Hi, let me give you some critique. Hope this helps!
Starting with your arrows, for the most part they flow pretty well through space. There are just a few small issues: the top-right arrow should have a bend near the last turn, the two arrows near the bottom right are bulging near the middle, and the hatching looks a bit messy in a few places. You should also really try to push shrinking the negative space between the lengths of the arrow as it goes back into the page, remember that the arrow gets narrower as it goes back, so you really have to push shrinking the distance between the lengths in order for the negative space to decrease.
Leaves
Going into your leaves, overall the flow from the arrows translates well to the leaves. The top right leaf feels a bit unnaturally stiff, a leaf isn't really flexible enough to bend like that. The top left leaf bends a bit unnaturally, it kind of looks like the farther side is torn in half at the point where it crosses the center line.
When it comes to edge detail, in many cases, you do not properly use the correct technique for adding edge detail. In many cases, you do not build upon the previous edge, only using it as a rough guideline to basically redraw the edge of the leaf with the more complex detail. Remember to alter the edge using curves with a single trajectory, leaving the previous edge and going back to it. Do not redraw the entire edge, just the parts that change. Finally, do not zig-zag across the edge when adding edge detail, you should add something or subtract something with every mark, not both.
When it comes to complex leaf structures, remember that the complex construction should still build upon the simple construction. That means that the additional flow lines you add should go from the center flow line to the simple curves of the leaf, and stop there. In your complex construction leaves, the simple curves were not built upon: they are not guidelines, but rather actual parts of the construction.
Just a small detail about texture/details on the leaves: you are capturing the forms on the leaf (like the veins) when the correct approach is to capture the cast shadows that these forms cast upon the leaf surface. Try to use shadow shapes instead of lines, no matter how thin the shape may be.
Branches
The branches exercise was well done overall. Just a few pointers:
I see a bit of wobbling in the ellipses. This is pretty normal, this is really the first exercise that small and precise ellipses are used. You want to make sure they're still ghosted properly and drawn from the shoulder instead of the wrist.
While the line segments generally go from the first ellipse to halfway to the third, the last line segment seems to cover two ellipses. You want to stop this line segment at the halfway point to the last ellipse, and draw one more to go from second last to last.
Most of the branches do not have their ellipses vary in degree. Think about how the branch is moving through space and how the viewer is observing the branch, and try to vary the degrees accordingly.
If the "runway" segment ends up not properly going towards the next ellipse, still try to overlap it when you make the next segment. This will help with fixing these errors as you draw more.
Plant constructions
I'm going to focus on a few plants specifically, but I am seeing these issues in a few of the other plant constructions as well:
For plant number 1 of page 1, your flowerpot should be aligned to a central axis (like drawing any regular cylinder). In addition, the top of the pot should have 3 ellipses: two to define the thickness of the top, and one to define the soil level. At the moment it looks like the pot is paper thin, and is filled to the brim with soil. It's kind of hard for me to tell without reference, but it looks like the leaves here are a bit unnaturally stiff. You should also draw each leaf form in its entirety, starting from the center flow line and going back to it at the tip, move the leaf closer to the center flow line for the branch if necessary.
For plant number 1 of page 2, if you draw ellipses to align your petals, the petals should touch the ellipse. The ellipses are not guidelines, they are steps of construction to place your petals. In addition, you are not following branch construction guidelines for constructing the stems, the line segment should start at the previous ellipse, not where the previous line segment ends.
For the page 3 plant, you should only add the edge detail that deviates from the simple curve, not try to reconstruct the entire, more complex, leaf.
For the page 5 plant, the shadows used are a bit contradictory. For example, there's no form that can cast shadows on all of the leaves towards the middle (seems like it's capturing form shadows here). Also the blocks of black towards the edges of the leaves also seems like form shading. Remember that only cast shadows should be depicted in constructions within this course.
For the page 6 plant, do not color your soil black. Remember that local color is ignored in this course, and it should only be black if something is casting shadows on it.
So, there are quite a few things to work on here. I'm going to request a few revision pages to help you practice these concepts. I've also noticed that you haven't tried mushrooms or cactus constructions, so I would like a page of the plant constructions to involve differently formed plants like those.
Next Steps:
1 page of leaves. Make sure to include a few leaves involving complex construction.
3 pages of plant constructions. Do not add details or texture to these. Cast shadows from large forms is fine.
1 page of mushrooms, cacti, or "differently" shaped plants like the pitcher plant.
Thank you for the lengthy response! I'll get those pages to you soon. It's really insightful to have another set of eyes looking at my work. I'm glad to hear that my arrows are flowing through space as that exercise gave me a lot of trouble when I was going through lesson 2. Regarding cast shadows, is there an exercise I can make into a quick warm up?
So accurate shadows (and its counterpart, lighting) are sort of built upon an understanding of form and perspective. A light source is like a vanishing point, radiating light outwards in straight lines, and an understanding of form allows you to figure out how that light is blocked. Both of these skills are built upon throughout this entire course, I don't think you need specific warmups to practice shadows in particular.
Ultimately, the accuracy of cast shadows does not matter that much for these exercises. The only things to avoid are form shadows and contradictory cast shadows. Form shadows stick to the surface of the form that is blocking the light. Contradictory cast shadows just means that, for example, having a form cast shadows on both its left and right side, this cannot happen with only a single light source. It's also a lot easier to have consistent cast shadows when the light source is pushed to the left or right (if looking at the object from the side) compared to directly above, since you can really push the cast shadows in one direction.
Given that there's a lot of pages to work through I figured it would be better to submit them by topic. This page is the leaves revision.
I must confess that the urge to scrap this page and redo it was really strong but that would count as grinding so I didn't ^^; This time I tried to tone down the amount of texture and detail so I could focus on construction for these leaves; hopefully they're at least a little better than last time. I feel like there's a lot of things that can be improved here but I won't get hung up about that considering there's more pages to work on the things your critique pointed out.
I'll quickly critique your leaves page so that you can take these into account when doing the plant revisions. As a side note, it's great that you didn't redo the leaves. Mistakes are fine, it's the approach that matters here. You will practice these techniques later on, and it will get more accurate as you do so. Also, if there were bad habits, grinding and practicing with those habits would just make it harder to get rid of them later.
So you are definitely approaching complex construction a lot better now. Where before, the simple curves were treated as just suggestions or direction, now you are trying to treat them as hard construction rules like they were intended to. While you don't always succeed, that is perfectly fine. Those things will get better with practice, the goal of this lesson and critique is to show you the correct way so you practice good habits instead of bad ones. Excellent work on that.
In terms of edge detail, it seems like you're still redrawing the entire previous edge when applying detail. Zig-zagging refers not to sharp corners, but rather trying to do multiple details in one stroke. For example, trying to draw 3 bumps, or multiple cuts at once. It's especially bad when you try to capture something additive and subtractive in the same stroke, you start having to think about the simple edge of the leaf when doing so, a problem that's already solved in the previous step of the construction. This is ultimately why we adhere so strictly to the previous steps of construction. Each step solves a problem, and only by following what we lay out before can we avoid having to solve that problem again. This is why you only draw what's changed from the previous step, not the entire previous step. (Line weight is a different concept, with a different purpose, that involves redrawing some of the lines)
I want you to try these steps when applying edge detail:
First, start on the simple edge of the leaf. Draw a short distance with the simple edge
Then, draw away from the simple edge. Capture the specific, single edge detail (one bump, one spike, one cut, etc.). Keep this simple. Nothing wavy, just a simple curve or spike.
When your mark touches the simple edge again, immediately draw along the simple edge. Do not cross the simple edge, do not leave the simple edge. Draw along the simple edge for a short distance, then lift your pen.
Repeat this for every single piece of edge detail you want to capture.
If the edge detail is particularly complex, like a complex cut in the leaf, you can build edge detail in steps as well. Like first make a simple curve to capture the general shape, then build on top repeating the above steps until the complex edge detail is covered. Following the steps should allow you to stick to building on top of previous steps of construction instead of replacing them.
Of course, some leaves have dense edge detail and therefore it's not easy to get the space to draw along the simple edge. In this case, I would recommend one of two things:
Get a simpler reference. Ultimately, your goal in choosing references is not necessarily picking things that look complex, but rather things that allow you to practice the correct technique. If a complex edge encourages you to zigzag, this is much less useful than a simple edge with only a few details that will encourage you to apply the correct technique. Of course, you should always challenge yourself, but don't go so complex that you're feeling that you can't apply the techniques taught.
Use the steps above on every second piece of edge detail. After you finish the entire leaf, go back and fill in the gaps again applying the steps for each one. That's how I would approach a leaf with extremely dense edge detail (though I do recommend just picking an easier reference).
So you're definitely on the right path. Try to keep these things in mind while doing the plant constructions. I'm going to request revisions here since there are still things left to do, but it is just finishing the plant constructions.
Next Steps:
Finish the plant constructions
Hi, I finally got around to doing the constructions! I forgot to ask but am I allowed to do leaf edges for the leaves? I'm on my second plant now and realized I added some before asking (there are no leaf edges on the first page). Thanks ^^
Hi, I've finished the revisions you asked for! For organizational purposes I included the leaves page and ccollected the refs I used for the constructions.
One of the problems I ran into is keeping things in proportion even though I look at the reference often. I ghost to try and get a feel for it but things always end up out of proportion- if you have any tips for that I'd like to hear them, please.
It the links aren't working, please let me know.
Revisions
Reference
When it comes to technical drawing, there's no one better than Scott Robertson. I regularly use this book as a reference when eyeballing my perspective just won't cut it anymore. Need to figure out exactly how to rotate an object in 3D space? How to project a shape in perspective? Look no further.
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