1 page, half of leaves, half of branches.

2 plant construction pages.

Hello oprazak, I'm ThatOneMushroomGuy and I'll be the TA handling your critique today.

Arrows

Starting with your arrows your lines are looking fairly confident and smooth, which helps communicate a nice sense of fluidity in your arrows as they move through the world. However your arrows have little to no foreshortening, make sure to explore the size difference between arrow segments more in order to make better use of the depth of the page and push your understanding of tridimensional space further.

Your usage of hatching helps you establish how your arrows twist and turn in space and further your own understanding of the tridimensional space these objects occupy, but do remember that your hatching lines must still follow the principles of ghosting and mark-making, they must have clear end and start points, be carefully planned and executed and not end at arbitrary points.

Generally you're doing a good job with this exercise, but try to step out of your comfort zone more often the next time you tackle this exercise in order to keep pushing yourself further. Try arrows with different kinds of twists and turns and different rates of foreshortening, keep in mind that arrows are very flexible objects and can move freely across the world in all sorts of manners, so you should push yourself and explore the different possibilities.

Leaves

The linework for your leaves is looking smooth which helps communicate their fluidity and sense of energy, it's good that you're not only trying to capture how these structures sit statically within space, but also how they move across it from moment to moment.

Another thing to note is that the majority of your leaf structures don't fold or bend in any way, this is something to keep an eye on whenever you tackle this exercise again, as leaves are organic structures that are affected by all sorts of forces, you'll improve much more by thinking about the way these objects look when they move through the world from moment to moment, instead of just trying to capture how they sit statically within it.

It's good to see that you've experimented with complex leaf structures but remember to never skip construction steps when approaching these more intricate structures.

These structures](https://imgur.com/a/Tauuc2F) are looser than they could be, because you did not establish the spatial boundary that all of the later structures should abide to, despite complex structures being made up of several different parts, they still exist as a single entity, by not skipping construction steps you can ensure that your constructions are much more solid and specific.

You're not making use of edge detail in your pages, edge detail would have greatly helped you further communicate the form of your structures and how they move through space, but by not adding it they're left very simple, so make sure to add edge detail whenever possible, and remember that only the last step of leaf construction - texture - is optional.

Branches

Moving on to your branches they are coming along really decently made as you're generally following the instructions for the exercise, but they can still be improved. While it's good to see that you're drawing your edges in segments you're not always extending said segment completely up to the halfway point between ellipses, which partially removes the healthy overlaps we seek to achieve in these structures.

So remember how branches should be approached, by having your segment start at the first ellipse point, extending it past the second ellipse and fully up to the halfway point to the third ellipse, afterwards you'll start a new segment, making sure to place your pen at the second ellipse and repeat this pattern until your entire branch is complete.

For ellipses it's good to see that you're making an attempt to always draw through them twice, as that allows for a smoother mark overall. When it comes to your application of the ellipse degree shift to your branches it can be improved, as it stands your degrees are too consistent and hardly change which is a mistake that flattens your structures. Remember that as a form shifts in relation to the viewer, so will the degree of the ellipses within that structure also shift.

Plant Construction Section

And now let's take a look at your plant constructions, which are generally coming along well made, as you're following the construction methods and techniques introduced in the lesson which allows you to construct really solid looking and believably tridimensional structures. I can see a good developing sense of spatial reasoning in these pages.

However there are some issues present in these pages which are holding you back from your full potential. So here are the points you should keep in mind whenever you tackle these exercises again so that you can continue to develop your skills.

You're not making use of edge detail in your pages, edge detail would have greatly helped you further communicate the form of your structures and how they move through space, but by not adding it they're left very simple, so make sure to add edge detail whenever possible, and remember that only the last step of leaf construction - texture - is optional.

It's really good to see that you are making use of the construction methods and techniques in your work, such as the leaf and branch construction method. This allows you to create structures that look much more solid and tridimensional, and helps you further your sense of spatial reasoning.

It's also really good that you are drawing through all of your structures, this allows you to think through how each of these structures exist in space, how each piece connects to one another, and helps you develop your skills much further than you would if you tried to capture only what you can see in your reference.

And lastly let's take a look at your textures, which needs some work as it's looking a bit explicit because you're attempting to capture them with generic hatching/dots. You don't design your shadows with a specific purpose in mind and so there are not a lot of clear focal points of detail in your constructions.

So let's revisit how texture in Drawabox is approached, by looking back on this page we can refresh our memory on texture through the lens of Drawabox and see that it is not used to make our work aesthetic or good looking, instead every textural form we draw is based on what's physically present in our reference.

Our focus should be on understanding how each individual form sits in 3D space and how that form then creates a shadow that is cast onto that same surface. Only after analyzing all of this information present in our reference will we be able to translate it to our construction. This means that the shape of our shadow is important as it's the shape that defines the relationships between the form casting it and the surface it's being cast on, which is why we need to consider carefully how to design a shadow shape that feels dynamic and communicates this tridimensional information.

This approach is of course much harder than basing our understanding of texture on other methods that may seem more intuitive or basing it on the idea that texture = making our work look good, but in the long run this method of applying texture is the one that enforces the ideals of spatial reasoning taught in this course. By following these ideals, you'll find yourself asking how to convey texture in the most efficient way possible, with less lines and ink, focusing on the implicit mark-making techniques introduced in Lesson 2. Make sure to go over these reminders in order to solidify your understanding of texture further.

Final Thoughts

In general your work is looking really good, you're starting to understand the purpose of these techniques and exercises and making use of them in your work effectively, as such you demonstrate that your sense of spatial reasoning is developing really nicely.

I'm going to be marking this lesson as complete. Good luck in Lesson 4.

Hello ellakumi2009, thank you for getting back to me with your revisions.

Your leaf structures still do not fold or bend in any way, this is something to keep an eye on whenever you tackle this exercise again, as leaves are organic structures that are affected by all sorts of forces, you'll improve much more by thinking about the way these objects look when they move through the world from moment to moment, instead of just trying to capture how they sit statically within it. In order to draw leaves that move through the world in a natural way it's important to think of them in the same way we do arrows, make sure to overlap their lines.

Moving on to your branches they are coming along really decently made as you're following the instructions for the exercise, you're drawing your edges in segments which allows you to maintain higher control over your marks and helps you create solid but still organic looking structures.

I'm really pleased to see that you have taken my advice to heart and followed through on applying it to your structures. Your constructions are looking much more consistent and much more tridimensional now that you're drawing bigger, as well as drawing through your structures and sticking to simpler structures.

There's not much else to add, in general your work is good, you're starting to understand the purpose of these techniques and exercises and you're making good use of them in your work, if you iron out on a couple of issues and continue to tackle these exercises during your warm ups, you'll be on the path towards drawing even more solid and believable tridimensional structures.

I'm going to be marking this lesson as complete. Good luck in Lesson 4.

Hello supersonicsoda, I'm ThatOneMushroomGuy and I'll be the TA handling your critique today.

Arrows

Starting with your arrows your lines are looking fairly confident and smooth, which helps communicate a nice sense of fluidity in your arrows as they move through the world. You're keeping foreshortening in mind while constructing your arrows which allows you to make really good use of perspective and the depth of your page, this gives a nice extra layer of tridimensionality to your arrows.

Your usage of hatching helps you establish how your arrows twist and turn in space and further your own understanding of the tridimensional space these objects occupy, it's also good that you're making use of added line weight in order to reinforce the depth of your arrows, but don't forget that it must be added subtly to your work, only once, on top of the overlaps.

In general you're doing really well, so keep tackling this exercise during your warm ups in order to take your understanding of arrows and 3D space further, experiment with the different ways arrows can twist and bend and move across space, try different rates of foreshortening and experiment with the negative space between overlaps, all of these will help you challenge yourself and develop your skills further.

Leaves

The linework for your leaves is looking smooth which helps communicate their fluidity and sense of energy, it's good that you're not only trying to capture how these structures sit statically within space, but also how they move across it from moment to moment.

Your addition of edge detail is generally looking good, as you don't usually attempt to capture more than one piece of edge detail at a time, and you generally construct your edge detail additively. But don't forget to keep the line thickness between your phases of construction roughly consistent.

It's good to see that you're also experimenting with some more complex types of leaf structures, and doing so by following the instructions, which allows you to create a much tighter and more solid looking structure that still feels flexible and energetic.

Branches

Moving on to your branches they are coming along really decently made as you're following the instructions for the exercise, you're drawing your edges in segments which allows you to maintain higher control over your marks and helps you create solid but still organic looking structures. However, avoid foreshortening when drawing basic branch structures, focus on the simple characteristics for branches and mastering them.

There are a lot of visible tails present in these branch structures, while this is a very common mistake we can attempt to mitigate it by limiting the amount of ellipses in our branches, by spacing them further apart we'll allow for a bigger length of runway between ellipses, and ensure a smoother, more seamless transition between marks.

For ellipses it's good to see that you're making the effort to draw through your ellipses, but don't forget to always draw through them twice. It's good to see that you're aware of the ellipse degree shift and making use of it in your constructions, which helps these structures feel more solid and believably tridimensional.

Plant Construction Section

And now let's take a look at your plant constructions, which are generally coming along well made, as you're following the construction methods and techniques introduced in the lesson which allows you to construct really solid looking and believably tridimensional structures. I can see a good developing sense of spatial reasoning in these pages.

However there are some issues present in these pages which are holding you back from your full potential. So here are the points you should keep in mind whenever you tackle these exercises again so that you can continue to develop your skills.

An issue which hurts your work without you even realizing is the fact that you're pre-planning the amount of constructions you want to fit on a given page before you've even committed to any of them. Drawing bigger would allow you not only more room to work through the spatial reasoning challenges that arise when tackling these exercises, but also give you enough space to fully engage your entire arm.

Always keep in mind that the construction methods and techniques introduced in this course must always be applied to your work, as they're tools which will help you construct much tighter and solid looking structures, there are times where you deviate from the construction methods by not drawing your branches with the correct method. Remember that they're not guidelines or suggestions - they are rules.

Make sure that you're always drawing through your forms and constructing them fully, I've noticed that for many of your constructions you don't draw through all of your forms, such as leaves and branch like structures, this limits your ability to work through these tridimensional puzzles and limits how much you're getting out of the exercise. Not drawing through your forms means relying on your observation skills, instead of engaging your sense of spatial reasoning and truly trying to understand how the object you're drawing works, where it comes from, what it attaches to.

And lastly let's take a look at your textures, which needs some work as it's looking a bit explicit because you often outline your textures, attempt to capture them with generic hatching, or random areas of filled in black. You don't design your shadows with a specific purpose in mind and so there are not a lot of clear focal points of detail in your constructions.

So let's revisit how texture in Drawabox is approached, by looking back on this page we can refresh our memory on texture through the lens of Drawabox and see that it is not used to make our work aesthetic or good looking, instead every textural form we draw is based on what's physically present in our reference.

Our focus should be on understanding how each individual form sits in 3D space and how that form then creates a shadow that is cast onto that same surface. Only after analyzing all of this information present in our reference will we be able to translate it to our construction. This means that the shape of our shadow is important as it's the shape that defines the relationships between the form casting it and the surface it's being cast on, which is why we need to consider carefully how to design a shadow shape that feels dynamic and communicates this tridimensional information.

This approach is of course much harder than basing our understanding of texture on other methods that may seem more intuitive or basing it on the idea that texture = making our work look good, but in the long run this method of applying texture is the one that enforces the ideals of spatial reasoning taught in this course. By following these ideals, you'll find yourself asking how to convey texture in the most efficient way possible, with less lines and ink, focusing on the implicit mark-making techniques introduced in Lesson 2. Make sure to go over these reminders in order to solidify your understanding of texture further.

Final Thoughts

In general your work is looking really good, you clearly understand the purpose of these techniques and exercises and making use of them in your work effectively, however the issues present in your work seem to be from you not taking as much time as possible to construct everything to it's full extent, rather than you not understanding how to apply them to your work. So make sure to take as much time as necessary with each construction, this will make you develop your skills more effectively.

I'm going to be marking this lesson as complete. Good luck in Lesson 4.

Hello matttt, thank you for getting back to me with your revisions.

The linework for your leaves is looking much more smooth which helps communicate their fluidity and sense of energy, in order to draw leaves that move through the world in a natural way it's important to think of them in the same way we do arrows, make sure to overlap their lines.

Don't worry about getting them right just now. It takes some time, so keep practicing them during your warm ups and use reference whenever possible.

Your branches are coming along really decently made as you're following the instructions for the exercise, you're drawing your edges in segments which allows you to maintain higher control over your marks and helps you create solid but still organic looking structures.

There are some visible signs of hesitation in your ellipses, it's possible to see some kinks and sharp angles in your ellipses, this is because you're not drawing them fast enough, so remember to ghost as many times as possible and once you're more confident, execute your mark swiftly.

Your constructions are looking better, I'm pleased to see that you have taken my advice and making an effort to apply it your work.

An issue present in your structures is that when you put contour lines on your forms they don't really communicate any new information. Those kinds of contour lines, the ones that sit on the surface of a single form, only serve to take a form that can already be interpreted as 3 dimensional, and clarify it, while they're useful for introducing the concept of a contour line in practice it can be really hard to apply them incorrectly, if even 1 of your lines isn't in sync with the others the solidity of your structure will suffer. As such it's best to focus only on contours that communicate intersections.

You're starting to understand the purpose of these techniques and exercises and making use of them in your work, if you keep tackling these exercises during your warm ups you'll be on the path towards drawing even more solid and believable tridimensional structures.

I'm going to be marking this submission as complete, good luck in Lesson 4.

Hello ellakumi2009, I'm ThatOneMushroomGuy and I'll be the TA handling your critique today.

Arrows

Starting with your arrows your lines are looking fairly confident and smooth, which helps communicate a nice sense of fluidity in your arrows as they move through the world. You're keeping foreshortening in mind while constructing your arrows which allows you to make really good use of perspective and the depth of your page, this gives a nice extra layer of tridimensionality to your arrows.

Your usage of hatching helps you establish how your arrows twist and turn in space and further your own understanding of the tridimensional space these objects occupy, it's good that you're making use of added line weight on top of the overlaps in order to reinforce their depth

In general you're doing really well, so keep tackling this exercise during your warm ups in order to take your understanding of arrows and 3D space further, experiment with the different ways arrows can twist and bend and move across space, try different rates of foreshortening and experiment with the negative space between overlaps, all of these will help you challenge yourself and develop your skills further.

Leaves

The linework for your leaves needs some more work, it has some small signs of hesitation and you're going over your marks more than once, which goes against principles of mark-making from lesson 1. Remember to keep your linework smooth and confident in order to communicate the fluidity and sense of energy of your leaves.

Another thing to note is that the majority of your leaf structures don't fold or bend in any way, this is something to keep an eye on whenever you tackle this exercise again, as leaves are organic structures that are affected by all sorts of forces, you'll improve much more by thinking about the way these objects look when they move through the world from moment to moment, instead of just trying to capture how they sit statically within it.

It's good to see that you've experimented with complex leaf structures but remember not to skip construction steps when approaching these more intricate structures.

These structures are looser than they could be, because you did not establish the spatial boundary that all of the later structures should abide to, despite complex structures being made up of several different parts, they still exist as a single entity, by not skipping construction steps you can ensure that your constructions are much more solid and specific.

Your addition of edge detail is generally looking good, as you don't usually attempt to capture more than one piece of edge detail at a time, and you generally construct your edge detail additively. You're also keeping the line thickness between your phases of construction roughly consistent, all of which is very good and helps you create a tighter, more solid construction that still feels fluid and energetic.

Branches

Moving on to your branches you are deviating from the instructions for this exercise because you're not following the instructions for how to draw the edges as shown in the exercise instructions. You're not drawing your edges in segments, which completely removes the healthy overlaps we seek to achieve in this exercise.

So remember how branches should be approached, by having your segment start at the first ellipse point, extending it past the second ellipse and fully up to the halfway point to the third ellipse, afterwards you'll start a new segment, making sure to place your pen at the second ellipse and repeat this pattern until your entire branch is complete.

For ellipses it's good to see that you're making an attempt to always draw through them twice, as that allows for a smoother mark overall. It's good to see that you're aware of the ellipse degree shift and making use of it in your constructions, which helps these structures feel more solid and believably tridimensional.

Plant Construction Section

And lastly let's take a look at your plant constructions, where you're starting to move in the right direction, but you're not always applying the construction methods and techniques to your work as they were instructed in the lesson material. So here are the points you should keep in mind whenever you tackle these exercises again so that you can continue to develop your skills.

First things first, an issue that hurts your work without you even realizing is the fact that you're pre-planning the amount of constructions you want to fit on a given page before you've even committed to any of them. Drawing bigger would allow you not only more room to work through the spatial reasoning challenges that arise when tackling these exercises, but also give you enough space to fully engage your whole arm.

It's strongly recommended that you do not draw earlier phases of construction with fainter lines and later ones with thicker strokes, as this is going to encourage you to approach construction as though you're redrawing everything at every step.

When drawing something with construction what we're doing is building upon the existing structure, modifying what's already there at each stage. There are things that simply won't need alteration, and therefore the marks that defined them from the start should be able to stand for themselves when you're done, without being redrawn or traced over needlessly.

Make sure that you're always drawing through your forms and constructing them fully, I've noticed that in some of your constructions you don't draw through some of your forms, such as leaves and branch like structures, this limits your ability to work through these tridimensional puzzles and limits how much you're getting out of the exercise. Not drawing through your forms means relying on your observation skills, instead of engaging your sense of spatial reasoning and truly trying to understand how the object you're drawing works, where it comes from, what it attaches to.

When approaching cylindrical structures such as plant pots make sure to start with a minor axis in order to keep your several ellipses aligned to each other more easily.

Always keep in mind that the construction methods and techniques introduced in this course must always be applied to your work, as they're tools which will help you construct much tighter and solid looking structures, there are times where you deviate from the construction methods by not drawing your leaves with the correct leaf construction method and not drawing your branches with the correct method. Remember that they're not guidelines or suggestions - they are rules.

Technically another example of you skipping construction steps can be seen in this bonsai tree construction, where you haven't constructed each individual leaf structure with the leaf construction method - however this is not really a mistake, due to the nature of this course and how it teaches certain skills it's fundamental that we're always making use of the construction techniques and methods we learn to our constructions.

But certain structures are just way too complicated and it's not feasible to draw them with the methods introduced, it is simply impossible to fully draw each individual leaf structure or branch structure in a plant such as this one while still following the instructions for this exercise, as such avoid picking trees and similar structures as a subject to study in this lesson.

And lastly let's take a look at your textures, which needs some work as it's looking very explicit because you often outline your textures, attempt to capture them with generic hatching, or big areas of filled in black. You don't design your shadows with a specific purpose in mind and so there are not a lot of clear focal points of detail in your constructions.

So let's revisit how texture in Drawabox is approached, by looking back on this page we can refresh our memory on texture through the lens of Drawabox and see that it is not used to make our work aesthetic or good looking, instead every textural form we draw is based on what's physically present in our reference.

Our focus should be on understanding how each individual form sits in 3D space and how that form then creates a shadow that is cast onto that same surface. Only after analyzing all of this information present in our reference will we be able to translate it to our construction. This means that the shape of our shadow is important as it's the shape that defines the relationships between the form casting it and the surface it's being cast on, which is why we need to consider carefully how to design a shadow shape that feels dynamic and communicates this tridimensional information.

This approach is of course much harder than basing our understanding of texture on other methods that may seem more intuitive or basing it on the idea that texture = making our work look good, but in the long run this method of applying texture is the one that enforces the ideals of spatial reasoning taught in this course. By following these ideals, you'll find yourself asking how to convey texture in the most efficient way possible, with less lines and ink, focusing on the implicit mark-making techniques introduced in Lesson 2. Make sure to go over these reminders in order to solidify your understanding of texture further.

Final Thoughts

In general you're starting to move in the right direction but you're still struggling on a couple of points. As such I believe you will benefit from tackling these exercises again before moving on to the next lesson, please revisit the lesson material mentioned and then reply with:

1 page, half of leaves, half of branches.

2 plant construction pages.

Hello Ancerade, thank you for getting back to me with your revisions.

Starting with your leaves is looking smooth which helps communicate their fluidity and sense of energy, it's good that you're not only trying to capture how these structures sit statically within space, but also how they move across it from moment to moment.

Your addition of edge detail is generally looking good, as you don't usually attempt to capture more than one piece of edge detail at a time, and you generally construct your edge detail additively. You're also keeping the line thickness between your phases of construction roughly consistent, all of which is very good and helps you create a tighter, more solid construction that still feels fluid and energetic.

Moving on to your branches they are coming along really decently made as you're following the instructions for the exercise, you're drawing your edges in segments which allows you to maintain higher control over your marks and helps you create solid but still organic looking structures.

Your plant constructions are looking really well made, as you're following the construction methods and techniques introduced in the lesson which allows you to construct really solid looking and believably tridimensional structures. I can see a good developing sense of spatial reasoning in these pages.

However there are some issues present in these pages which are holding you back from your full potential. So here are the points you should keep in mind whenever you tackle these exercises again so that you can continue to develop your skills.

• When approaching cylindrical structures such as plant pots make sure to start with a minor axis in order to keep your several ellipses aligned to each other more easily. Going further don't forget to construct the outer rim that's present in most types of plant pots.

Make sure that you're always drawing through your forms and constructing them fully, I've noticed that in your constructions you don't draw through some of your forms, such as leaves and branch like structures, this limits your ability to work through these tridimensional puzzles and limits how much you're getting out of the exercise. Not drawing through your forms means relying on your observation skills, instead of engaging your sense of spatial reasoning and truly trying to understand how the object you're drawing works, where it comes from, what it attaches to.

You're starting to understand the purpose of these techniques and exercises and making use of them in your work, if you iron out on a couple of issues you'll be on the path towards drawing even more solid and believable tridimensional structures.

I'm going to be marking this lesson as complete. Good luck in Lesson 4.

Hello ACOB, I'm ThatOneMushroomGuy and I'll be the TA handling your critique today.

Arrows

Starting with your arrows your lines are looking fairly confident and smooth, which helps communicate a nice sense of fluidity in your arrows as they move through the world. You're keeping foreshortening in mind while constructing your arrows which allows you to make really good use of perspective and the depth of your page, this gives a nice extra layer of tridimensionality to your arrows.

Your usage of hatching helps you establish how your arrows twist and turn in space and further your own understanding of the tridimensional space these objects occupy, it's good that you're making use of added line weight on top of the overlaps in order to reinforce their depth

But ease up on your lineweight, it's thick, with several passes going over the same marks. Instead lineweight must be subtle, used only to clarify the overlaps between the forms that are being built up, as explained here.

In general you're doing really well, so keep tackling this exercise during your warm ups in order to take your understanding of arrows and 3D space further, experiment with the different ways arrows can twist and bend and move across space, try different rates of foreshortening and experiment with the negative space between overlaps, all of these will help you challenge yourself and develop your skills further.

Leaves

The linework for your leaves is looking smooth which helps communicate their fluidity and sense of energy, it's good that you're not only trying to capture how these structures sit statically within space, but also how they move across it from moment to moment.

Your addition of edge detail is generally looking good, as you don't usually attempt to capture more than one piece of edge detail at a time, and you generally construct your edge detail additively. You're also keeping the line thickness between your phases of construction roughly consistent, all of which is very good and helps you create a tighter, more solid construction that still feels fluid and energetic.

It's good to see that you're also experimenting with some more complex types of leaf structures, and doing so by following the instructions, which allows you to create a much tighter and more solid looking structure that still feels flexible and energetic.

Branches

Moving on to your branches they are coming along really decently made as you're following the instructions for the exercise, you're drawing your edges in segments which allows you to maintain higher control over your marks and helps you create solid but still organic looking structures.

There are a lot of visible tails present in these branch structures, while this is a very common mistake we can attempt to mitigate it by limiting the amount of ellipses in our branches, by spacing them further apart we'll allow for a bigger length of runway between ellipses, and ensure a smoother, more seamless transition between marks.

For ellipses it's good to see that you're making an attempt to always draw through them twice, as that allows for a smoother mark overall. When it comes to your application of the ellipse degree shift to your branches it can be improved, as it stands your degrees are too consistent and hardly change which is a mistake that flattens your structures. Remember that as a form shifts in relation to the viewer, so will the degree of the ellipses within that structure also shift.

Plant Construction Section

And now let's take a look at your plant constructions, which are generally coming along well made, as you're following the construction methods and techniques introduced in the lesson which allows you to construct really solid looking and believably tridimensional structures. I can see a good developing sense of spatial reasoning in these pages.

However there are some issues present in these pages which are holding you back from your full potential. So here are the points you should keep in mind whenever you tackle these exercises again so that you can continue to develop your skills.

When approaching cylindrical structures such as plant pots make sure to start with a minor axis in order to keep your several ellipses aligned to each other more easily.

You're not making use of edge detail in your pages, edge detail would have greatly helped you further communicate the form of your structures and how they move through space, but by not adding it they're left very simple, so make sure to add edge detail whenever possible, and remember that only the last step of leaf construction - texture - is optional.

And lastly let's take a look at your textures, which needs some work as it's looking very explicit because you often outline your textures, attempt to capture them with generic hatching, or random areas of filled in black. You don't design your shadows with a specific purpose in mind and so there are not a lot of clear focal points of detail in your constructions.

So let's revisit how texture in Drawabox is approached, by looking back on this page we can refresh our memory on texture through the lens of Drawabox and see that it is not used to make our work aesthetic or good looking, instead every textural form we draw is based on what's physically present in our reference.

Our focus should be on understanding how each individual form sits in 3D space and how that form then creates a shadow that is cast onto that same surface. Only after analyzing all of this information present in our reference will we be able to translate it to our construction. This means that the shape of our shadow is important as it's the shape that defines the relationships between the form casting it and the surface it's being cast on, which is why we need to consider carefully how to design a shadow shape that feels dynamic and communicates this tridimensional information.

This approach is of course much harder than basing our understanding of texture on other methods that may seem more intuitive or basing it on the idea that texture = making our work look good, but in the long run this method of applying texture is the one that enforces the ideals of spatial reasoning taught in this course. By following these ideals, you'll find yourself asking how to convey texture in the most efficient way possible, with less lines and ink, focusing on the implicit mark-making techniques introduced in Lesson 2. Make sure to go over these reminders in order to solidify your understanding of texture further.

Final Thoughts

In general your work is looking really good, you're starting to understand the purpose of these techniques and exercises and making use of them in your work effectively.

I'm going to be marking this lesson as complete. Good luck in Lesson 4.