9:15 PM, Wednesday December 8th 2021
I certainly agree that you've shown a good deal of progress over the set, and that should certainly be noted. There are also some issues that I would be amiss not to call out, but they primarily focus around your linework, and how you're actually approaching it. Some issues students have are simply a matter of skill - in which case, they improve with practice. When issues are focused around approach, however, they are generally much more easily approached, because it's a matter of actively choosing to approach the work in a different manner. That can be a bit hard to do at first (since it sometimes requires a shift in how we think), but it is one of those things where mindfulness, effort, and so on can yield more immediate changes.
Now before I get into your insect constructions, your organic forms with contour lines are coming along fairly decently. You're putting a good bit of effort into sticking to the characteristics of simple sausages, and in doing so you're generally successful (with the few having ends of different sizes, or a bit of pinching through the midsection, but your intent is definitely clear and that's mainly what I'm looking for). The contour curves themselves vary - a lot of them do get a little stiff and uneven, which usually comes from a mixture of drawing from your elbow or wrist, as well as hesitation in the execution. Remember that you should be using the ghosting method here, as with every other mark you draw - that is, ensuring that every mark is broken down into the planning, preparation, and finally execution phases so you can focus your time on the first two where you can actually have a greater impact on that accuracy, while ensuring that the execution is still confident and hesitation free.
We can never guarantee that a mistake will not occur, but these drawings are just exercises. Meaning, it's more important that we follow the correct approach/process, even if when used with our current skill, we're off here and there. This is how we improve.
Another point that I did notice was that the configuration of your sausages were almost all the same, except for one on the first page - with both ends pointing away from the viewer. While that's not a problem, I just wanted to drop this diagram here that shows the different ways those sausage forms can be oriented.
Now, onto your insect constructions, the biggest concern comes down to the fact that your linework is really sketchy, and rather than applying the principles of the ghosting method here and executing one mark at a time, each after their own individual planning/preparation/execution, you've put down a ton of marks without nearly enough thought behind each one. As a result, the drawings tend to be quite messy, and there's a lot of contradictory information floating around that can undermine the solidity of each individual form.
So, first and foremost: use the ghosting method for every single mark you draw, and be mindful of how you're using your arm. The majority of your constructional marks, including ellipses, will need to be drawn using your whole arm from the shoulder. It's worth noting that you were doing this quite well in your last lesson's work - if I had to guess, I'd say that somewhere towards the 4 months between this submission and the last, you probably took a break and the importance of using the ghosting method may have slipped your mind. This also suggests to me that you may not be as consistent in practicing past exercises as part of your regular warmup routine, and reviewing the instructions of those exercises periodically. It's through those critical warmups that we maintain the skills we've developed, and continue to sharpen them. We cannot simply leave those exercises behind, because we will forget, especially before those concepts have fully solidified in our minds.
Additionally, remember that the rule about "drawing through your ellipses two full times before lifting your pen" applies specifically and only to ellipses - not to sausages or anything else. Reason being, our arm naturally wants to make ellipses, and so when we draw through those ellipses it engages that natural motion, especially when drawing with the whole arm. With sausage forms, we do not want to create ellipses - we speciifcally want to adhere to those characteristics of simple sausages, and so if we draw back around the shape again, it's actively going to undermine the more intentional sausage shape we desire.
Moving on, another important aspect of your approach that I noticed - you have a tendency to jump back and forth between engaging with the 2D drawing on the page, and dealing with the actual 3D structure that exists in the 3D world. 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. Rules that respect the solidity of our construction.
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.
As shown here on your ant construction, I've highlighted the issue described in the diagram above in red (where you're cutting into your silhouettes). I also marked out some examples of extending out silhouettes/adding flat shapes in blue.
Instead, whenever we want to build upon our construction or change something, we can do so by introducing new 3D forms to the structure, and by establishing how those forms either connect or relate to what's already present in our 3D scene. We can do this either by defining the intersection between them with contour lines (like in lesson 2's form intersections exercise), or by wrapping the silhouette of the new form around the existing structure as shown here.
You can see this in practice in this beetle horn demo, as well as in this ant head demo.
This is all part of accepting that everything we draw is 3D, and therefore needs to be treated as such in order for the viewer to believe in that lie. Note that the scratchy/haphazard markmaking I addressed previously also contributes to this, because of how it results in so many additional lines. Using a single, more purposeful and intentionally planned stroke gives the viewer a single silhouette to follow, rather than a bunch of stray marks that would otherwise undermine the illusion of solidity.
Both of the issues I've called out so far (scratchy markmaking and engaging with your construction in 2D instead of 3D) would benefit from taking a close look at the shrimp and lobster demos from the informal demos page. These are the most recent demonstrations I've done, and so they demonstrate this strict focus on working in 3D best. They also demonstrate the care with which every mark should be executed, one at a time, (although this is also shown in most of the other demos as well - and so make sure that when you're following along with each available demonstration, that you're following those steps exactly rather than mixing them with your own approach for markmaking. Not all the demonstrations are perfect, and some of the older ones (despite having plenty of value to offer) may not as clearly align to the concepts the later ones press upon - either way, following them all as exactly as you can is the best way to squeeze out the value they have to offer.
The last thing I wanted to call out is just to be sure that when you construct your insects' legs, that you follow the sausage method as closely as you can. I can see various deviations from it - those in the demos make sense (since some of them came out prior to me cementing the sausage method as the best approach to use here), but you deviate from it quite a bit in your own constructions as well. Note that the sausage method diagram has specific requirements for you to adhere to - from sticking to the characteristics of simple sausages, putting your contour lines only at the joint to define the intersection between them, and so on.
The key to keep in mind here is that the sausage method is not about capturing the legs precisely as they are - it is about laying in a base structure or armature that captures both the solidity and the gestural flow of a limb in equal measure, where the majority of other techniques lean too far to one side, either looking solid and stiff or gestural but flat. Once in place, we can then build on top of this base structure with more additional forms as shown here, here, in this ant leg, and even here in the context of a dog's leg (because this technique is still to be used throughout the next lesson as well). Just make sure you start out with the sausages, precisely as the steps are laid out in that diagram - don't throw the technique out just because it doesn't immediately look like what you're trying to construct.
Now, I think the best course of action here is to assign some revisions rather than a full redo. The linework thing definitely is causing the biggest impact, and is making it harder to target any other more minor issues that may be present, so we'll have you replicate those shrimp/lobster demos so you can get more familiar with the specific approaches, then do a few additional pages of your own constructions applying those principles.
One last suggestion I can offer is the reminder that every drawing will require a different amount of time from you, based on its complexity. All your responsibility includes is to endeavor to give each drawing, each form you construct, and every mark you draw, as much time as it individually requires. You may only have a certain amount of time to work on it in a given sitting, but it is not how much time you have on hand that determines how long a drawing will take. If a drawing needs more time, you simply spread it out across multiple sittings, and multiple days as needed.
So, you'll find the revisions assigned below. Take your time with each one, and we'll see if there are any additional issues to address when you're done with them.
Next Steps:
Please submit the following:
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1 drawing done following along with the shrimp informal demo
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1 drawing done along with the lobster informal demo
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4 pages of your own insect constructions