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11:55 AM, Monday January 16th 2023

Hello Tmmillea, thank you for getting back to me with your revisions.

Starting with your pages of leaves and branches, your leaves are looking better, although you still have some which are bending unnaturally. I've noticed that several of your leaves have more lines than they should for their basic construction, which suggests you redid them.

Don't redo any lines, once you've decided you're going to make a mark you must commit to it, regardless of how it turns out. Redoing any lines won't fix your mistakes, in fact it will only call more attention to them and undermine the solidity of your construction more than if you stuck to your original mark.

Another thing you should focus on in your lines is your addition of edge detail, when adding edge detail make sure that you're giving it all the attention it requires, making sure that your marks properly rise off and return to the existing stroke underneath, since your marks barely lift off the initial construction they don't convey much information on the complex edge detail. No mark is unimportant, if you decide it was worth adding, give it as much attention as it needs to be done to the best of your current ability.

Moving on to your branches, it's good to see that you're generally applying the instructions more thoroughly, but remember that your next segment should start at the previous ellipse point, as demonstrated here, afterwards you can attempt to superimpose your new line on top of the preexisting one, but starting it on top of the previous line can end up cutting through your ellipse and undermining the boundary it establishes, and with it, the solidity of your forms.

Speaking of undermining boundaries you do the same on your cactus and mushroom by treating the inner line on your ellipses as the one that establishes the form, when in actuality the outermost perimeter of your ellipse is the one that establishes the form and it's relationships to other forms, make sure to always build your constructions with that in mind.

As mentioned in my original critique, remember that all objects with a cylindrical body should be approached by being drawn around a minor axis, you apply this well in your original submission by drawing your mushrooms around a minor axis but not in these extra pages, although that might be simply due to the fact that the mushroom demo doesn't make use of a minor axis, but do keep this in mind as some of the demos in this course are a bit outdated due to the nature of the ever so updating material.

For your flower construction, you're zigzagging your edge detail and the relationships between your forms are left vague and undefined because you don't draw through your forms. The purpose of these exercises is to develop your sense of spatial reasoning, as such you need to be aware of all forms in your construction as they don't stop existing once they become obscured by other phases of construction.

Think of how and where a stem connects to your flower, and draw it in it's entirety.

Overall you're still struggling with some of the concepts mentioned here and applying it to your constructions, but I don't believe you'll benefit as much from more revisions, so I will be marking this submission as complete.

Make sure to pay extra attention to the feedback you've recieved here in order to apply it to your future homework assignments.

Next Steps:

Don't forget to keep practicing these exercises during your warm-ups.

Move on to Lesson 4.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
5:29 PM, Monday January 16th 2023

Thanks for the feedback, especially the piece about the using the outer edge of the ellipse as the foundation. That was always unclear to me.

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Ellipse Master Template

Ellipse Master Template

This recommendation is really just for those of you who've reached lesson 6 and onwards.

I haven't found the actual brand you buy to matter much, so you may want to shop around. This one is a "master" template, which will give you a broad range of ellipse degrees and sizes (this one ranges between 0.25 inches and 1.5 inches), and is a good place to start. You may end up finding that this range limits the kinds of ellipses you draw, forcing you to work within those bounds, but it may still be worth it as full sets of ellipse guides can run you quite a bit more, simply due to the sizes and degrees that need to be covered.

No matter which brand of ellipse guide you decide to pick up, make sure they have little markings for the minor axes.

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