To answer your question, the first two steps of the leaves exercise is done either without reference, or following a given reference a little more generally (focusing more on how we're capturing a for, as it moves through space, exaggerating the fluidity of its motion, rather than trying to stiffly and hyper-accurately capture how the leaf looks in the reference). The third step, when we start adding edge detail, is where we employ reference images, as shown here in the instructions. The branches are indeed just a spatial exercise where we construct tube-like forms, and do not employ any reference.

Anyway, starting with your arrows, these are coming along well in terms of the original linework (which is confident and fluid), although you definitely overdo it in some places when adding line weight, like on the arrow on the far left side of the page. You're clarly going back over those marks over and over, chicken-scratching along the way. Line weight needs to be applied just as you would make any other mark - executing it with a single stroke employing the ghosting method. Yeah, you might miss, but that's fine. These are all exercises, the end result isn't important. What matters is the process you employ, and what you learn from it. It's very common for students to feel that when things get difficult and their results don't come out as they want them to, they need to change their approach because they want that better result now. Unfortunately, sometimes things just take practice, and when we try to find a way around that, we don't get the appropriate practice in.

The line weight applied to many of the other arrows was generally done well (I definitely focused on the worst one), although I did notice that you tended to have pretty noticeable jumps in thickness. Try to ease up on the pressure you're applying, so you can keep that transition from one thickness to another more subtle. You don't need to press hard to get more weight - the fact that you're drawing over an existing line is usually enough.

Continuing onto your leaves, the initial leaf structure (steps 1 and 2) show a good deal of respect for the flow and fluidity of the structure, and you do a good job of capturing how they move through space. Your addition of more complex edge detail is where you run into some problems, however.

This one is a good example of how you're approaching the addition of edge detail. The marks you add are really complex - they've got tons of bumps and variation to them that aren't actually supported by the existing structure. You're basically skipping a lot of steps and trying to do too much all at once. As shown here, if you wanted that kind of edge, you'd build it up in stages, first creating the larger swoops, and then building individual bumps onto each of them. Every mark still has a very specific trajectory and purpose - we do not zigzag a single stroke back and forth.

The same issue can be seen here where you're actually zigzagging back and forth across the original edge with a single stroke, as is explained here to be incorrect.

The last thing I want to call out here is that right now, with every stage of construction, you appear to be making your marks heavier (by pressing harder). Try maintaining the same thickness as you move forward through construction - this will help you create a more cohesive impression that you're building up and refining the silhouette of the same structure. When lines get thicker as you progress, it pushes us more in the mindset that we're replacing the old lines (as though we were throwing them away), and it can encourage us to redraw more of the leaf than is strictly necessary. I'm not seeing you doing this too much, but the approach can certainly lead to that kind of a mistake.

Continuing onto your branches these are moving in the right direction, but there are a few key things I want you to keep in mind:

• First and foremost, I'm starting to get the impression that when an exercise or a drawing involves a lot of lines, you may end up affording each individual mark less time, resulting in a sloppier execution. I cannot be sure of this, but I am seeing signs of this both here and later in the plant constructions. I talk about this here in the ghosted planes instructions, and it goes hand in hand with the tendency for students to feel that they're meant to complete a certain amount of work within a single sitting - like when a student might say, "I'm going to finish this page of branches before I get up". I know (from having seen that video you shared before) that you can execute lines with a fair bit of control reinforcing the confidence executions, and that you can do so with accuracy without ending up with wobbly lines, if you invest enough time in the preparation and planning phases. The strokes we're doing here are quite a bit shorter, so they should generally be easier, but they're quite a bit sloppier than what you demonstrated before. This tells me that either you're not putting enough time into each individual stroke (since there are so many to be drawn), or that due to the shorter length you're using your wrist instead of your shoulder. Or both.

• Another point that stands out is that you're not consistently extending each segment fully halfway to the next ellipse - and this appears to occur at the planning phase, based on where you're putting those little end points. This lends credence to the idea that perhaps you're rushing through these first two steps of each stroke.

• One thing that can also help to make these branch structures more solid and more cohesive is to make a point of overlapping the last chunk of the previous segment directly, using it as a runway for the next stroke, as shown in these instructions. This will of course mean that you'll have to contend with any mistakes you may have made in the last stroke's execution directly (instead of being able to draw where the previous stroke ought to have been), but it will both yield more solid, cohesive structures due to the lack of gaps in your linework, and will also help you improve more efficiently.

Moving onto your plant constructions, in many areas you certainly are applying the core principles of the lesson, but there are issues that arise primarily out of the choices you make, and perhaps how quickly you attempt to work through a given drawing. I certainly can't make broad assumptions about how fast you're working through a given drawing - it would be nice to know how long each one took you, though to either prove or discount that theory.

From what I'm seeing, however, it does feel to me that where your drawings are weakest is generally where they get to be more demanding in terms of the quantity of marks that need to be made, and therefore the amount of time a given drawing will demand. It's not that the marks themselves are actually more complex or demanding on an individual basis - they're not. You mention that the potato plant was too challenging for you, but it's just a lot of individual leaves being drawn together in the same drawing. There's nothing more complex to it than the daisy drawing, which you handled just fine - there's simply more of it.

If we look at the sunflower, you started with a large overall ellipse (similarly to what we do in the hibiscus demo), where that ellipse defines the perimeter to which all of the petals extend. You didn't end up using it as such, however, and actually throughout the drawing you choose to ignore that ellipse's presence. Instead, each and every flow line of each and every petal should be extending to the edge of that large ellipse, and therafter every petal should have its tip at the end of the given flow line. These different phases of construction must maintain strong, specific relationships without arbitrary gaps or distances separating them. Every step of construction is a declaration, an answer to a question, or a solution to a problem. That ellipse answers the question of how far out the petals will extend.

Now, one may ask "what if I drew that ellipse wrong, and it doesn't match the reference anymore?" That's a pretty normal problem to run into, and the answer is that you stick with what you've drawn. We're not attempting to replicate the reference perfectly - it's just a source of information we're using to help construct something that feels solid and real. If we second-guess, or contradict previous steps of our drawing, we'll undermine that illusion of solidity and remind the viewer that they're just looking at a flat drawing on a page.

There are also some areas where you're forgetting how to apply certain techniques - for example, in the pitcher plant, you end up starting each segment where the previous one ends, not including any overlap between them as is demonstrated in the branches exercise.

The issues as I see them don't have anything to do with your ability to draw, or how "learnable" drawing is. It comes down to time - time to plan and prepare every mark with intent to execute them to the best of your current ability, and time to remember the application of each technique to be used correctly and effectively. These are things many students struggle with, and there is often a more deep-seated impression that one should be able to draw anything and everything quickly and fluidly. This course, however, helps students work towards that by doing everything in a slow, gradual, painstaking fashion here, so that we can push the things we're doing consciously now, into our subconscious - just as one takes every step carefully and intentionally when learning to walk as a baby, and ultimately is able to walk without thinking as an adult.

I'm going to assign some further revisions below, but I do think that you've shown some improvement over your previous submission so it won't be too extensive. Be sure to track how long you spend on each drawing and include them on the page. For the leaves and branches exercise, track each one separately, and note the time taken next to each one.