Lesson 3: Applying Construction to Plants

5:38 PM, Friday April 12th 2024

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Dear critic,

Here's my homework for lesson 3. I had a long break in between starting and finishing the homework and realized afterwards that I should have refreshed my memory using the demonstration videos but decided to not redo any pages of the homework and go ahead with the submission. I will leave the rest to you and go back to practicing.

Sincerely,

Matti

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10:02 PM, Wednesday April 17th 2024

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

Arrows

Starting with your arrows you're drawing your marks with a good deal of confidence which helps solidify the feeling of fluidity that arrows possess as they move through all the three dimensions of the world they exist in. However your arrows are too contained to the space of your page and they have little to no foreshortening, make sure to explore the size difference between arrow segments more in order to make better use of the depth of the page and push your understanding of tridimensional space further.

Your usage of hatching helps you establish how your arrows twist and turn in space and further your own understanding of the tridimensional space these objects occupy, it's good that you're making use of added line weight on top of the overlaps in order to reinforce their depth.

In general you're moving in the right direction, so try to get out of your comfort zone more often the next time you tackle this exercise, try arrows with different kinds of twists and turns and different rates of foreshortening, construct your second arrow mark in segments with the ghosting method, so that you can gauge the size difference between different segments in order to make better use of foreshortening, keep in mind that arrows are very flexible objects and can move freely across the world in all sorts of manners, so you should push yourself and explore the different possibilities.

Leaves

The linework for your leaves is looking smooth which helps communicate their fluidity and sense of energy, it's good that you're not only trying to capture how these structures sit statically within space, but also how they move across it from moment to moment.

However you also have some unnatural bends present in your leaves. Keep in mind that even though leaves are very flexible structures, that mostly applies to their length and not their width. They're like a piece of paper, not a piece of rubber, they can fold and bend in a lot of ways, but they can't stretch or compress, and if you try to force them to they'll simply rip apart.

It's good to see that you've experimented with complex leaf structures but remember not to skip construction steps when approaching these more intricate structures.

These structures are looser than they could be, because you did not establish the imaginary space that all of the later structures should abide to, despite complex structures being made up of several different parts, they still exist as a single entity, by not skipping construction steps you can ensure that your constructions are much more solid and specific.

You need to make use of edge detail more thoroughly in your work, especially in your plant construction pages, but in general your addition of edge detail is looking good, as you don't usually attempt to capture more than one piece of edge detail at a time, and you generally construct your edge detail additively. You're also keeping the line thickness between your phases of construction roughly consistent, all of which is very good and helps you create a tighter, more solid construction that still feels fluid and energetic.

Branches

Moving on to your branches they are coming along really decently made as you're following the instructions for the exercise, you're drawing your edges in segments which allows you to maintain higher control over your marks and helps you create solid but still organic looking structures.

For your ellipses you are not always drawing through them twice which is a mistake that causes your ellipses to be looser than they should be.

When it comes to your application of the ellipse degree shift to your branches it can be improved, as it stands your degrees are too consistent and hardly change which is a mistake that flattens your structures. Remember that as a form shifts in relation to the viewer, so will the degree of the ellipses within that structure also shift.

Plant Construction Section

And lastly let's take a look at your plant constructions, which are coming along quite nicely made. You're generally making use of the construction methods and techniques introduced in this Lesson which helps you create the illusion of tridimensionality in your work, you're not only trying to capture what these structures look like, but you also focus on how they work, how they exist fully in tridimensional space by drawing through your forms and thinking about the way each piece of your construction exists in relation to one another.

This is all very good and it's helping you develop a strong sense of spatial reasoning, there are only a couple of small things that if kept in mind will help you take your work to the next level.

First things first, an issue that hurts your work without you even realizing is the fact that you're pre-planning the amount of constructions you want to fit on a given page before you've even committed to any of them. Because of this your pages have big empty spaces that could have been better used not by adding more drawings to your page, but instead by limiting them, which would allow you not only more room to work through the spatial reasoning challenges that arise when tackling these exercises, but also give you enough space to fully engage your whole arm.

As it stands your constructions are too small and you have also chosen some very complex structures which has limited your ability to make use of the construction methods and techniques introduced in your work.

In general you gravitated towards the same type of plant for the majority of your plant constructions, structures with stems and lots of leaves, usually in a vase. While this is not necessarily a mistake it does mean that you haven't challenged yourself as much and that you haven't tackled different types of construction challenges that other structures such as mushrooms, cacti or fruits could provide. So going forward don't forget to keep this in mind, get out of your comfort zone more often so that you can further develop your sense of spatial reasoning.

When approaching cylindrical structures such as plant pots make sure to start with a minor axis in order to keep your several ellipses aligned to each other more easily. Going further don't forget to construct the outer rim that's present in most types of plant pots, and make sure to add a ground plane to your structures, this line is necessary when constructing plant pots because otherwise your structure will look like it's floating in mind air, which breaks the illusion of the construction.

You're not making a lot of use of edge detail in your pages, edge detail would have greatly helped you further communicate the form of your structures and how they move through space, but by not adding it they're left very simple, so make sure to add edge detail whenever possible, and remember that only the last step of leaf construction - texture - is optional.

Final Thoughts

In general you are doing well, I believe that in these pages you have demonstrated that you do understand the way these construction methods and techniques should be used and why they're important for your work even if it can be improved upon, as such I'm going to be marking this submission as complete. Good luck in Lesson 4.

Next Steps:

Don't forget to add these exercises to your list of warm ups.

Good luck in Lesson 4.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
3:51 PM, Saturday April 20th 2024

Hi ThatOneMushroomGuy and thank you so much for the detailed response. I'm feeling a bit of a mental breakthrough as I'm processing the feedback and looking back at the homework.

I wholeheartedly agree with everything you pointed out. I still struggle with concentrating on my practice which leads to me skipping constructions steps, making unnatural lines, not going out of my comfort zone or not properly drawing through shapes and what have you. I'll work on my weaknesses, try to focus more and apply myself to each step more carefully.

That being said, thank you for approving the homework. I hope with more milage I'll do better going forward.

Sincerely, Matti

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