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6:04 PM, Tuesday August 3rd 2021

So I'm admittedly a little confused. You submitted 4 pages of revisions, but mentioned that you sent two today, and would send two in a few days. While I'm going to regard the pages you did submit as the complete set of revisions, in the future if you have plans to do some now, and some later, you should submit them all at once, not in pieces. I do not give critiques piecemeal, because it significantly increases the amount of time I have to spend. Getting it all done and submitting it when complete, as per these instructions, is important in managing all of the critiques and revisions I have to manage on a daily basis.

I should also comment on the fact that you did come back with these revisions very quickly. While the drawings themselves are fine, and I do feel you're applying the points I raised in my critique, it is usually a red flag when a student is so quick to turnaround and complete the requested work. Under 14 hours passed between me posting my critique and you submitting your revisions. 14 hours seems like a lot of time, but in terms of going through the feedback, absorbing it, going through the previous feedback I referenced, looking at the diagrams provided, and really letting it all sink in - THEN going through the revisions, I think you need to revise your interpretation of "taking your time".

You mentioned that you felt posting your work early would save us both time (I suppose that explains why you split it into two sections), but your presumption there is wrong. When a student rushes to churn out work, they are doing so to save themselves time, at the expense of the one giving the feedback. The way this course works, with its very low fees for detailed feedback, the onus is on the student to invest as much time as they can to apply the information provided to the absolute best of their ability, so that the critiques themselves can be more streamlined. Keep that in mind as you move forwards.

The last thing I wanted to address before looking at your revisions, is about the 50% rule. You're definitely not alone in neglecting to follow that rule - plenty of students do, but it isn't an optional thing. It is a fundamental part of this course, and when students opt not to spend an amount of time equal to the time spent on courses (drawabox and whatever else) on drawing for the sake of drawing, they are not following this course as intended.

As mentioned back in Lesson 0, the excuse of "Well I don't know how to draw the things I want to draw" is a very common one - but it's also irrelevant. It equates the idea of not being able to draw something well, to have a good result in the end, to not being able to draw it at all. That's not what the 50% rule asks of you - it asks you to draw regardless of that end result, regardless of the fact that it doesn't come out the way you envision it.

If you want to learn more about drawing humans, that's fine - you'll find plenty of resources to that effect on Proko.com, and many students in our community also like Brent Eviston's Skillshare - but that is completely irrelevant to the purpose of the 50% rule we're discussing. It doesn't ask that you draw anything well - just that you draw the things you want to, and allow yourself to fail.

Technical skill will only get you so far. If you want to be able to become a splash artist as you say, or a working artist of any sort, you need to move beyond the self-consciousness that keeps you from just throwing yourself at a blank page and filling it up. Alongside the 50% rule, I also link to this video where I discuss overcoming the fear we often feel when looking at a blank page. Perhaps you haven't seen it - but if you have, you may benefit from watching it again.

Anyway, looking at your animal constructions in these additional pages, I can see that you're applying the points I raised effectively. You're building up your additional masses as their own independent forms, fully enclosed and with clear relationships defined in how they relate to the existing structure. For the rhinoceros, you're still struggling a little when it comes to observing your reference - although this definitely is a particularly tricky subject matter, so it's understandable. When we're faced with greater challenges, our willingness to observe consistently and continuously tends to go out the window first. You're demonstrating stronger observation in the deer.

As your work here is progressing nicely, I am going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I certainly encourage you to take that break you mentioned, and you should still feel welcome to do more of these animal drawings for yourself, but you won't need to submit them to me.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.

Next Steps:

Move onto the 250 cylinder challenge - and make sure you adhere to the 50% rule from now on. As mentioned above, it is not optional.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
6:14 PM, Tuesday August 3rd 2021

Understood thanks

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Faber Castell PITT Artist Pens

Faber Castell PITT Artist Pens

Like the Staedtlers, these also come in a set of multiple weights - the ones we use are F. One useful thing in these sets however (if you can't find the pens individually) is that some of the sets come with a brush pen (the B size). These can be helpful in filling out big black areas.

Still, I'd recommend buying these in person if you can, at a proper art supply store. They'll generally let you buy them individually, and also test them out beforehand to weed out any duds.

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