ThatOneMushroomGuy

Hello tolamaker, 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 execute and not end at arbitrary points. 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 well, so keep tackling this exercise during your warm ups in order 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, but make sure not to deviate from the basic leaf form such as in here, where you draw the outer edges with two symmetrical curves, turning the structure into a circle, which does not communicate the natural sense of energy and flow that leaves possess.

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, from the wind to gravity to their own weight pulling them down, as such you'll find that in plant structures leaves will actually be oriented in a variety of different ways, and 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.

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 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.

You might also find it easier to extend your marks if you start to draw your branches a bit smaller and with more ellipses, drawing them too big, while not necessarily a mistake, doesn't allow you enough space to practice several overlapping 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, there are places where your degrees are too consistent and hardly change, and places in which the way the ellipse degree changes is inconsistent with the rules, either getting larger when it should be thinner or thinner where it should be larger. So don't forget that as a form shifts in relation to the viewer, so will the degree of the ellipses within that structure also shift according to the way the branch is positioned.

Plant Construction Section

And lastly let's take a look at your plant constructions, which are coming along quite nicely made. You're generally making use of the construction methods and techniques introduced in this Lesson which helps you create the illusion of tridimensionality in your work, you're not only trying to capture what these structures look like, but you also focus on how they work, how they exist fully in tridimensional space by drawing through your forms and thinking about the way each piece of your construction exists in relation to one another.

This is all very good and it's helping you develop a strong sense of spatial reasoning, there are only a couple of small things that if kept in mind will help you take your work to the next level.

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. Because of this your pages have big empty spaces that could have been better used not by adding more drawings to your page, but instead by limiting them, which 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.

As it stands your constructions are too small and you have also chosen some very complex structures which has limited your ability to make use of the construction methods and techniques introduced in your work to their full extent.

• Because we're drawing on a flat piece of paper, we have a lot of freedom to make whatever marks we choose - it just so happens that the majority of those marks will contradict the illusion you're trying to create and remind the viewer that they're just looking at a series of lines on a flat piece of paper. In order to avoid this and stick only to the marks that reinforce the illusion we're creating, we can force ourselves to adhere to certain rules as we build up our constructions.

• For example - once you've put a form down on the page, do not attempt to alter its silhouette. Its silhouette is just a shape on the page which represents the form we're drawing, but its connection to that form is entirely based on its current shape. If you change that shape, you won't alter the form it represents - you'll just break the connection, leaving yourself with a flat shape. We can see this most easily in this example of what happens when we cut back into the silhouette of a form.

We can see a couple of examples here where you have cut back inside the forms you've already drawn or extended off of preexisting form silhouettes.

You can find here more information that talks about how to make use of organic forms to construct plants that aren't simple branches with leaf structures attached to them, and you can see here how you can construct on top of your preexisting structures with new organic forms in order to maintain the tridimensionality of your structure.

For your Venus fly trap there are a couple of changes that you could have made which would have allowed you to create a tighter and more specific structure. Currently you approached the "body" or the "stem" of the venus fly trap as a sort of leaf shape, while this is a valid way to approach this structure it leans too heavily on the side of oversimplification for this part of the plant structure and makes the structure feel fragile, flimsy and flat.

This part of the Venus Fly Trap is actually cylindrical in nature, but it's hidden underneath the more leafy part of the stem, it's helpful to understand this because you can then simplify the forms by capturing this part of the structure as a branch ( which makes it much clearer how the "trap" of the venus flytrap connects to the rest of the structure ) and afterwards build the rest of the structure with the leaf construction method, which will allow for a structure that feels less flimsy and much more solid.

I've noticed that for this construction you have tackled what seems to be a palm tree. Due to the nature of these exercises there are a couple of times where we're going to encounter structures that cannot be properly constructed with the techniques and methods introduced in the lesson material, trees are very massive structures with lots of elements to them that cannot all be individually constructed with respect for the correct construction methods, for example you have not fully constructed the individual leaf structures in your palm tree, which has left the structure less tight and solidly constructed. As such it is best to avoid these types of structures.

Final Thoughts

In general you are doing well, I believe that in these pages you have demonstrated that you do understand the way these construction methods and techniques should be used and why they're important for your work even if it can be improved upon, as such I'm going to be marking this submission as complete. Good luck in Lesson 4.

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

Arrows

Starting with your arrows you're drawing your marks with a good deal of confidence which helps solidify the feeling of fluidity that arrows possess as they move through all the three dimensions of the world they exist in. However your arrows are too contained to the space of your page and they 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, 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 moving in the right direction, so try to get out of your comfort zone more often the next time you tackle this exercise, try arrows with different kinds of twists and turns and different rates of foreshortening, construct your second arrow mark in segments with the ghosting method, so that you can gauge the size difference between different segments in order to make better use 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.

However you also have some unnatural bends present in your leaves. 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 you try to force them to they'll simply rip apart.

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 imaginary space 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 need to make use of edge detail more thoroughly in your work, especially in your plant construction pages, but in general your addition of edge detail is 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 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.

For your ellipses you are not always drawing through them twice which is a mistake that causes your ellipses to be looser than they should be.

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 lastly let's take a look at your plant constructions, which are coming along quite nicely made. You're generally making use of the construction methods and techniques introduced in this Lesson which helps you create the illusion of tridimensionality in your work, you're not only trying to capture what these structures look like, but you also focus on how they work, how they exist fully in tridimensional space by drawing through your forms and thinking about the way each piece of your construction exists in relation to one another.

This is all very good and it's helping you develop a strong sense of spatial reasoning, there are only a couple of small things that if kept in mind will help you take your work to the next level.

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. Because of this your pages have big empty spaces that could have been better used not by adding more drawings to your page, but instead by limiting them, which 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.

As it stands your constructions are too small and you have also chosen some very complex structures which has limited your ability to make use of the construction methods and techniques introduced in your work.

In general you gravitated towards the same type of plant for the majority of your plant constructions, structures with stems and lots of leaves, usually in a vase. While this is not necessarily a mistake it does mean that you haven't challenged yourself as much and that you haven't tackled different types of construction challenges that other structures such as mushrooms, cacti or fruits could provide. So going forward don't forget to keep this in mind, get out of your comfort zone more often so that you can further develop your sense of spatial reasoning.

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, and make sure to add a ground plane to your structures, this line is necessary when constructing plant pots because otherwise your structure will look like it's floating in mind air, which breaks the illusion of the construction.

You're not making a lot of 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.

Final Thoughts

In general you are doing well, I believe that in these pages you have demonstrated that you do understand the way these construction methods and techniques should be used and why they're important for your work even if it can be improved upon, as such I'm going to be marking this submission as complete. Good luck in Lesson 4.

Hello Pentamenti, thank tou for getting back to me with your revisions.

Your leaves are looking smooth and energetic, 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, but don't forget to avoid the generic hatching as it is a mistake that does not communicate texture and flattens the overall structure.

Your branches are looking 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.

When it comes to your constructions they are coming along much more nicely, you're making use of the construction methods and techniques introduced in the lesson more thoroughly, but don't forget that you must always make use of the appropriate construction method in order to achieve the best result, in your last construction you've drawn your leaf structures with an ellipse, which has flattened and stiffened them, something that wouldn't happen if you were using the correct leaf construction method.

You're also drawing through your forms which allows you to create structures that are much tighter and specific.

In general your work is looking much better, as such I'm going to be marking this submission as complete, good luck in Lesson 4.

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

I'll start by answering your question.

An I allowed to stop ghosting my lines now?

No. Ghosting is an important part of planning your lines, without ghosting you cannot plan your lines, thus they will be more inaccurate and less confident. You must ghost every line you make in this course.

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 on top of the overlaps in order to reinforce their depth, however don't forget that this added lineweight must be added subtly, with a single mark superimposed on top of the overlaps only, not the entire length of your line.

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

You did not submit the requested one page of leaves for this lesson.

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.

It's good to see that you're aware of the ellipse degree shift and making use of it in your constructions, but you need to stick to the rules more thoroughly, there are places where your degrees are too consistent and hardly change, and places in which the way the ellipse degree changes is inconsistent with the rules, either getting larger when it should be thinner or thinner where it should be larger. So don't forget that as a form shifts in relation to the viewer, so will the degree of the ellipses within that structure also shift according to the way the branch is positioned.

Plant Construction Section

And lastly let's take a look at your plant constructions, which are starting to come along in the right direction. You're generally making use of the construction methods and techniques introduced in this Lesson which helps you create the illusion of tridimensionality in your work, but you are coming across a couple of obstacles that are keeping you from reaching your full potential. So here are the points you should look out for whenever you tackle these exercises again so that you can start to get the most out of this Lesson.

First things first, an issue that hurts your work without you even realizing it 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. Because of this you haven't used the space available to you on your page as effectively as you could have, instead of adding more drawings to your page you should start to limit them, which 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.

As it stands your constructions are too small and you have also chosen some very complex structures which has limited your ability to make use of the construction methods and techniques introduced in your work, which leads me into the next point.

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 constructing your branches with ellipses and skipping straight away to drawing the outer edges, such as in these constructions which flattens your structures. You're also skipping construction steps by not following the correct method to construct forking branches and knots which causes your work to look flatter and less specific than it could be. Remember that these are not guidelines or suggestions - they are rules.

When it comes to your leaf structures they often bend unnaturally. 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 you try to force them to they'll simply rip apart.

You're not making use of edge detail in your leaf constructions, 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.

Ease up on your lineweight, it's thick and you go over almost the entirety of your lines in most cases, but lineweight should not jump from one form's silhouette to another, as that smooths everything out too much. Almost as if you pulled a sock over a vase, it softens the distinctions between the forms and flattens the structures out somewhat.

Instead lineweight must be subtle, used only to clarify the overlaps between the forms that are being built up, as explained here.

And lastly let's take a look at your addition of texture to these structures, which needs some work as it's looking very explicit as you add too many big areas of black to your work, which goes against the concept of drawing implicitly. You also don't design your shadows with a specific purpose in mind and so there are no focal points of detail in your constructions which leaves no places for your viewer to focus on or any areas of rest for their eyes, there's no contrast and so everything competes to keep the viewer's attention.

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 and applying these methods consistently to your work, as such I believe you would benefit from tackling these exercises again before moving on to more complex tridimensional challenges.

1 page, half of leaves, half of branches.

2 plant construction pages.

Hello RiggityRenekt, 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 on top of the overlaps in order 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 you also have some unnatural bends present in your leaves. 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 you try to force them to they'll simply rip apart.

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.

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, but remember keep the line thickness between your phases of construction roughly consistent so as to not encourage yourself to redraw more than your strictly need to, remember that edge detail must also be draw confidently, with a single mark for each piece of edge detail, you must also prioritize constructing it additively as much as possible instead of cutting back into your forms.

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.

This is in part caused by the fact that there are too many ellipses in close proximity to one another in your branches, which leaves you less space to extend your marks, it also makes it harder for you to fully engage your arm when drawing. As a general rule of thumb, treat ellipses as indicators for when the form shifts noticeably and so the degrees of your ellipses should also shift noticeably, that way you don't end up with too many ellipses that communicate the same information to the viewer.

You must also remember how branches should be approached and that you must extend your marks 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 your 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, but there are still several places where you did not draw through them, so don't forget to keep an eye out for this.

When it comes to your application of the ellipse degree shift to your branches it's good to see that you're aware of it, but as I've mentioned above some of your degrees are too consistent and hardly change which is a mistake that flattens your structures, in this case I just recommend paying closer attention to the degree shift and to keep your ellipses further apart.

Plant Construction Section

And lastly let's take a look at your plant constructions, which are coming along quite nicely made. You're generally making use of the construction methods and techniques introduced in this Lesson which helps you create the illusion of tridimensionality in your work, you're not only trying to capture what these structures look like, but you also focus on how they work, how they exist fully in tridimensional space by drawing through your forms and thinking about the way each piece of your construction exists in relation to one another.

This is all very good and it's helping you develop a strong sense of spatial reasoning, there are only a couple of small things that if kept in mind will help you take your work to the next level.

Your attempts at the demos are coming along really nicely made but I think it's important to mention one small thing, because we're drawing on a flat piece of paper, we have a lot of freedom to make whatever marks we choose - it just so happens that the majority of those marks will contradict the illusion you're trying to create and remind the viewer that they're just looking at a series of lines on a flat piece of paper. In order to avoid this and stick only to the marks that reinforce the illusion we're creating, we can force ourselves to adhere to certain rules as we build up our constructions.

• For example - once you've put a form down on the page, do not attempt to alter its silhouette. Its silhouette is just a shape on the page which represents the form we're drawing, but its connection to that form is entirely based on its current shape. If you change that shape, you won't alter the form it represents - you'll just break the connection, leaving yourself with a flat shape. We can see this most easily in this example of what happens when we cut back into the silhouette of a form.

While this is something that you generally respect there is one instance in this bunny cactus construction where you cut back into the silhouette of your forms, although this isn't your fault as this mistake is also present in the demo itself, but it's something to look out for since due to the nature of the ever updating lesson material some techniques or approaches may become outdated.

You can find here more information that talks about how to make use of organic forms to construct plants that aren't simple branches with leaf structures attached to them, and you can see here how you can construct on top of your preexisting structures with new organic forms.

First things first remember that we must draw our marks with confidence, remember that part of the reason why we draw with ink is to instill in us a respect for each and every mark we make, so that every stroke we put down is carefully thought through and planned, executed to the best of our ability, if we start to draw over our marks this respect for every mark we make will be lost and we are more likely to be careless with our marks, as such only draw your lines once, not several times.

You must only draw over a mark if you're making use of additional lineweight, but it must be subtle, used only to clarify the overlaps between the forms that are being built up, as explained here.

When working on any construction make sure to maintain the relationships between your stages of construction tight and specific, don't leave gaps in between a leaf's flow line and it's outer edges, they must connect.

Final Thoughts

In general you are doing well, I believe that in these pages you have demonstrated that you do understand the way these construction methods and techniques should be used and why they're important for your work even if it can be improved upon, as such I'm going to be marking this submission as complete. Good luck in Lesson 4.

Hello SplitterTriplets, 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.

It's good that you're making use of added line weight as a finishing touch for your arrows, but remember that this extra lineweight must be added on top of the overlaps only as well as being added subtly, with a single stroke superimposed on top of the underlying mark.

Generally you're doing a good job with this exercise, I'd like to encourage you to get out of your comfort zone more often the next time you tackle this exercise in order to keep pushing yourself. 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.

However you also have some unnatural bends present in your leaves. 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 you try to force them to they'll simply rip apart.

With the exception of a single instance 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.

In the one instance where you added edge detail to your work it is generally looking alright, 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 different phases of construction roughly consistent, so as to not encourage yourself to redraw more than you strictly need to.

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, and sometimes you're extending it too far past the halfway point which causes you to lose control over your marks.

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.

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.

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. 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 lastly let's take a look at your plant constructions, which are coming along quite nicely made. You're generally making use of the construction methods and techniques introduced in this Lesson which helps you create the illusion of tridimensionality in your work, you're not only trying to capture what these structures look like, but you also focus on how they work, how they exist fully in tridimensional space by drawing through your forms and thinking about the way each piece of your construction exists in relation to one another.

This is all very good and it's helping you develop a strong sense of spatial reasoning, there are only a couple of small things that if kept in mind will help you take your work to the next level.

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 constructing your branch forms with the branch construction method, such as in here and here](https://imgur.com/a/M6kN7aq) where you leave the forms as single marks, which do not communicate any sense of fluidity or form, or by not sticking as closely to the basic leaf form such as in here, where you attempt to capture the tricky curves at the tip of the leaf right away, which causes you to lose control over your marks more easily, when you could instead build any extra complexity on top of it by starting with the basic form for leaves. Remember that these are not guidelines or suggestions - they are rules.

You are making really good use of boundary lines in your work, but do remember to follow it specifically, don't let your flow lines extend past it or your structure will look looser than it could be. The bigger shape establishes a decision being made - this is how far out the general structure will extend - and so the flow lines for the later leaf structures should abide by that, otherwise it may as well not exist.

You're still not adding edge detail to your pages which is a mistake. Keep in mind that edge detail is another step of the construction process, it helps you futher communicate how your structures exist and move through a 3 dimensional space and as such it must be considered whenever possible. Only the last step of construction - texture - is optional.

When working on any construction make sure to maintain the relationships between your stages of construction tight and specific, don't leave forms open ended such as in here, you will undermine it's solidity, and avoid leaving gaps in between a branch's outer edge and it's ellipses such as in here, attempt to follow it as closely as possible, the same can be said about leaf structures, don't leave gaps in between a leaf's flow line and it's outer edges, they must connect.

Final Thoughts

In general you are doing well, I believe that in these pages you have demonstrated that you do understand the way these construction methods and techniques should be used and why they're important for your work even if it can be improved upon, as such I'm going to be marking this submission as complete. Good luck in Lesson 4.

Hello ElMani117, 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, your lines must be parallel to one another and perpendicular to the length of the arrow, going from one end of the arrow's width to the other, your lines must be carefully planned and executed and not end at arbitrary points.

Still speaking of hatching, there are a couple of times where you've placed it incorrectly, making it seem like your arrow is getting bigger the further away it is, and getting smaller as it gets closer, which goes against the rules of perspective.

• Perspective works in the following manner: things that are further away from the viewer will look smaller, and as they get closer to the viewer they'll look bigger. The way this affects an object of consistent size and width that stretches across space is that certain segments of this object will look bigger and others smaller, either gradually or dramatically depending on the perspective of the scene, as such the bigger part of the arrow will always be the one that's closest to the viewer so the segment that's behind it should be the one receiving the hatching.

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 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 you also have some unnatural bends present in your leaves. 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 you try to force them to they'll simply rip apart.

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.

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, but you need to spend more time with the execution of each mark - because there are so many and they seem individually unimportant, you're putting less time into each one and so there are often gaps or overshoots that could be avoided by putting more time into the work.

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. 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, which are coming along quite nicely made. You're generally making use of the construction methods and techniques introduced in this Lesson which helps you create the illusion of tridimensionality in your work, you're not only trying to capture what these structures look like, but you also focus on how they work, how they exist fully in tridimensional space by drawing through your forms and thinking about the way each piece of your construction exists in relation to one another.

This is all very good and it's helping you develop a strong sense of spatial reasoning, there are only a couple of small things that if kept in mind will help you take your work to the next level.

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. Because of this your pages have big empty spaces that could have been better used not by adding more drawings to your page, but instead by limiting them, which 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.

As it stands your constructions are too small and you have also chosen some very complex structures which has limited your ability to make use of the construction methods and techniques introduced in your work.

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, you've skipped some construction steps at points such as in this cilantro where you have skipped construction steps when constructing this leaf structure, which has caused it to look flatter than it should, as well as less specific than it should be.

You have also not made use of the forking branches method when constructing structures with several stemming branches, which has caused the structures to be less specific and less tridimensional than they could be. Make sure to always look at the informal demos in each lesson as they contain very useful additional information.

In this construction there are also a couple of places where you skipped construction steps by not constructing the stems with the branch construction method which is a mistake, remember that the construction methods are rules, not guidelines.

There are a couple of times in your work where you have gone over your marks more than once, this is a mistake, remember that part of the reason we draw in ink is to instill in us a respect for every mark that we make and so we'll be more careful with planning our marks before we even put pen to paper, redrawing marks goes against this principle and the entire reason we draw with ink. It will also make your lines less confident and your constructions more messy.

And lastly let's take a look at your addition of texture to these structures, which is starting to move in the right direction as you make an effort to think about the cast shadows present in your structure, but your shadows are not always clearly designed with a specific purpose in mind and so there are not a lot of 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 are doing realky well, you're making use of the construction techniques and methods really effectively which has allowed you to construct structures that look very tridimensional and solid. I have no doubts that you understood the purpose of these exercises and as such I'm going to be marking this submission as complete. Good luck in Lesson 4.

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

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 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, they must be parallel to one another, be carefully planned and executed and not end at arbitrary points. It's good that you're making use of added line weight on top of the overlaps in order to reinforce their depth.

Generally you're doing a good job with this exercise, I'd like to encourage you to keep experimenting and keep trying different types of arrows with different kinds of twists and turns and different rates of foreshortening to them, keep in mind that arrows are very flexible objects and can move freely across the world in all sorts of manners, so you should keep pushing yourself in order to continue developing your abilities.

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.

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.

For your addition of edge detail it's good to see that you're not attempting to capture more than one piece of detail at a time but you need to spend more time with the execution of each mark - because there are so many and they seem individually unimportant, you're putting less time into each one and so they do not properly rise off and return to the existing stroke - there are often gaps and overshoots that could be avoided by putting more time into the work. No mark you draw is unimportant - if you decided it was worth adding, it's worth giving as much time as it needs to be done to the best of your current ability.

Your addition of texture is starting to move in the right direction but there are a couple of places where it's coming along quite explicit as you outline your textures which leaves no transitions from light to dark in an attempt to capture the representation of what's going on with your structure.

This doesn't allow you to properly focus on the cast shadows present and thus your addition of texture is less specific than it could be. There's much more going on than just a few stray marks implying veins and we can do much more to accurately communicate this type of texture, take a look at this informal demo on how to approach leaf texture, and make sure to give these reminders on how texture works in Drawabox a read.

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.

Something else you should consider is limiting the amount of ellipses present in your branches, as it stands, at points you have too many ellipses in close proximity to one another which doesn't allow you enough of a length of runway to extend your marks, it also makes it harder for you to fully engage your arm when drawing. As a general rule of thumb, treat ellipses as indicators for when the form shifts noticeably, that way you don't end up with too many ellipses that communicate the same information to the viewer.

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

First I will start by addressing your questions.

For the first question while it's good that you're starting to think in terms of planes and the like, when constructing our branch like forms we should stick to the instructions as best as we can, we'll be drawing the outer edge of our branches first, the outermost edge of the form, so we won't really be accounting for plane shifts. I have put together a quick demonstration of how I would approach a curved branch structure such as this.

And yes, you must draw through all of your forms no matter what, but keep in mind that your two organic forms are not the same, as the one on the left is an organic form that is rounder, and the right is much more boxy in nature, both approaches are valid on this case, but it depends on what you require for a specific construction.

For your second question this is actually more tricky, because there are a couple of different things to consider, but the biggest is that when choosing what we're going to be constructing we need to be aware of the size of our page and the restrictions it provides, we also must keep in mind that the more we add to it the less space will be left for the other elements of our structure or other constructions.

In general it seems to me that you're trying to fit a lot of constructions with a lot of complexity and detail to your pages and unfortunately this actually hurts how much you're getting out of each individual construction, by trying to add a lot of drawings to your page rather than making them as big as you need them to be you artificially limit the amount of space your brain has to work through the spatial reasoning challenges that arise when tackling these exercises, you also make it harder to engage your whole arm when drawing.

So in the future stick with a single construction per page, especially if you are going to be drawing something that is very leafy and complicated, with several elements to it, you will find it way easier to construct more complicated structures when you're drawing bigger.

Now let's take a look at your plant constructions. You're generally making use of the construction methods and techniques introduced in this Lesson which helps you create the illusion of tridimensionality in your work, you're not only trying to capture what these structures look like, but you also focus on how they work, how they exist fully in tridimensional space by drawing through your forms and thinking about the way each piece of your construction exists in relation to one another.

This is all very good and it's helping you develop a strong sense of spatial reasoning, there are only a couple of small things that if kept in mind will help you take your work to the next level.

Ease up on your lineweight, it's thick, with several passes going over the same marks and jump from one form's silhouette to another, which smooths everything out too much. Almost as if you pulled a sock over a vase, it softens the distinctions between the forms and flattens the structures out somewhat.

Instead lineweight must be subtle, used only to clarify the overlaps between the forms that are being built up, as explained here.

And lastly let's take a look at your addition of texture to these structures, it is starting to move in the right direction as you make an effort to think about the cast shadows present in your structure, but you do end up confusing form shadows and local areas of color for cast shadows which clutters your work, such as your apple construction, and you add too many big areas of black to your work, your shadows are not always clearly designed with a specific purpose in mind and so there are no focal points of detail in your constructions which leaves no places for your viewer to focus on or any areas of rest, there's no contrast and so everything competes to keep the viewer's attention.

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 are doing a phenomenal job, you're making use of the construction techniques and methods really effectively which has allowed you to construct structures that look very tridimensional and solid. I have no doubts that you understood the purpose of these exercises and as such I'm going to be marking this submission as complete. Good luck in Lesson 4.

Hello Sumi978, I'm ThatOneMushroomGuy and I'll be the TA handling your critique today.

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, but there are a couple of points where your turns are a bit too sharp, this is not necessarily a mistake for arrows but it does break the natural flow of the structure, so do keep it in mind. You're making use of foreshortening when constructing your arrows which allows you to make 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. 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.

You've done a good job on this exercise, what I'd like to tell you so that can keep getting the most out of this exercise is to actually encourage you to get out of your comfort zone more often the next time you tackle this exercise, 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

In general your lines are looking smooth, however the issue with sharp angles in your work is also present here and it hurts the sense of fluidity and energy in your leaves, we want these structures to have a nice flow as they move through the world, we shouldn't break the rhythm of our lines with sharp angles, stick to curves which are more natural.

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.

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, the imaginary space that all of the later structures will take up, and you've also skipped construction steps in here by trying to capture the complex form of the structure right away, instead of constructing each individual arm with the leaf construction method to it's full extent and only then connecting them together. Even though leaves are single entities they can still made be made up of several parts.

You're not making use of edge detail in your pages, by not adding it they're left very simple and you miss out on a great tool to help you further communicate the way your structures exist and move through space. Make use of 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 lastly let's take a look at your plant constructions, which are coming along quite nicely made. You're generally making use of the construction methods and techniques introduced in this Lesson which helps you create the illusion of tridimensionality in your work, but unfortunately it seems that the majority of your work is made up of demos. If we take another look at the homework section of this lesson we can see that it's specified there that if we wish to include our own attempts at the demos in our submission, they should make up less than half of our total pages, in this case the max would have been 3 pages out of 8 total.

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. Other than this, there are a couple other issues present within your work that are holding you back and that should be addressed.

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 the petals in this construction and some of the leaf structures in the potato plant demo, this limits your ability to work through these tridimensional puzzles and limits how much you're getting out of the exercise as not drawing throug 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 working on any construction make sure to keep the relationships between the different stages of construction tight and specific, respect the boundaries you establish and don't leave any gaps in between a leaf's flow line and it's outer edges, they must connect.

• Because we're drawing on a flat piece of paper, we have a lot of freedom to make whatever marks we choose - it just so happens that the majority of those marks will contradict the illusion you're trying to create and remind the viewer that they're just looking at a series of lines on a flat piece of paper. In order to avoid this and stick only to the marks that reinforce the illusion we're creating, we can force ourselves to adhere to certain rules as we build up our constructions.

• For example - once you've put a form down on the page, do not attempt to alter its silhouette. Its silhouette is just a shape on the page which represents the form we're drawing, but its connection to that form is entirely based on its current shape. If you change that shape, you won't alter the form it represents - you'll just break the connection, leaving yourself with a flat shape. We can see this most easily in this example of what happens when we cut back into the silhouette of a form.

While this is something that you do generally respect we can see some spots in this bunny cactus where you cut back into the forms you've already drawn, however this isn't your fault, as the demo itself also cuts back into that form of the cactus, but due to the nature of the lesson material some demos or techniques can become a bit outdated, but still have a lot of overall value, so this is just something to keep in mind as you continue to work through these lessons.

You can find here more information that talks about how to make use of organic forms to construct plants that aren't simple branches with leaf structures attached to them, and you can see here how you can construct on top of your preexisting structures with new organic forms.

Final Thoughts

Because the majority of your work is made up of demos I can't be truly sure of how much you've learned from the Lesson material and whether you are fully aware of why and how these techniques and methods should be applied. As such I'm going to be asking you for a couple of revisions before moving you onto the next lesson, please reply once you're finished with:

1 page half of leaves, half of branches.

2 plant construction pages.

Hello edravi5340, I'm ThatOneMushroomGuy and I'll be the TA handling your critique today.

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 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 execute and not end at arbitrary points. It's good that you're making use of added line weight, but remember that this lineweight must be added on top of the overlaps, and with subtlety.

You've done a good job on this exercise, what I'd like to tell you so that can keep getting the most out of this exercise is to actually encourage you to get out of your comfort zone more often the next time you tackle this exercise, 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.

The way you're drawing your edge detail needs some work, while it's good to see that you're not trying to capture more than one piece of edge detail at a time you're often constructing it subtractively which should be avoided, instead, make sure to always construct your edge detail carefully, and additively, on top of your construction, as cutting back into our forms can cause us to focus too much on manipulating the 2d shapes on the page, instead of how our marks represent edges in tridimensional space.

You must also remember to put your edge detail down with the same thickness as the rest of your linework, so as not to encourage yourself to redraw more than you strictly need to.

For your addition of texture to your work it's good to see that you're focusing on the cast shadows present in your structures, but there's still not a lot of focal points of detail in your work, and your shadows are majorly made up of single lines, take a look at this demo for how you can create shadow shapes that are more dynamic.

Take a look at this informal demo on how to approach leaf texture, and make sure to give these reminders on how texture works in Drawabox a read.

Branches

Moving on to your branches they are coming along 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 lastly let's take a look at your plant constructions, which are coming along quite nicely made. You're generally making use of the construction methods and techniques introduced in this Lesson which helps you create the illusion of tridimensionality in your work, but you are also facing a couple of obstacles which impact the quality of your work. As such here are the issues present in your work that should be addressed, so that you can get the most out of these exercises.

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. Because of this your pages have big empty spaces that could have been better used not by adding more drawings to your page, but instead by limiting them, which 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.

As it stands your constructions are too small and you have also chosen some very complex structures which has limited your ability to make use of the construction methods and techniques introduced to their full extent.

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 these leaf structures with the leaf construction method. 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 in several of your constructions you don't draw through some of your forms, such as leaves or branch like structures, this limits your ability to work through these tridimensional puzzles and limits how much you're getting out of the exercise as not drawing throug 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.

For youf leaf like structures in your plant constructions there are times where because there are so many and they seem individually unimportant you're putting less time into each one and so they do not properly rise off and return to the existing stroke, or you end up zigzagging your marks which is a mistake that goes against the third principle of mark-making from Lesson 1. No mark you draw is unimportant - if you decided it was worth adding, it's worth giving as much time as it needs to be done to the best of your current ability.

Make sure to always construct your structures fully, do not leave them open ended, cap branch-like structures such as steams and cacti off with an ellipse.

Final Thoughts

In general you're applying the concepts taught in this lesson, your constructions are starting to look solid and tridimensional. I'm going to be marking this lesson as complete as I believe you're ready to tackle the challenges present in the next lesson, just don't forget to keep the points I've mentioned here in mind and apply it to your work. Good luck in Lesson 4.