8:40 PM, Monday August 8th 2022
Starting with your organic intersections, it's notable that your second page is considerably stronger than your first. In the first page, the way in which you're asserting the orientation of each form - so for example, here and here, where you've drawn your contour lines such that the upper end is facing towards the viewer - gives the impression of a very unstable pile of sausages. Those contour lines, along with the given sausages' relationship with the other forms around them, tell us that these sausages are pretty upright, and in no way solidly grounded, giving the impression that in the next moment, they're about to all tumble away. You'll definitely want to take more time to think through the manner in which you're building up these piles of sausages, to make them feel more solid and give the impression that they all exist under the force of the same gravity. This means thinking about how each form is meant to relate to those around it as you draw it, and to maintain that impression as you add contour lines.
Additionally, I'm seeing inconsistencies in where you choose to cast shadows, which again suggests that you may not be giving yourself enough time to think through each form's relationship with your light source, as shown here. I'm also noticing a tendency to half draw cast shadows - to have them fall on one surface, but when another surface should then be catching them, you neglect to draw it there.
Continuing onto your animal constructions, I can see that you have indeed make a concerted effort to focus heavily on applying those principles I shared in my critique of your Lesson 4 work. There are a few little places where you've deviated from them despite your best efforts, but all in all, I'm pleased with the fact that you've clearly tried to address those issues.
That said, I should mention that it is not entirely uncommon that when a student comes to realize one area may be lacking in one regard, they allocate time to that area by pulling it away from another. In your case, I can definitely see that one area that has as a result suffered is your application - you end up not putting nearly enough time into the observation of your animals. As a result, you've got really solid forms for the most part, and you're designing the silhouettes of those additional masses quite well, but while I don't have access to your reference images, I can definitely see that you're making the decisions of what form to draw next, and the nature of that form based on what you recall seeing in your reference rather than direct observation.
So, the first major issue is simply that you need to be investing more time into the observation of your animals, but without pulling that time from other areas. It's entirely normal for a drawing to require multiple sittings, so don't feel any compulsion that you need to finish a given drawing before getting up. And of course, review these notes on observation.
Continuing on, as I said the manner in which you're designing the silhouettes of your additional masses is coming along great for the most part (and definitely demonstrates that you can indeed manage that work with the organic intersections far better than you did, since they're effectively the same kind of problem), but I do have a couple suggestions for you to keep in mind:
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As shown here, look for opportunities where you can elongate your masses to both further "grip" the sides of the animal, and to take advantage of other masses that you can actually press the one you're drawing against, as I did with against the hip/shoulder masses. Any opportunity we have to press our additional masses against additional structures helps to make the whole thing feel more grounded, like pieces of a puzzle all fitting together.
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When adding masses to your legs, don't just focus on the ones that impact the silhouette of the form. Think more generally as though you're building up every aspect of this structure, and consider those masses that fit in between as well, as shown here on another student's work. Like the previous point, this will give you ample opportunities to consider how your different additional masses press up against one another, giving you a better shot at making everything feel grounded.
In regards to the feet, I actually do have some advice to offer there, to make them feel more three dimensional. The key here is the use of boxy forms - that is, forms with clear corners in the silhouette that helps to imply the internal distinction between planes. Rather than explaining it further, I've got these notes here on another studen'ts work to help illustrate the concept. This can be used for hooves, as well as more complex feet where boxy structures can be used for a base, and then for the elements that are added on top, like toes.
Now the last major point I want to address is head construction. Lesson 5 has a lot of different strategies for constructing heads, between the various demos. Given how the course has developed, and how I'm finding new, more effective ways for students to tackle certain problems. So not all the approaches shown are equal, but they do have their uses. As it stands, as explained at the top of the tiger demo page (here), the current approach that is the most generally useful, as well as the most meaningful in terms of these drawings all being exercises in spatial reasoning, is what you'll find here on the informal demos page.
There are a few key points to this approach:
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The specific shape of the eyesockets - the specific pentagonal shape allows for a nice wedge in which the muzzle can fit in between the sockets, as well as a flat edge across which we can lay the forehead area.
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This approach focuses heavily on everything fitting together - no arbitrary gaps or floating elements. This allows us to ensure all of the different pieces feel grounded against one another, like a three dimensional puzzle.
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We have to be mindful of how the marks we make are cuts along the curving surface of the cranial ball - working in individual strokes like this (rather than, say, drawing the eyesocket with an ellipse) helps a lot in reinforcing this idea of engaging with a 3D structure.
Try your best to employ this method when doing constructional drawing exercises using animals in the future, as closely as you can. Sometimes it seems like it's not a good fit for certain heads, but with a bit of finagling it can still apply pretty well. To demonstrate this for another student, I found the most banana-headed rhinoceros I could, and threw together this demo.
Now, I am going to have to assign some revisions below, both for you to address the issue regarding observation (which is a big one), as well as the head construction matter.
Next Steps:
Please submit the following:
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2 pages of organic intersections
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4 pages of animal constructions
For the animal constructions, I want you to write down the dates of each session you spent on it, along with a rough estimate of how long was spent in each given sitting. Also, refrain from working on more than one construction in a given day - meaning, if you've even touched one, you should wait until the next day until starting on another.