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1:22 AM, Tuesday May 3rd 2022
Starting with your arrows, you're doing quite well. You've drawn these with a fair bit of confidence, which helps to push the sense of fluidity with which they move through the world. This carries over somewhat into your leaves, where - especially towards the top of the page - you're doing a good job of establishing how they not only sit statically in 3D space, but also how they move through the space they occupy. That said, the lower ones are more prone to being a little more rigid. One thing that can help with this is to add a little arrow head on the tip of your flow line. This can create a mental connection between this exercise and the one before it, and really push the sense of how important that flow line is in establishing how the whole leaf is meant to move through the world.
When it comes to how you've built up your edge detail, what I'm seeing here suggests that while you're applying the technique decently, you are kind of going on auto-pilot. That is, reproducing the same pattern rather than pulling this information from an actual reference - or if you are pulling it from a reference, not observing that reference frequently enough to capture any subtler variation. Additionally, avoid cases where you try to zigzag back and forth, as we see here. Each piece of edge detail should be a separate mark, rising off the existing edge and returning to it to create either a cohesive cut into or extension of its silhouette, as explained here.
Continuing onto your branches, I noticed two main issues. Firstly, you need to be extending your edge segments fully halfway to the next ellipse, as shown here in the instructions. This helps us achieve a smoother, more seamless transition from one edge to the next, through the overlap between them. Additionally, though a more minor point - remember that the degree of your ellipses corresponds to the orientation of the circle they represent in 3D space. As discussed in the Lesson 1 ellipses video, those ellipses are going to change their degree based on how the cylindrical structure turns in space - though with a basic rule of thumb that as they get farther away from the viewer, they're generally going to get wider.
Lastly, moving onto your plant constructions, I think you may have made something of a wrong call here. It's nothing we cannot resolve and address, but what I'm seeing here is that you prioritized:
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Drawing more smaller drawings on each page, rather than giving each one as much room as it requires - something that can definitely impede our brain's capacity for spatial reasoning, while also making it harder to engage our whole arm from the shoulder when drawing. The best approach to use here is to ensure that the first drawing on a given page is given as much room as it requires. Only when that drawing is done should we assess whether there is enough room for another. If there is, we should certainly add it, and reassess once again. If there isn't, it's perfectly okay to have just one drawing on a given page as long as it is making full use of the space available to it.
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Attempting each object multiple times, rather than giving each individual drawing, and every form and mark therein, as much time as you need to execute it to the best of your ability - as well as spending as much time as is required to observe your reference carefully and continuously. There are definitely signs here that marks were not necessarily drawn as well as you could, given more time - but that you prioritized quantity of practice over quality of practice.
As a result, your drawings are definitely not meeting the main responsibility students have when working through this course - this is not the best of which you are currently capable. Investing more time into each drawing, and giving them more room, will give you better results. Do not focus on trying to get things done quickly. Focus on getting them done as well as you can.
Lastly, it seems here - though it's unclear due to some of them being quite rushed - it looks like all of your drawings here are derived from my demonstrations. As mentioned in the assignment section, no more than half of your homework drawings may be done from the demonstrations.
Of course, I actually do think you can pull this off quite well - you just need to take more care with your work, and be a little more intentional with your choices. You'll find your revisions assigned below. They should give you ample opportunity to address these issues.
Next Steps:
Please submit the following:
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1 page, half of leaves, half of branches
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4 pages of plant constructions - none of which may be done from the demonstrations. Do not just draw the same thing over and over.
Also, I recommend you watch this relatively new addition to Lesson 0 before doing the revisions. Might give you a better sense of how to approach the work throughout this course.
4:20 AM, Monday May 30th 2022
7:58 PM, Monday May 30th 2022
One thing I did notice was that I'd assigned half a page of leaves and half a page of branches, and you seem to have done a full-ish page of both. You'll note that in that video I included for you to watch in my revisions, I really stress the importance of doing only the quantity of work that is assigned. When it comes to half pages it's not a huge deal, but it does stand out given that it was one of the things stressed in that video, and does make me wonder whether you're paying close attention to the instructions you're given.
Leaves
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You're generally building up edge detail correctly here, in terms of the steps outlined in the lesson.
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I did notice that the edge detail you added was very repetitive however, which suggests that it was done from your imagination rather than reference, or if you did use reference, that you did not observe it continuously and consistently, and worked more from memory. If you didn't use reference here, be sure to do so in the future, and if you did, you'll want to go back through this section from Lesson 2. It occurs to me that this is actually the same issue I called out previously, minus the zigzagging.
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Currently all of your individual edge detail marks start and stop right where they hit the existing edge from the previous phase of construction. This isn't a mistake - not necessarily anyway. It depends on what you're after. If you're making dramatic spikes or cuts on the edge of the leaf, then these kinds of sudden jumps from the previous edge to a new trajectory is appropriate. We can see this in cases like this. If however our intent is to achieve a smooth, wavy edge - where it's just that the edge of the leaf rises and falls - then we would instead want to have our additional edge detail follow that existing edge in order to come out of it seamlessly, rise off its edge, then return to it just as smoothly and seamlessly. When we have something that looks like it's just meant to be a wavy edge, but that doesn't run smoothly into that existing edge, it becomes confusing as to what is being communicated, as shown here. It could be correct, if you're drawing a strange leaf, but in essence you should have a good reason for making that conscious choice.
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When drawing the veins on the leaves - which is texture - be sure to apply the textural markmaking concepts we covered in Lesson 2. You can see an example of how we can use implicit marks, drawing the shadows those veins cast on their surroundings, on the leaves exercise instructions diagram. Do not represent the veins, which are 3D forms, as lines. Focus instead on understanding how those forms exist in space, and use that understanding to design shadow shapes that imply the presence of those forms, as explained here. This is more of a reminder - texture is quite challenging, and I don't expect students to be able to do it perfectly, or even correctly, right now. I just wanted to point out that representing entire forms with singular lines deviates quite dramatically from what we discussed in Lesson 2.
Branches
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You are still neglecting to have your edge segments overlap one another. Instead of having one edge start at an ellipse, continue past the second, and stop halfway to the third, and having the next edge start at the second ellipse, continue past the third, and stop halfway to the fourth (which is what is demonstrated here in the instructions), you're having them start/stop at the same point, eliminating any overlap and resulting in a very sudden, jarring jump from one to the next.
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You're also not shifting the degree of the ellipse of your degrees wider as we move farther along the length of the tube structure.
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One point I didn't call out previously because it wasn't all that prevalent is unfortunately much more common in your work now - you need to be drawing through each ellipse two full times around the shape before lifting your pen, as discussed back in Lesson 1.
As far as the branches go, you have not really corrected any of the points I raised in my original critique.
Plant Constructions
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You appear not to be applying the multi-step leaf construction process in a number of places, like here and here
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Your linework as a whole is very rushed and sloppy - it doesn't seem like you're taking the time to work through the planning and preparation phases of the ghosting method for each and every mark. This results in a lot more haphazardness to your lines, more gaps in your forms' silhouettes, and so on. What I'm seeing here isn't a matter of "student is unable to draw the marks well", but rather "student isn't giving themselves enough time to execute the marks to the best of their current ability".
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When drawing the flower pot for this one, you haven't applied any of the principles from the earlier lessons, where we talk about working with complete and solid forms, building up one step at a time. You drew a flat shape purely from observation. Instead, as shown here you can build it up around a cylinder (which itself would be built around a minor axis), adding some more ellipses to establish the thickness of the rim and the level of the soil as needed.
Now I will not make any assumptions as to why you've continued to run into issues here (many of which were either a core part of the course material you've already gone through, addressed specifically in the lesson material, or addressed in my previous round of feedback). Some students run into language barrier issues, while others may simply may be careless, reading the feedback/material when they receive it, and then jumping into the work weeks later without reviewing it once more.
Whatever the case, it is your responsibility to ensure that you are using the information that is provided, and not relying on the instructor or TA to repeat them. This was actually another point stressed in that video I'd linked before.
I'm going to reassign the same revisions, but your feedback for them is going to be pass/fail. Either the work is adequately applying the points I've raised here, in which case I'll say so and mark the lesson as complete, or the work will not adequately address those issues, in which case I will send you for a full redo of lesson 3's homework. That isn't to be punitive, but it is merely that you've gone well beyond what I can reasonably provide for the 2 credits you've spent on the Lesson 3 critique.
Next Steps:
Please submit:
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1/2 page of leaves, 1/2 page of branches
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4 pages of plant constructions
9:04 PM, Friday June 17th 2022
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