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

Arrows

Let's start this critique by talking about your arrows, your linework here is generally looking pretty smooth and confident, which helps sell the feeling of fluidity that arrows have as they move through the world. You're also making really good use of the depth of the page with your application of foreshortening.

It's good that you're making use of added lineweight on top of the overlaps to reinforce their depth, just make sure to add it to the entire area of the overlap ( but not the entire segment itself ) not just where the lines touch. It's also good to see that you're making use of hatching as that helps you clarify how your arrows twist and turn in space and reinforce your spatial reasoning skills, but there are a couple of times where you've placed your hatching incorrectly, making it seem like your arrow is getting bigger the further away it is, and getting smaller as it gets closer, which goes against the rules of perspective.

• Perspective works in the following manner: things that are further away from the viewer will look smaller, and as they get closer to the viewer they'll look bigger. The way this affects an object of consistent size and width that stretches across space is that certain segments of this object will look bigger and others smaller, either gradually or dramatically depending on the perspective of the scene, as such the bigger part of the arrow will always be the one that's closest to the viewer so the segment that's behind it should be the one receiving the hatching.

You've done well in this exercise, so going forward don't forget to keep pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, keep experimenting with the different types of arrows possible, and the different ways they can twist and turn in space in order to challenge yourself and take your skills further.

Leaves

The fluidity present in your arrows is translating quite nicely into these new structures, they have a nice feeling of flow and energy to them as you're not only trying to capture how these structures sit statically within space, but also how they move through that space from moment to moment.

When it comes to your construction of more complex leaf structures it can certainly be tightened up a bit, as this structure looks quite nice and well constructed, but for these structures you're often skipping some construction steps, which leaves your structures less tight and specific than they have could otherwise be.

For example, this structure is looser than it could be, due to the flow lines for the individual "arms" of the complex structure going past the boundary laid out by the previous phase of construction (the one where you established the simple overall footprint for the structure). The bigger shape establishes a decision being made - this is how far out the general structure will extend - and so the flow lines for the later leaf structures should abide by that.

For this leaf structure you attempt to capture the complex shape of the leaf right away, instead of gradually increasing complexity through your different phases of construction, this takes away the fluidity of the structure, flattening it somewhat and making it look awkward. Take a look at this demo, and how we can construct leaf structures with holes in them that still follow the general instructions for leaf construction.

Your addition of edge detail is generally looking pretty good, as you're following the proper instructions for drawing edge detail, you don't usually attempt to capture more than one piece of edge detail at a time, although there are some places where you zigzagged your edge detail which is a mistake that goes against the third principle of mark-making from Lesson 1. Other than that, you also generally add your edge detail with the same line thickness as the rest of your construction, as well as construct your edge detail additively - all of these are good things.

Branches

For your branches they're coming along quite nicely made as you're generally following the instructions for this exercise, although there are a couple of changes that can be made that will help you draw more solid and tight looking branches.

It's really good to see that you're drawing your edges in segments, but you're often extending them too far past the halfway point between ellipses, which causes you to lose control over your marks. This is also partially caused by the fact that your ellipses are too close together, which doesn't allow for a nice length of runway for you to extend your marks, which creates more visible tails.

So limit the amount of ellipses in your branches and remember how they should be approached: by starting your segment at the first ellipse, then extending that line past the second ellipse and only up to the halfway point between the second and third ellipse. After these steps have been taken you'll start a new segment at the next ellipse point and continue with this methodology until your entire branch is complete.

It's good that you're generally following the instructions for drawing forked branches and knots, although they are looking a bit messy, so don't forget that you should aim to draw through your ellipses only twice, three is also acceptable, but more than that and your ellipses start to become too loose.

For your ellipses it's good to see that you're drawing through them twice, which allows for a smoother and more confident mark. Something to focus on is that many of your ellipses degrees barely change when they should due to how the ellipse degree shift works. Remember that as a cylindrical form shifts towards or away from the viewer, the degree of the ellipses within that structure will also shift.

Plant Construction Section

And lastly let's take a look at your plant constructions. In general you're following the instructions to the methods and techniques introduced in this lesson which allows you to create very solid and tridimensional looking structures, you're starting to understand the purpose of these exercises and develop your spatial reasoning skills, but there are some things which must be addressed - not all of them are outright mistakes, but they are holding you back from your full potential and from getting the most out of these exercises.

Make sure to never deviate from the instructions for these exercises, execute them how they were written, to the best of your current ability. For this structure you deviate from the instructions for the exercise by trying to draw the leaf structure with a triangular form, which flattens and stiffens the overall structure. No matter the actual form of your leaf structure, you must construct it using the method outlined in the drawing leaves exercise page. On top of that, make sure that when you construct branch structures, that you're always doing so around a minor axis, in order to maintain the flow of the structure and your several ellipses aligned.

There are some places in your constructions where you haven't drawn the parts of your forms which wouldn't be visible to the viewer, which is a mistake. You should always be drawing through your forms and constructing them fully, as not doing so will severely limit your ability to work through the tridimensional puzzles that arise during these lessons and it'll limit how much you're getting out of the exercise.

Not drawing through your forms means you'll need to rely on your observation skills to figure out how the different forms in your structure exist in relation to one another, instead of engaging your sense of spatial reasoning and truly understanding how the object you're drawing works by making it clear where each form comes from, what each form attaches to and how the different parts of that structure exist in space alongside all the others.

There are some moments where you leave the ends of your branch structures open ended, make sure to always cap them off with an ellipse.

Final Thoughts

Overall you've done really well in this lesson, you're applying the concepts taught in the lesson well and your plants are turning out quite tridimensional due to that. Keep the points I mention here in mind in the future so that you can continue to improve your abilities. I'm going to be marking this lesson as complete as I believe you're ready to tackle the challenges introduced in the next lesson. Good luck in Lesson 4.