Lesson 3: Applying Construction to Plants
1:42 PM, Thursday July 21st 2022
Lesson 3:- homework completed, hopeful to get a critique and thank you.
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1:09 AM, Sunday July 24th 2022
Hi Kevin! I'll be reviewing your homework. Let's see:
Organic Arrows:
Your arrows look great, confident and flexible. I would've liked to see more compression on the space as they move away and viceversa, the longer arrow on the lower left for example, has a lot of curls, but since it has the same space between the edges as it moves away, it doesn't really sell the illusion that it is actually traveling.
Leaves:
They look good, but they could've been more flexible, turning over themselves, etc. As they are, they're a little too static. Another thing is the edges, on all of them one edge goes inside the leaf construction. This will be read as the leaf turning into itself, and it will be necessary at times, but it would've been cool to see the edges constructed on the other side.
Branches:
Your ellipses look well aligned for the most part, and while there are some "tails" visible, the actual lines on the branches are pretty good. You were maybe too conservative when it comes to changing the degree of the ellipses on the branches: the change is visible just on a couple of them. Remember that these ellipses tell us how the branch is turning in 3D space, so you have to be mindful of these changes.
Plant Drawings:
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On your first mushroom, it would've helped to make the minor axis through it: the top ellipses came out really misaligned because of this.
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The potato plant shows the issue I talked about on the leaves: they're all too stiff, even the ones on top end up twisting in unnatural ways. Don't be afraid to let the lines overlap when it comes to leaves, that will give them the flexibility they need.
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The same goes for petals, let them overlap and bend over themselves. Be careful as well with your lines, they got scratchier on the big flower, before the mushrooms.
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The conic mushroom on page 12 has a weird intersection with its cap. A real mushroom stem wouldn't just stop on that section, it would continue through the cap and intersect it at some point further up, creating an interesting flow on the internal contour of the cap.
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On your final page, there are mushrooms that are not drawn through, which makes me think that you drew more by eye than construction on that section. Try to avoid that, in the end these are just exercises for construction, and that's what we should work on.
Overall you did some great work, you clearly understood the point of the exercises, but I'll leave you with one revision: a page full of twisting leaves. Make sure that they are really flexible, overlapping and twisting over themselves, with curling ends, etc. Take a look at some references if you have to, but try to make them from imagination.
Good luck! If you have any questions, I'll be around.
Next Steps:
- One page of flexible, twisting leaves.
9:00 AM, Sunday July 24th 2022
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/138MHrdMBC4_NsS2vtNcEw9OQRgihyGdO?usp=sharing
here's the revised version
2:26 PM, Sunday July 24th 2022
That's great! I really only wanted one to make sure you got the point, but three is just fine. You had one rigid leaf on the second page, but that's okay, all the others are really flexible. With that, I'm marking your Lesson 3 as complete. Feel free to move on to Lesson 4!
Next Steps:
- Move on to Lesson 4
5:45 PM, Sunday July 24th 2022
Thank you so much
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