Hi there I'll be handling your lesson 2 critique.
You're making good progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson, below I'll be listing some things that will hopefully help you in your future attempts at these exercises.
Your arrows are off to a good start, they're flowing smoothly and confidently. There are a few spots here and there that aren't always consistent in terms of width but with more mileage this will improve. The only thing I really have to suggest for you here is to try and experiment with foreshortening more, as you can see here we can utilize it in both the arrows themselves as well as the negative space between the arrow's curves to create stronger illusion of an object moving through 3D space.
You're doing a good job of keeping your organic forms with contours simple, people tend to get a bit too complex when they reach this exercise. The thing that stands out to me in this exercise is that your linework loses a bit of confidence, you have some wobbling occurring in your ellipses/forms and your curves get a bit stiff. Remember that confidence is our first priority and that accuracy will improve with more mileage. Keep experimenting with shifting the degree of your contours as well, you're off to a good start. 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.
In the texture exercises you're focusing largely on outlines and negative space rather than cast shadows created by forms along the texture itself. This makes it difficult to create gradients with implied information which we could then use to create focal points in more complex pieces, by doing so we can prevent our viewers from being visually overwhelmed with too much detail. For more on the importance of focusing on cast shadows read here. I'd also like to quickly direct you to this image which shows that when we're working with thin line like textures if we outline and fill the shadow we will create a much more dynamic texture than simply drawing lines.
If you feel like you don't fully grasp form intersections just yet don't worry, you're on the right track but 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. Your forms are looking mostly solid and like they belong in a single cohesive 3D space, you still struggle with the back corner of your boxes at times but you're definitely becoming more consistent.
This is a solid attempt at the organic intersections exercise. Your forms do get a bit complex which flattens them out in places, and they could wrap around one another a bit more, currently they lean heavily towards the viewer. I'm glad you're pushing your shadows far enough that they cast rather than just hugging the form creating them. Overall you're on the right track here, just need a bit more experience with the concept to become more comfortable with it, keep experimenting in your warm ups with form piles and lighting positions.
This was a really solid submission, you have some things to work on but I have no doubt you'll improve with more mileage from your warm ups. I'll be marking your submission as complete and moving you on to the next lesson.
Keep practicing previous exercises as warm ups and good luck in lesson 3!
Next Steps:
Keep practicing previous exercises as warm ups.
Move on to lesson 3.
Here we're getting into the subjective - Gerald Brom is one of my favourite artists (and a pretty fantastic novelist!). That said, if I recommended art books just for the beautiful images contained therein, my list of recommendations would be miles long.
The reason this book is close to my heart is because of its introduction, where Brom goes explains in detail just how he went from being an army brat to one of the most highly respected dark fantasy artists in the world today. I believe that one's work is flavoured by their life's experiences, and discovering the roots from which other artists hail can help give one perspective on their own beginnings, and perhaps their eventual destination as well.
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