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11:16 PM, Friday July 28th 2023
Hello spendthriftmonk, 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 good feeling of fluidity in your arrows as they move through the world.
Your hatching is well applied as you're keeping it neat and tidy, and it's also good to see that you're making use of additional lineweight on top of the overlaps in order to reinforce their depth.
Speaking of depth, you're making good use of the depth of your page by exploring the different rates of foreshortening of your arrows, although in a couple of places your edges don't overlap when they should such as in here and in here, you also have some minor size consistency problems in your arrows.
To mitigate these issues you can draw your arrow in segments, by drawing the first line in one stroke, but dividing the next ones in segments with the ghosting method, this way you can make sure your edges overlap, as well as ensure that the size of your arrows is consistent with the perspective of the scene, although of course the goal is to eventually be able to draw those marks in as little lines as possible.
Leaves
Onto your page of leaves you're generally following the instructions for the exercise, although there are some things which can be changed, something to note is that a lot of your leaf structures don't fold, while this isn't necessarily a mistake it's something that seems to continue in your plant constructions to the detriment of their solidity. That's something to keep an eye on whenever you tackle this exercise again, as leaves are organic subjects - they're affected by all sorts of forces, from the wind to gravity and their own weight pulling them down, as such you'll improve much more by also thinking about the way these objects look when they move through the world, and not just how they sit statically in it.
Onto your usage of edge detail it's looking really good for the most part as you're usually working on this edge detail additively and making sure not to try to capture more than one piece of detail at a time.
You do have this one instance where the edge detail feels like attempt to alter the silhouette of the leaf, instead of building on top of it but this is most likely because you've skipped some construction steps by not first establishing the general shape of the leaf as shown here and then building the individual arms inside this boundary, thus making sure that all of the pieces of the leaf are kept consistent with one another.
Your application of texture leans towards the explicit side, I believe you'll find these notes useful when adding texture to your leaves and here are some useful reminders on texture in general.
Branches
Onto your branches they're looking fairly decent, it's good to see that you're following the instructions for how your edges are to be laid out which allows you to create a much smoother transition between marks.
Although there are still visible tails present in your branches, but this is completely normal and not a big deal, but you can ensure that they'll happen less by placing your ellipses farther apart from one another so that there's a good length of runway between them and they can overlap more seamlessly.
For your ellipses there are many gaps in them all across the page, this happens because you're lifting your pen too soon, so remember to keep your pen on the paper as you draw through your ellipses at least two times. It's also good that you seem aware of the ellipse degree shift, but you can still push this concept a bit further as some of your ellipses degrees don't have any - or as much - variation as they should as explained here. Remember that as a cylindrical form shifts towards or away from the viewer, the degree of the ellipses within that structure will also shift.
Plant Construction Section
And finally Iet's take a look at your plant constructions. Overall you're moving in the right direction as you're starting to use the methods and techniques introduced in the lesson, you're starting to understand the concepts this lesson seeks to teach, but you're facing a couple of issues as you approach these exercises and not always sticking to the instructions as closely as you should have which is hurting how much you're getting out of these exercises. Here are some of the problems you face in your work, as well as how to address them in order to start getting the most put of these lessons.
Something which severely impacts the quality of your work is the fact that you're pre-planning the amount of constructions you wish to fit on a given page before actually committing to any of them. This is admirable, as it's clear you want to maximize the amount of practice you get per page but unfortunately this actually hurts how much you get out of each indivirual construction because due to their size you're forced to spend less time on each drawing, and it limits your ability to make use of the methods and techniques introduced in the lesson to their full extent, examples include:
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This construction where the smaller branch structures are drawn as straight lines which don't communicate any sense of volume or form, and they also do not help you understand how those pieces properly connect to the rest of structure.
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In these carrots you did not make use of the leaf construction method correctly, which leaves these leaf structures feeling stiff and awkward as their ends have sharp, unnatural angles, instead of the fluid curves present in leaves and that are stressed in the second state step of the instructions.
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It's not uncommon for your ellipses to be severely misaligned to your minor axis, this is a mistake and you must put more time into ghosting your ellipses before committing to them.
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These flowers are incredibly small and thus stop you from making full use of the leaf construction method as well as stop you from making full use of your shoulder when drawing.
So make sure to start drawing bigger. As not only will that help you stick to the instructions more clearly, it will also help you work through the spatial reasoning challenges that arise as we tackle these constructions much more easily.
In this structure you haven't drawn the inner stem around a minor axis, even though it's structured similary to the branch construction method, and the overall form of the flower's body, while cylindrical is still very leaf-like in nature and thus approaching it with a mix of the leaf construction method and a tapered cylinder is one of the best ways to ensure you get both the structural integrity of a cylinder as well as the fluidity of leaf structures.
You can see this in action here in the context of a daffodil, which is similarly structured.
There are moments such as in here where you didn't fully construct certain forms present in the structure which flattens the rest of your construction.
Final Thoughts
In general the problems you're facing come from not following the instructions as closely as possible, which affects how much you're getting out of these exercises. It's important that you understand the methods and techniques introduced in this lesson by being able to properly apply them to your work before you tackle more complex pieces in the following lessons, please revisit the relevant lesson and material and reply once you're done with:
1 page, half of leaves, half of branches.
3 plant construction pages.
Next Steps:
1 page, half of leaves, half of branches.
3 plant construction pages.
8:55 AM, Tuesday August 22nd 2023
Alright, I've done what was asked, and also just decided to include a few extra leaf drawings to showcase more folds. I've been practicing those outside of these assignments and do feel like I'm grasping them a little better now. I hope this will satisfy. Drawing larger is something I'm still trying to train my brain to remember so just take into account I am attempting to be mindful of that even if it's a difficult habit to break.
However, I must confess that I don't find drawabox's approach to texture thus far to be as helpful as the rest of the lessons. It's the thing that the website itself states is not a main focus of the course but even still I have been trying my best, and despite reading over the notes NUMEROUS times, the explainations given just don't click with my brain. I've tried applying them in my own practice but it just doesn't work. I cannot look at a reference photo and differentiate between surface texture and 'shadow shapes' or even really grasp how to convey the difference between implicit and explicit texture. Honestly it's caused me an immense amount of stress and I considered dropping the drawabox lessons altogether because of it. All I can say is I hope I won't be held back from continuing on based on that because I really just don't feel like the information thus far on the topic is enough to help me get any greater sense on how to tackle this aspect of drawing.
9:31 AM, Wednesday August 23rd 2023
Hello SpendthriftMonk, thank you for getting back to me with your revisions.
Firstly make sure to uphold your responsabilities as a student, as stated in Lesson 0 only complete the amount of work assigned, as it was assigned, please don't submit more pages for your revisions than the ones which were requested, that can fall into grinding and it's not necessary.
Drawabox does not expect you to produce perfect, or even good work, it simply expects you to give yourself the time necessary to understand the lesson material and to apply it to the best of your current ability, if you missed something, or misunderstood something, that will be called out by the TA or Uncomfortable himself when your work is reviewed, and if extra pages are needed they will be requested. Once you're finished with a lesson, you'll still practice these exercises during your warm ups, so there's no need to attempt to perfect them right now.
However, I must confess that I don't find drawabox's approach to texture thus far to be as helpful as the rest of the lessons. [...] All I can say is I hope I won't be held back from continuing on based on that because I really just don't feel like the information thus far on the topic is enough to help me get any greater sense on how to tackle this aspect of drawing.
As you yourself, and the website have stated Texture is, outside of specific exercises, entirely optional, as it's not the main focus of the course. It's simply a tool employed to further solidify the concept of construction and to instill the importance of closely analyzing our reference and understanding it, not just looking at it, and trying to copy it mindlessly. How does your structure work? Texture, sometimes even more so than construction, forces you to consider how your structure works and how it exists in the space it occupies, as well as how different elements interact with the structure you're trying to capture.
Texture in the context of this course is simply an extension of the concepts of construction - in essence, they're the same concept, just at different scales, with construction focusing on the primitive forms that make up different objects and texture focusing on communicating the small forms that run along the surface of said subject. While construction tells the viewer what it'd feel like to manipulate that object with their hands, texture visually communicates what it would feel like to run their hands across the surface of that object.
Neither construction nor texture have anything to do with aesthetics or making a drawing visually interesting, what we draw here is based on what's physically present in our reference. As mentioned here when making use of texture, we should focus on how each individual form present on the surface of an object casts a shadow onto that same surface, and how that shadow would then be distorted by the surface it's being cast on. This means that the shape of this shadow is incredibly important as it defines the relationships between the form casting it and the surface it's being cast on, as such you should design your shadow shape in a way that feels dynamic, as shown here.
This approach is of course much harder than basing our understanding of texture on other methods that may seem more intuitive, but in the long run this method of texture is the one that enforces the ideals of spatial reasoning taught in this course the best. By following them, you'll find yourself asking how to convey texture in the most efficient way possible, with less lines and ink, focusing more on the implicit mark-making techniques introduced in Lesson 2.
However don't forget that Drawabox doesn't expect you to understand textures right away either, as it can be incredibly complex and a difficult concept to grasp, as such you should also be mindful of your own expectations, it will be pretty frustrating at the start and you'll feel like you don't know what you're doing, but if you would like to expand your knowledge of texture as it's explained in Drawabox, the 25 textures challenge provides a great way to further explore texture and get feedback on it. But of course, if it has caused you so much stress as to consider dropping the course, remember that it's completely optional, and you will still walk away with a lot of knowledge.
Onto your leaves it's great that you're getting out of your comfort zone and exploring with the different ways leaves move through space. They feel much more fluid and energetic due to this. Your branches are also looking good although you may attempt to limit the amount of ellipses in your work, in order to allow for a greater length of runway between marks, and create a smoother transition between edge segments.
Your plant constructions are also looking really well done, although for [this construction]() you drew some of the stems as two lines again, as mentioned in my original critique this isn't helpful as it doesn't allow you to construct your structure in 3d space, it's a 2d representation of a 3d structure and since it exists in the same space as other fully constructed structures it ends up flattening the structure slightly.
There are also some spots where you didn't draw through your forms, more specific your leaf structures in here. Do not forget to draw through all of your forms, even if it's partially obstructed by other forms, in order to thoroughly understand how each part of your structure exists in 3d space.
In general I believe you have addressed most of my points and the biggest issues which were holding your work back, 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.
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Staedtler Pigment Liners
These are what I use when doing these exercises. They usually run somewhere in the middle of the price/quality range, and are often sold in sets of different line weights - remember that for the Drawabox lessons, we only really use the 0.5s, so try and find sets that sell only one size.
Alternatively, if at all possible, going to an art supply store and buying the pens in person is often better because they'll generally sell them individually and allow you to test them out before you buy (to weed out any duds).