Hey there I'll be handling your lesson 2 critique.

As far as scanners go, every scanner is a bit different definitely use photo mode over drawing mode to try and reduce blowout from the scanner trying to make your page as white as possible.

You're making progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson, below I'll be listing some things I notice that will hopefully help you achieve better results in your future attempts.

• When it comes to your arrows there are a few things I notice. You have some extra lines and didn't draw endings for some of your arrows, I'm not sure if the extra lines were corrections (which you shouldn't be attempting to draw) or you were perhaps a bit hasty in your attempts, but your work could be tidier. You have some line wobbling occurring which shows that you aren't drawing these as confidently as you could be, and your foreshortening could use some work. Your arrows don't flow smoothly so rather than appearing like you're utilizing foreshortening it appears that your arrows are stretching/pinching in places. By utilizing foreshortening in the arrow itself as well as the space between curves of the arrow we can really sell the illusion of an arrow moving through 3D space so it's definitely a useful skill to have, for more information on the idea you can read here.

• Your organic forms with contours are getting a bit too complex, remember that our goal here is a simple sausage with both ends being roughly the same size and to avoid any pinching, bloating, or stretching along the form as described here. While it appears like you're attempting to shift the degree of your contours you can defintely push some of them further. The degree of a contour line basically represents the orientation of that cross-section in space, relative to the viewer, and as we slide along the sausage form, the cross section is either going to open up (allowing us to see more of it) or turn away from the viewer (allowing us to see less), as shown here. You're adding corrections here which again I stress isn't something you shouldn't be doing, part of the reason we use fineliner is so we're forced to deal with our mistakes and to learn from them by seeing how they effect everything else. Plan your mark with the ghosting method, draw it with confidence, as long as you give it your best attempt you will grow from it, don't make your work look worse by making a mess.

• In the texture exercises you're focusing largely on outlines and negative space rather than cast shadows. This makes it difficult to create gradients which when utilized properly are useful when we want to create focal points in more complicated pieces, without focal points things tend to become visually overwhelming and lose their solidity, for more information on the importance of focusing on cast shadows read here. I do get the impression that you were working form memoy in spots here as well and perhaps being a bit hasty, remember that most of your time should actually be observing your reference. Lastly I'd like you take a look at this image, it shows how when even drawing thin line like textures it's best to outline and fill the shadow still, by doing so we can create a much more dynamic looking texture.

• If you feel like you don't fully grasp form intersections just yet don't worry, right now this exercise is just meant to get students to start thinking about how their forms relate to one another in 3D space, and how to define those relationships on the page, we'll be going over them more in the upcoming lessons. I do wish you attempted to draw more intersections themselves, while they are difficult we don't expect you to nail them at this point it's still good to push yourself to start thinking how these forms would interact.

Also not to beat this point into the ground but you yourself say in your album: "Didn't do the form intersections for this one since I wanted to move onto the organic forms (real reason was my brain imploded trying to do these)" This is probably a sign that you should take a break, not that you need to skip steps or go faster.

• Lastly in the organic intersections exercise, you'll be benefit from simplifying your forms as they lose their solidity and appear a bit flat at times. Your shadows are also something you want to take the time to consider, you tend to draw just circles of shadow on the ground that don't really make much sense at all, the forms get wider or overhang which would also be a factor in these shadows.

I apologize if I have come off as a bit harsh in this critique but know that it's because I want you to succeed and I do believe you're capable of better than this. You're taking steps in the right direction with a lot of these exercises but it's things like lack of patience that will hold you back from building a proper understanding of the concepts trying to be taught here. At the end of the day nothing wastes time like trying to save time, art like any skill takes a lot of mileage and time to develop there's nothing wrong with taking a break when you feel like fatigued and coming back the next day, in reality you'll probably absorb the concepts better this way and ultimately grow faster.

With all of that said, I don't believe you're ready to move on just yet.

I'd like you to re-read and re-complete:

• 2 pages of organic forms with contours.

• 1 page of organic intersections.

Remember to take your time, plan out your lines and execute them confidently. When you're done add them to an album and reply to this critique, I'll go over them and either move you to the next lesson or address any further mistakes and help point you to the next step.

I look forward to seeing your work, I know you can do this.