12:49 AM, Saturday October 15th 2022
Starting with your arrows, you've done a great job of focusing on the fluidity of how these move through the world, by really pushing the confidence with which you've drawn your linework. This carries over really nicely into your leaves, where you're capturing not only how they sit statically in 3D space, but also how they move through the space they occupy. I can also see that you're taking care to build up your edge detail in separate segments, rising off and returning to the existing edge, rather than trying to capture separate pieces of edge detail in a single continuous zigzagging line.
Continuing onto your branches, here you've got a few issues:
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Most notably, you're not extending your edge segments fully halfway to the next ellipse. This is important, and demonstrated here in the instructions. It allows for a healthy overlap between the segments, which in turn helps us achieve a smoother, more seamless transition from one to the next. As yours tend to be quite short, the transition tends to be more visible.
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Right now you're drawing those ellipses all with roughly the same degree. Remember, as noted in the instructions linked above, and in the Lesson 1 ellipses video, the degree of those ellipses should be shifting.
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Be sure to draw through all of your ellipses two full times before lifting your pen. I think you feel you are, but end up falling short much of the time.
Moving onto your plant constructions, there are a number of points I can offer to help you continue to get the most out of these exercises:
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One of the most critical things about construction is maintaining a tight, specific relationship between the different steps. So for example, this can be as simple as ensuring that there are no gaps between the end of a leaf's flow line, and its actual tip. We can see such gaps here for example, where there is an arbitrary amount of space between the end of the flow line and the tip of the petal.
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I noted that you weren't extending your edge segments in the branches exercise far enough - in the stem of this flower (same as in the previous point), you take this a little farther and end up drawing the next segment where the previous one ends - effectively eliminating the overlap altogether.
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I am pleased to see that you're constructing your cylindrical flower pots around a central minor axis line to help in aligning your various ellipses - although leaving it to just an ellipse at the top and bottom simply isn't enough to build out the given structure. At minimum you'd need to include another ellipse inset within the opening to establish the thickness of the rim (you appear to do this more correctly here although ironically you left out the minor axis line), as well as another ellipse to establish the level of the soil, so the plant itself has something to intersect with.
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Also, remember - as noted in my review of your branches exercise, the far end should be getting wider due to the degree shift from that base being farther away.
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I did notice that you included some drawings that appeared to be done from demos - like the hibiscus demo and the daisy demo - but I feel you may be underestimating just how much time you need to invest in observing your reference (or in this case, the step-by-step breakdown for every stage of the process). It does take time, and our impatience can make that difficult, but you need to push yourself to observe each step carefully, to ensure that you're applying it as closely as you reasonably can. For the hibiscus demo, your approach to the edge detail was completely different, and it looks like the daisy was followed more in "spirit", rather than directly. Although if you weren't actually following the daisy demo with this drawing, then ignore that point.
Now, I am going to assign some revisions below so you can demonstrate your understanding of these points, but for these I really want you to push the amount of time you spend on each construction. Don't stop once you've got all the major forms in place - go back to your reference and look for areas where there's additional edge detail, or other smaller forms, and take the time to draw each one with care.
I'd like you to note down beside each construction the dates of the sittings you spent on them, along with a rough estimation of how much time was spent on every such sitting. You are permitted - and encouraged - to spend as many of these sittings and days on a single construction as you need to. All that matters is that you've pushed it as far as you reasonably can.
And, while I do not want you to push into any textural detail for these revisions, I do recommend that you review these notes which explain how to think about texture, as right now you appear to be approaching it more as general decoration, pulled from direct observation rather than drawn based on an understanding of how each individual textural form sits relative to the surfaces around it, and what kinds of shadows it might cast.
Next Steps:
Please submit:
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1 page of branches
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3 pages of plant constructions