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4:58 PM, Saturday October 15th 2022
edited at 5:04 PM, Oct 15th 2022

Hello Farhanthenerd, thanks for replying with your revisions.

Starting with your arrows, these look great. Your lines are smooth and confident, your arrows are flowing through space and you haven’t been afraid to overlap your edges. The whole page demonstrates better planning and control than your previous submission, good work. I think the large arrow on the left was the most successful, you have compressed both the width of the arrow and the space between the folds as it moves further away through space, well done. The arrow in the middle, you’ve applied your hatching and line weight in such a way that you’re telling the viewer that the narrow end of the arrow is closer than the wide end, which is a contradiction. The two in the lower right corner don’t show much change in width, so I would struggle to identify which end was nearest without your use of line weight and hatching to clarify. Try to avoid leaving little gaps like these https://imgur.com/a/Kjri726 it harms the illusion that you’re drawing something solid and three dimensional. Overall you’re showing a really good understanding of this exercise, well done.

Moving on to your branches, these are an improvement. You’ve remembered to draw your central flow line for all of them.

Remember to draw through your ellipses two full times before lifting your pen, this is something I spoke about on your plant constructions, and as explained on the tables of ellipses page here https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/12/drawingthrough something you should do for all drawabox lessons.

Remember to vary the degree of your ellipses to show how your branches are oriented in space. If you’re not sure what I mean by the degree of your ellipses, please give the ellipses section of lesson 1 another read https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/5 and watch the video demonstration too. As for how the degree might relate to branches, check out the pinned messages in the lesson 2 channel on discord and take a good look at the slinky photographs. Analyse how that coil looks from different angles.

For the sides of the branches I can see you’re building them in segments but be sure to extend each edge segment fully halfway to the next ellipse as noted here in the instructions https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/18463269.png (you're doing it for some of them, but not consistently)

Moving on to your leaves, you’re showing a much clearer understanding of what you’re being asked to do. The sides of your leaves look like they’re aiming to close the shape of your leaves now, even though they don’t always get there.

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 https://imgur.com/a/Htv10lx for example, where there is an arbitrary amount of space between the end of the flow line and the tip of the leaves. Aside from that point, the cluster of leaves sprouting from a single point on the top left of the page is fairly well done.

Looking at the leaf on the top right of your page, I cannot determine which one(1) line was your central flow line, or which 2 simple curves were the sides. The central flow line must be one continuous line, and the sides must start at one end of your flow line, and end at the other, with no gaps.

Remember - what we're doing here is not putting down a rough sketch to use as a guide. We are effectively introducing a structure to the world, as though it were a simple leaf shape cut out of a piece of paper, and as we add edge detail to it or build up its structure, we are actively making physical changes to that existing form. If we want to add spikes to its edge, we're physically adding more pieces of paper to it. If we want to create a wobbly edge, we are physically drooping and lifting sections of its perimeter in 3D space. And if we want to cut into its silhouette, then the lines we're drawing represent the paths a pair of scissors would follow to cut it out, as shown here https://imgur.com/5XgDo9K

The three(?) leaves at the bottom of the page show you skipping ahead through your constructional steps and not defining things clearly, look at this image https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/c61742f4.jpg to see how to build compound leaves.

The bottom two leaves also go off the edge of your page. This was something I spoke about in your plant constructions. One of the aims of this course is to improve your spacial reasoning skills. One of the ways we do this is to treat our drawings as solid constructions, and to clearly define the relationships of all the forms within them. When we draw incomplete forms (or incomplete leaves) by running them off the edge of the page (or by not completing both forms when there is an overlap) we lose out on a good deal of the learning process, as we’re only drawing half the puzzle piece. Drawing things going off the page tells me that you’re not planning your marks, which is the first stage of the ghosting method introduced in lesson 1 https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/10/planning if you have a hard time visualising where your mark needs to go it is perfectly fine to place dots for the start and end points, even as we move forward to more complicated exercises and constructions. While accuracy is a secondary priority (compared to the confidence of the stroke), if you happen to not be applying the ghosting method here, or if you aren't applying it in its entirety (with an ample investment of time in the planning and preparation phases for each mark), do be sure to as it'll help reinforce your control without costing your confidence.

To summarise, your arrows are good, your branches show a good enough understanding of the exercise that I think you can address the points I’ve raised on your own during your warm ups. Your leaves show some improvement but I’m going to ask you to do another page of them. If you have not already done so, reread the exercise instructions and re-watch the video, https://drawabox.com/lesson/3/2/videoleaves follow the instructions as closely as you possibly can. Plan every mark you make, take your time and use the ghosting method. Close your shapes and try not to leave any arbitrary gaps between lines that should meet. If you have any questions please ask.

Next Steps:

Please complete 1 more page of leaves.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
edited at 5:04 PM, Oct 15th 2022
8:28 AM, Saturday October 22nd 2022
11:51 AM, Saturday October 22nd 2022
edited at 11:53 AM, Oct 22nd 2022

Okay, there’s definitely some improvement here. I can clearly see that you’ve started with a central flow line and two simple curves for the sides of your leaf in every case, and on most of them it looks like you made a good attempt at having them connect together. I’ve done a mark up on your work here https://imgur.com/a/6qI9lSb in red are some areas where you’re still leaving arbitrary gaps between your marks (and one where you did much better, marked with a tick and “good” well done) Accuracy will improve with mindful practice, so that’s just something to keep working on as you go forward.

Marked in blue are a couple of notes on edge detail. One place where you did great, and another where there is room for improvement. Here’s another diagram from Comfy showing how to build edge detail in stages using simple marks, which may help you. https://imgur.com/MXCZGDy

Marked in orange are 3 places where you went off the page. I’ve already spoken at length why it is better to keep your forms contained on the page and discussed strategies to help you control your marks. If you didn’t understand, please let me know and I will try to explain another way.

This is a big improvement from your first page of leaves, and while there’s still things to work on I think you will learn more by moving on to lesson 4, so I’ll go ahead and mark this as complete. Good luck with your exams.

Next Steps:

Feel free to move on to lesson 4

This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete. In order for the student to receive their completion badge, this critique will need 2 agreements from other members of the community.
edited at 11:53 AM, Oct 22nd 2022
12:05 PM, Sunday October 23rd 2022

thank you. l'd like to ask something. I don't know if it's just me but when you are mindful of something it's really hard for me to keep it consistent. so, any tips on remembering certain principals when drawing??

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