9:58 AM, Wednesday March 20th 2024
Yes.
Yes.
Hello tylerrosebaker, 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 making good usage of the depth of the page by experimenting with the rates of foreshortening in your arrows, but your arrows do sometimes look a bit unnatural as it seems to me you become a bit unsure of how their edges should overlap. So don't be afraid of letting your edges overlap and to ensure that you're constructing a solid structure, try to construct your arrow in segments with the ghosting method, in this manner you can gauge whether your lines would look right and overlap the way they should before committing to a mark.
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 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 generally looking smooth which helps communicate their fluidity and sense of energy, but there are still some signs of hesitation present within your marks, so don't forget to always draw from the shoulder, with confidence and swiftly in order to get smooth marks.
You need to make use of edge detail more thoroughly in your work, because you're not always making use of edge detail in your leaves they are left very simple, edge detail is a great tool to further help you communicate the form of your structures and how they move through space. So don't forget that only the last stage of construction, texture, is optional.
In the times where you do make use of edge detail it is quite well made, you're not attempting to capture more than one piece of edge detail at a time, and you're often approaching it additively - that is, constructing it on top of your preexisting structure, as well as putting it down with the same general line thickness as the rest of your construction, all of these are good things that help you construct solid and tight structures that still feel fluid and energetic.
Branches
Moving on to your branches you're not sticking to the instructions for this exercise as closely as you should, you're not fully following the characteristics for simple branches: simple cylinders with no foreshortening, and some of your structures are left flattened as a result, when working on this exercise make sure that you have a solid grasp of the basic characteristics for branches before attempting structures that are a bit more complex.
While it's also 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 don't forget 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, but there are a couple of moments where you're drawing through them too many times which causes your ellipses to look a bit too loose, remember to aim to 2-3 passes at most to prevent this. 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, but don't forget the rules for how the degrees work as your structure shifts so that you don't accidentally flatten them out.
Plant Construction Section
And lastly let's take a look at your plant constructions, which are coming along nicely. 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 focusing 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 skipping construction steps and drawing branches as single marks and sometimes leaves as outlines, or trying to draw the outlines of branches which causes them to have inconsistent size and look stiff and flat. Remember that these are not guidelines or suggestions - they are rules.
On top of that, make sure to always go through as much of the lesson material as possible, the informal demos page often has really valuable and sometimes the most up to date information on construction methods and techniques, your constructions with forked branches are less solid and specific than they could be because you're not using the forked branches and knots method for approaching this type of structure.
Avoid adding notes to your work, especially when there's a lot of them, it will distract you from your work and can shift your attention to something that actually isn't the main issue. Instead it's best to keep these notes in a separate page or add it to your work only after you've recieved your feedback and can more properly evaluate your work and what needs to be focused on.
I can notice in your work some places such as your leaves in here where you've tried to redraw your marks, going over them more than once. This is a mistake, remember that part of the reason we draw in ink is so that we can build confidence in our marks and a respect for them, we must carefully plan out each and every mark we want to make. If our planning happens to not have been as thorough as we expected, or we had a bit of a slip up when executing the stroke we must simply accept it and move on.
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 confuse local areas of color with texture and your actual shadow shapes are very timid and small, they're not 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
I'm going to be marking this submission as complete, as 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, you just need to be more thorough when applying these concepts to your work in order to get the most out of this lesson. Good luck in Lesson 4.
Next Steps:
Don't forget to add these exercises to your list of warm ups.
Move on to Lesson 4.
Hello Kendal53, thank you for getting back to me with your revisions.
While your leaf structures in here are much more fluid and have a greater range of ways that they move through 3d space ( which is great ) make sure not to neglect edge detail, it's still an important step of construction that greatly helps you further communicate how your structures sit and move through space.
For your branches you are actually deviating from the instructions for this exercise more than your original page, because you're not following the instructions for how to draw the edges as shown in the exercise instructions, while it's good to see that you're drawing your edges in segments you only take them up to the next ellipse point, you don't extend them fully to the halfway point between ellipses and you still leave ellipses too closely together, which removes the healthy overlaps between marks we seek to achieve in this exercise.
So don't forget 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.
Your plant constructions are generally looking more solid and they follow the instructions for the exercises much more closely.
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.
In general I believe you have shown noticeable improvement and that you've shown that you're ready to tackle the construction challenges present in the following lesson, as such I'm going to be marking this submission as complete.
Next Steps:
Don't forget to add these exercises to your list of warm ups.
Move on to Lesson 4.
Hello EQAnthem, 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 foreshorting 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.
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.
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.
Leaves
The linework for your leaves is looking smooth which helps communicate their fluidity and sense of energy, but something 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.
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 skipped construction steps and tried to capture the complex form of the structures right away, instead of constructing each individual arm with the leaf construction method and only then connecting them together. Even though leaves are single entities they can still made be made up of several parts, and constructing them in this manner will ensure that you're creating tighter and more specific looking constructions.
When it comes to your addition of edge detail 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, overshoots, and zigzagging marks which is a mistake that goes against the third principle of mark making from Lesson 1. 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.
Moving on to your addition of texture it needs work, as it generally leans a bit too heavily towards the side of explicit texture because you are often outlining texture and using too many big areas of black. 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 which allows you to create some solid but still organic looking structures.
For ellipses it's good to see that you're making an attempt to always draw through them twice, but in general there are still a lot of times where you're not quite hitting the mark, this may be because you're drawing your ellipses quite a tad too small, which makes it harder to ghost through them, so don't forget to draw bigger.
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 nicely. 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're also focusing 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 things that if kept in mind will help you take your work to the next level.
I think I made a mistake on the first 4 construction drawings. Construction #3 (Cactus) contains the spikes, which I think is a texture. I also think petals of the #1 (Daffodil) and #2 (White Rose) would count as detail and the tendril like appendages of #4 (Cape Sundew) would count as detail.
There's a difference between texture, which is the detail that should only be added to the last half of your constructions and further construction steps. Texture in the context of this course is an extension of the concepts of construction. In a lot of ways they're the same concept, construction focuses on the big and primitive forms that make up different objects and texture simply focuses on conveying to the viewer the small forms that run along the surface an object, if it's thick and rugged, or if it's smooth and sharp, essentially texture is a form of visually communicating to the viewer what it would feel like to run their hands across that object's surface.
Spikes, edge detail, added petal structures and entire appendages communicate structural information about your construction and so they should be added, textural information is the only optional step of construction.
This leads to my next point is the fact that you're not always making use of edge detail in your pages. Despite the name edge detail this is actually a bit of a misnomer, edge detail is another step of construction because it communicates how your structure sits in 3d space, by not adding your leaf structures are 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.
You're not drawing through the majority of your ellipses in your plant constructions which is a mistake that stiffens them, don't forget that in this course you must draw through every ellipse you make.
For your daffodil flower construction the way you're approaching it is a great first step towards starting to think of how to break down different structures since you make use of cylinder to communicate the shape of this flower, however it does end up accidentally stiffening the structure by not approaching it with the leaf construction method which naturally adds a sense of flow and energy to your work.
Despite the odd conical shape of this flower, it's petals are still very leaf-like in nature and should be approached with the leaf construction method. We can improve it by using a slightly tapered cylinder in order to construct the main body of the leaf shape, then afterwards make use of the leaf construction method, build it on top of the cylinder in order to capture the flow of the different sections of the petal structures and lastly connect them together, making use of edge detail in order to finish the complex structure. I actually put together a quick demonstration of how this would look like for a different student once and I believe you will find it helpful.
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 on your cocoa pods construction where you have cut into your forms or tried to extend off of them, which has flattened the structure.
You can see 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.
And lastly let's take a look at your addition of texture to these structures, which needs some work as there are many large areas of filled in black to your work, which goes against the idea of drawing texture implicitly and can obscure the underlying construction, making your work harder to evaluate, there are also no focal points of detail which leave 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
I'm going to be marking this submission as complete, as 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, you just need to be more thorough to applying these concepts to your work in order to get the most out of this lesson. Good luck in Lesson 4.
Next Steps:
Don't forget to add these exercises to your list of warm ups.
Move on to Lesson 4.
Hello motheronion, I'm ThatOneMushroomGuy and I'll be the TA handling your critique today.
Arrows
First things first don't forget to pay close attention to the homework page amounts established in the homework section of this lesson, you've submitted two pages of arrows when only one was requested.
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 foreshorting 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 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 the closer it gets to the viewer, which goes against the rules of perspective.
In general you've done well in this exercise, just don't forget to keep the points mentioned in mind and 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, 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 fluidity present in your arrows translates quite nicely into these new structures, you don't only try to capture how leaves sit statically within space, but also how they move across the world 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.
This leaf structure is looser than it could be, because you did establish what space your structure will take up physically and what boundaries will tie the different parts of the structure together, 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.
Moving on to your addition of edge detail it is starting to move in the right direction as you don't generally attempt to capture more than one piece of edge 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, and 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.
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 which allows you to create some solid but still organic looking structures.
There are a lot of visible tails present in these branch structures, but this is a very common mistake, as you continue to tackle this exercise during your warm ups your accuracy will naturally improve.
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 unfortunately you haven't followed the specifications for what your pages should consist of and as such you didn't get as much out of this lesson as you could have otherwise. When going through this course don't forget to pay close attention to what is being requested of you in the homework section of the lesson, as is stated here if you wish to include your attempts at the demos in your work it should make up no more than less than half of your total homework pages, so in this case since the amount requested is 8 and that would be a maximun of 3 pages of your own attempts at the demos, and 5 pages need to be your own original constructions.
However you just kept drawing the the same demos over and over again, which not only goes against what was required but is also considered grinding, which is heavily discouraged.
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, you will never be able to ride a bike on your own because you haven't actually tried it.
There are at most 2 original plant constructions that I could identify, but it's not enough for you to properly apply the skills you've learned over the previous exercises, and for one of these constructions you skipped construction steps by not constructing these branch structures with the correct branch construction method, instead you simply draw them as lines which does not communicate any sense of form or volume.
Another 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 when drawing.
Outside of some of your attempts at the hisbiscus demo, your orange construction and your attempts at the pitcher plant demo you're not really 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.
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.
Final Thoughts
Because you only tackled the demos you have not shown whether you fully understand the purpose of these exercises or if you have simply done a good job at following the demos - which is not a bad thing, but it is simply the first step towards understand the methods and techniques introduced in this lesson and it's important that you tackle your own original constructions in order to fully develop your spatial reasoning abilities.
As such I'm going to be asking you for some revisions, please reply once you're finished with:
1 page, half of leaves, half of branches.
4 plant construction pages, they must all be original constructions from photo reference that you chose.
Next Steps:
1 page, half of leaves, half of branches.
4 plant construction pages, they must all be original constructions from photo reference that you chose.
Hello Bluefrog23, thank you for getting back to me with your work.
Starting with your leaves they are looking quite fluid and energetic, but don't remember that when making use of edge detail you should prioritize building it on top of the structure that you've already drawn, rather than cutting back inside of it.
Your branches are looking good but there are still too many ellipses close together which causes a lot of visible tails to appear in your branches. Don't forget to limit the amount of ellipses in your branches, the marks you do for your edge segments must be long enough for you to be able to comfortably execute them from the shoulder.
When it comes to line confidence I can see that you're still struggling and going over your marks more than once, such as in the edge of this leaf, here and here. Your lines already look quite smooth, this is not a matter of becoming more confident as in how you literally put the marks on the page, but rather a matter of simply putting down a line and leaving it as it is, even if you feel you can "fix it" or "make it better" or that you could have made it better so it's not a problem if you go over the mark again - it is, and you should not go over the mark. If it turns out crooked, or not quite at the right angle you must simply accept it and put more effort into ghosting and planning your line next time, mistakes will inevitably be made, but as long as you keep striving to be better you will matirally improve, and that is how you develop more confidence in your work.
Overall your plant constructions are looking much more solid and tightly constructed, as such I'm going to be marking this submission as complete, good luck in Lesson 4.
Next Steps:
Don't forget to add these exercises to your list of warm ups.
Move on to Lesson 4.
Hello Kingdaisies, 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 foreshorting 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. 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 you can keep getting the most out of this exercise is actually to 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, 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.
Your addition of edge detail is moving in the right direction, you're not attempting to capture more than one piece of edge detail at a time, and you're often approaching it additively - that is, constructing it on top of your preexisting structure, as well as putting it down with the same general line thickness as the rest of your construction, but you need to apply it more thoroughly to your work, since at points you're adding it to one side of your structure and not the other one, but edge detail is generally consistent since leaves are symmetrical structures and so it should be thoroughly added to your work.
Moving on to your addition of texture it is looking a little bit too explicit since you have several big areas of black which obscure your construction and don't properly communicate texture.
There's a lot going on in the surface of a leaf 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 which allows you to create some 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 nicely. 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 focusing 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 branches with the correct instructions. They're not guidelines or suggestions - they are rules.
Speaking of skipping construction steps in this construction you're not always constructing the petal structures here with the lwaf construction method, which leaves them feeling a bit too stiff at points. There are two ways we can generally approach this type of flower structure - either by drawing different sections of this structure with the leaf construction method in it's entirety and only afterwards connecting the different leaves together in order to build the complex shape, or by using a slightly tapered cylinder in order to construct the main body of the leaf shape, then afterwards make use of the leaf construction method, build it on top of the cylinder in order to capture the flow of the different sections of the leaf structure, and lastly connect them together, making use of edge detail in order to finish the complex structure.
I actually put together a quick demonstration of how this would look like in the context of a daffodil flower for a different student once, and I believe you will find it useful.
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 lastly let's take a look at your addition of texture to these structures, which needs some work as there are many large areas of filled in black to your work, which goes against the idea of drawing texture implicitly and can obscure the underlying construction, making your work harder to evaluate.
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
I'm going to be marking this submission as complete, as 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. Good luck in Lesson 4.
Next Steps:
Don't forget to add this exercises to your list of warm ups.
Move on to Lesson 4.
Hello WereVrock, 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 foreshorting 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, it's also good to see that you're making use of added line weight on top of the overlaps in order to reinforce their depth, just don't forget that this lineweight must be subtle and integrate seamlessly into the underlying marks.
You've done a good job on this exercise, what I'd like to tell you so you can keep getting the most out of this exercise is actually to 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 although they do look a bit unnatural at points due to the way that they bend or their size becomes inconsistent, 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.
Your attempts at leaf texture are leaning a bit too much towards the implicit side as you outline texture in one side of your structure and leave the other completely blank. 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 decently made as you're following the instructions for the exercise, you're generally drawing your edges in segments which allows you to maintain higher control over your marks - however it does seem that in a couple of places you don't always extend your marks as far as you should have which partially removes the healthy overlaps we seek to achieve between lines in this exercise.
So if this is the case just don't forget 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.
Due to your ellipses being way too small for the most part you're not always drawing through them twice which is a mistake that causes them to be stiffer than they should be. When it comes to your addition of the ellipse degree shift to your branches it can still be improved, as it stands your degrees are too consistent for the most part, they 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.
Your potato plant is looking good but it seems to simply be way too small, remember that your construction should take up as much spaces as it needs within the confines of your page.
For your venus fly trap construction you are moving in the right direction, but there is a minor change 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.
Make sure that you're always drawing through your forms and constructing them fully, I've noticed that in some of your constructions such as in here you haven't drawn through some of your forms, 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 you're forced to rely 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 each form comes from and what it attaches to.
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, while this is something that you generally respect for this corpse flower construction you haven't constructed the petal like structures at the bottom part of the structure, which has stiffened the construction. Since these structures are still leaf like in nature they must be constructed with the leaf construction method.
In general 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, but extending off of preexisting forms faces a similar problem.
You can find here a demonstration that I've put together for different student once on how to approach flower structures that have a more cylindrical shape in the context of a daffodil, and I believe you will find it useful.
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. It's good to see that you're also attempting to construct the outer rim that's present in most types of plant pots.
Final Thoughts
I'm going to be marking this submission as complete, as 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, you just need to be more thorough to applying these concepts to your work in order to get the most out of this lesson. Good luck in Lesson 4.
Next Steps:
Don't forget to add these exercises to your list of warm ups.
Move on to Lesson 4.
Hello NeedAccountability, I'm sorry for taking a while to get back to you, I will do my best to answer your questions.
How do I determine where the light source is coming from?
In order to identify where the lightsource is you must first identify the type of shadow present in your Reference. Find a specific form that is present in your reference, a scale, a bump, any kind of small form present in the surface of your structure that casts a shadow, if the form is on top of your structure then your shadow will likely be cast on the other side, so your lightsource will be on the opposite side of the shadows.
But if your texture is made up of holes or cracks present on top of the surface then the light will actually hit the walls and the floor on the other side, and instead you should focus on the walls and floor, what their size is and the angle of the light, as this will dictate the shadow that is cast onto the other side of the crack.
I'd generally recommend that before you even start to add texture to your work that you hover your hand above your reference and try to "trace back" to where the lightsource is until you find it's general direction, then it's a matter of keeping this knowledge in mind when you add shadows to your work, so that all of them respect the lightsource and don't contradict it.
Remember the last column in the texture analysis exercise from Lesson 2? We're simply following the same principles introduced there and applying it to a tridimensional structure, rather than a flat surface.
Because we're working with a tridimensional structure this also means we must be doubly aware of the angle at which the light hits the form, as shown in this diagram.
How far away a form is from the light source will change the angle of the light rays that hit the object, for example light rays that hit the object at a shallower angle the farther away it is will result in the shadow itself being projected farther. We can use this to our advantage and use it to create focal points of detail, with certain areas being more prominently detailed, and others having less contrast - and as such they will draw less attention from the viewer.
The reason for this question is if I look at a plant reference where say sunlight or light is hitting it full on, how do I begin approaching drawing cast shadows when there are literally no shadows?
There is likely always some degree of shadows going to be present in your work unless your photo is being fully blasted straight on with several light sources that wash out all of the shadows in your reference picture, but this is a very specific and unlikely scenario, most of the pictures you'll find will likely contain some amount of shadows.
In general in order to get the most out of this exercise and further your understanding of how texture works you should look for good photos with a high definition and a clear lightsource and shadows, natural sunlight is highly recommended. Sometimes photos will have more than one lightsource which can create more shadows, eliminate them, or soften them out, so when looking for references try to choose photos with a clear, single lightsource.
2) This is sort of tied to the first question, but I have an easier time conceptualizing cast shadows when the surfaces are super spiky and have protrusions (reason being that they cast very obvious shadows). But when surfaces are a bit smoother (like the surface of a leaf) where there are very slight grooves and bumps, how do you determine where the shadow is cast?
This is why having a picture with a high quality is tantamount to capturing texture, photos of lower quality will flatten, wash out, and simplify the small textures present in the surfaces of forms too much, and make it difficult for you to analyze and understand them.
For example leaves are incredibly varied structures and a lot of them aren't smooth, they actually have several small veins along their surface, search for "leaf texture" on search engines such as Pinterest and you'll see that they actually have a lot of grooves and veins running along them, the shadows these small structures cast then convey the type of texture these objects posses, it is the same concept as any other type of texture, just on a smaller and thus less noticeable scale.
I recommend doing the 25 textures challenge if you wish to learn more about texture, there's nothing better than hands on practice, and you will also have the opportunity to recieve more feedback on your work that is specific to texture. Just keep in mind that this challenge is supposed to be completed in tandem with other lessons, and not finished in one go, this will help you develop your skills much more than cramming it all at once.
Hello Bluefrog23, I'm ThatOneMushroomGuy and I'll be the TA handling your critique today.
For your question this is something that is intentionally vague in order to leave it up to the student's discretion. Due to the way warm ups work (10-15 minutes of 2-3 exercises chosen at random) there's not a lot of time to do something more involved that might take longer. So it's up to you, you can do more plant constructions on your own once your submission is marked as complete if you'd like, or work on a single construction for your warm ups over the course of several sittings.
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 foreshorting 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 also 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, 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 edge detail is looking quite well made, you're not attempting to capture more than one piece of edge detail at a time, and you're often approaching it additively - that is, constructing it on top of your preexisting structure, but your edge detail marks are a bit thicker than your original lines, if this was intentional, just remember to keep the line thickness between your different stages of construction roughly consistent.
Moving on to your application of texture it's starting to move in the right direction as you're following the instructions for texture in these structures, however you can definitely push your application of it further, as you've got several small and timid marks, and several big spaces of white.
There's a lot more we can do to accurately communicate leaf texture as there's much more going on than just a few stray marks implying veins, 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 which allows you to create some 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 lastly let's take a look at your plant constructions, where you are starting to understand the purpose for these exercises and the methods and techniques introduced, however you are facing quite a few difficulties as you tackle these constructions which prevents you from getting the most out of this lesson. So here are some of the issues you should address the next time you tackle these exercises.
The first and most important part of your work that needs to be addressed right away is your linework. As explained back in Lesson 1 one of the overarching goals from this course is to help train you to be more confident and purposeful in your marks. This means executing every line in a single, intentional stroke, in order to create clean constructions that are more intentional and more thoroughly planned out. Having marks that are not confident and were redrawn will by extent make your constructions look unclear and messy.
Aways 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, for the most part you deviate from the instructions for the exercises by not constructing leaf structures with the method or by not constructing them in their entirety, such as in this rose construction, this bellflower construction and these daffodil flowers.
Deviating from the construction methods has caused both of these structures to end up stiffer and flatter than they should be, since the leaf construction method naturally adds a sense of flow and energy to these structures. Despite the odd conical shape of these flowers, it's petals are still very leaf-like in nature and should be approached with the leaf construction method.
There are two ways we can generally approach it - either by drawing different sections of this structure with the leaf construction method in it's entirety and only afterwards connecting the different leaves together in order to build the complex shape, or by using a slightly tapered cylinder in order to construct the main body of the leaf shape, then afterwards make use of the leaf construction method, build it on top of the cylinder in order to capture the flow of the different sections of the leaf structure, and lastly connect them together, making use of edge detail in order to finish the complex structure.
I actually put together a quick demonstration of how this would look like in the context of a daffodil flower for a different student once, and I believe you will find it useful.
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.
For your venus fly trap construction you are moving in the right direction, but there is a minor change 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.
Make sure that you're always drawing through your forms and constructing them fully, I've noticed that in some of your constructions you haven't drawn through some of your forms, the biggest example is your rose construction, 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 you're forced to rely 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 each form comes from and what it attaches to.
I would also strongly recommend not drawing earlier phases of construction with a fainter line and later ones with a thicker stroke, as this is going to encourage you to approach construction as though you're redrawing everything at every step. Instead, we're simply 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.
Final Thoughts
It seems to me that you haven't fully grasped why these techniques and methods should be applied to your work, and why they are important, which causes the quality of your work and the usage of these methods to be very inconsistent in your pages.
It's important that you understand how to make use of these techniques to the best of your ability in order to construct a structure that feels tridimensional. As such I'm going to be asking you for some revisions so that you can revisit these exercises before delving into more complex subjects. Take your time to look at the relevant lesson material mentioned here, then please reply once you're finished with:
1 page, half of leaves, half of branches.
4 plant construction pages.
Next Steps:
1 page, half of leaves, half of branches.
4 plant construction pages.
Like the Staedtlers, these also come in a set of multiple weights - the ones we use are F. One useful thing in these sets however (if you can't find the pens individually) is that some of the sets come with a brush pen (the B size). These can be helpful in filling out big black areas.
Still, I'd recommend buying these in person if you can, at a proper art supply store. They'll generally let you buy them individually, and also test them out beforehand to weed out any duds.
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