I'll be the TA handling your Lesson 2 critique.

So normally we don't really handle critiques unless they're for an attempt at completing the lesson, it prevents us from getting to other people quicker. With that being said though since this submission seems mostly well done I'm going to treat it as a proper submission, know that in the future we won't be accepting old work as it doesn't reflect your abilities at the time and we often end up wasting everyone's time involved by having to re-address things. By the end of the critique if there are things I notice that need to be worked on, I'll ask for revisions of those specific exercises like I would a normal critique, the rest you can practice on your own time and in your warm ups as you should be doing anyways.

You're making progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson and hopefully this critique will help you in your future attempts.

• Starting off in the arrows section your lines are looking smoothly and confidently drawn. There are spots where your arrows bulge/narrow suddenly, this is an issue because it gives the impression that your arrows are stretching which hurts their solidity. Remember that as our arrows move closer to the viewer we want them to widen consistently. This is a good exercise to experiment with line weight but when applying it we want to make sure we do subtly to key areas like overlaps to give clarity to our forms. Here are some things to look out for when applying line weight, and here are some reminders on how to apply it subtly. At times you don't overlap your edges when you should, this results in your arrows flattening out as you can see here. I'd like you to experiment more with foreshortening in your future attempts, by utilizing it in both the arrows themselves as well as the negative space between their curves we can create a stronger illusion of an object moving through 3D space as demonstrated here.

• Moving into the organic forms with contours exercise your forms are getting a bit too complex. We want to create our forms with both ends being the same size and to avoid any pinching, bloating, or stretching along the form's length as discussed here. You're keeping your line work confident here which is great, if you feel uncomfortable working with contours still don't stress with more mileage it'll become more natural. I'd like to remind you to draw through your ellipses and that you should only be drawing the small ending ellipses on ends of the forms that would be visible to the viewer. When drawing contour curves make sure you push them far enough that they curve back into the form as explained here.Speaking of contours I'd like you to try and shift the degree of your contours more. 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 (more so in the dissections) you're focusing largely on outlines, form shadows 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 quite solid here and they believably appear to belong in the same cohesive 3D space, good work.

• While wrapping up your submission with the organic intersections exercise you do a great job demonstrating that your sense of 3D space is developing as your forms begin to wrap around each other believably. You're keeping your forms simple and easy to work with which is a good strategy to help produce good results. When it comes to your shadows you're pushing them enough so that they cast rather than just hugging the form that creates them which is a great start. It appears like your shadows aren't following a consistent light source, I recommend pushing your light source to the top left or right corner of the page to start with, it's easier than working with a light directly above your form pile.

I won't be moving you on to the next lesson just yet, each lesson builds upon each other and I'd like to make sure you understand a few of these concepts a bit more before potentially creating more problems down the road.

With that being said I'd like you to please re-read and complete:

• 1 page of the arrows exercise

• 1 page of the organic forms with contours exercise (half a page of each type)

Once you've completed the pages mentioned above reply to this critique with a link to them, I'll go over them and address anything that needs to be worked on and once you've shown you're ready for the next lesson I'll move you on.

I look forward to seeing your work.