Hello Tmmillea I'm ThatOneMushroomGuy and I'll be the TA handling your critique today.

Arrows

Starting with your arrows, your linework is looking confident for the most part but it can still be improved as you've got some small signs of hesitation here and there, make sure to always ghost as many times as you need as well as executing your marks confidently and swiftly. Your arrows have a good sense of fluidity as they move through the page.

The point that you should look out for in this exercise is how your arrows are looking pretty flat as they have almost no perspective applied to them.

• Perspective works by having objects appear bigger when closer to the viewer and smaller when further away, even if they're the exact same size. The same kind of building could look gigantic when you stand by it's side, but not bigger than your thumb when looking at it from enough of a distance. This also affects objects of consistent size that stretch across space but slightly differently, as segments move away from the viewer they'll gradually, be it slowly or more drastically, get smaller and as they get closer to the viewer get bigger.

You need to challenge yourself more and vary the size difference between the various segments of your arrows.

You should also remember to add extra lineweight on top of the overlaps to help reinforce them.

Leaves

Your arrows are looking a little bit mixed, some of them are looking quite well but some of them are looking a bit stiff and bend unnaturally such as this leaf.

Other problems you face are how often you're applying edge detail subtractively when you should work additively whenever possible, when we cut back into our original construction this makes us see these forms as flat shapes on a page. With leaves working subtractively is not a big problem due to how leaves are already flat objects, but even though they are flat they're still tridimensional so it's still something you'll generally want to avoid regardless.

Branches

You're doing a good job by following the instructions but even though you're extending your lines, you don't always start you next segment back at the previous ellipse, this as demonstrated here in the instructions it allows for a healthy overlap between the segments, which in turn helps us achieve a smoother, more seamless transition from one to the next.

I can also see visible tails in your compound strokes, but that's not a big problem, it's more important to extend your lines correctly as with time your accuracy will naturally improve, you might also like to attempt to superimpose your new lines on top of the previous ones.

Plant Construction Section

Onto your plant constructions you're on the right track and I can see you applying the concepts taught in the lesson. But you've got a couple of problems which are often hurting the solidity of your constructions.

Starting with your mushroom demo, you're doing a good job with this attempt by drawing your ellipses around a minor axis, but your ellipses, especially the bigger ones, are looking a little bit wonky. Make sure to ghost them as much as you need and to execute them with confidence.

You should also remember that all objects with a cylindrical like body should be approached by being drawn around a minor axis, this includes your corpse flower. Your minor axis should also be big enough to emcompass the entirety of your ellipses, in your acorn your top ellipses weren't drawn around the minor axis.

I can see that you're struggling to apply the concepts of how leaves sit in space to your constructions, this is very noticeable in your hibiscus demo and your birds of paradise construction, this is also something I've noticed in your page of leaves. Here is a quick demonstration from another student's work of how the concepts introduced in the arrow's exercise relate to constructing leaves and petals.

You're also not making very good use of the leaf construction method in your corpse flower construction as you don't use it correctly, instead you jump into complexity too soon by attempting to capture the shape of the leaf in the initial steps of construction when you should be starting with simplicity.

I can also see in your hibiscus demo another attempt at constructing the style of the flower. Remember that not only must we commit to our lines but we must also commit to our mistakes. If your initial attempt at approaching a certain part of your subject of study isn't satisfactory then so be it.

I can also notice here and in other pages that you're not drawing through your ellipses twice. This often happens to your smaller ellipses, but it's also present in some of your bigger ones such as the ones in your banana bunch construction.

For your cactus you're skipping construction steps by not making use of the forking branches method for the extra arms.

You're on the right track for your birds of paradise construction, you need to focus on getting your contour lines to be a bit more convinced as currently they are looking a bit flat as they don't convincingly wrap around the form.

• Some of your pages have some white space, empty space that could have been used much by drawing differently, since you're already using your page in the landscape position, you could have used the extra space on the side by drawing in portrait position. This would allow you to use more of your page and drawing bigger also gives us more space to work through the spatial reasoning challenges that arise when tackling these exercises, it also gives us more ample opportunity to fully engage our shoulder and follow instructions more closely.

Final Thoughts

You're starting to grasp the concepts this lesson seeks to teach, but you're still struggling to understand how these exercises and instructions work and how they should be followed, you need to pay a little bit more of attention to the instructions and make sure to carefully apply them to your work, it's not important that you get them perfectly or even right, just that you show that you understand the instructions and that they should be used when drawing your plants.

I'm not going to be marking your lesson as complete. Your sense of construction and spatial reasoning is not very solid yet and you may be rushing through some steps. Remember that if you're unsure of how something is approached you should always revisit the lesson material before proceeding.

I also believe that by revisiting the material that's been mentioned here and applying these points to your work you'll be able to develop your skills further.