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7:59 PM, Monday October 26th 2020

Starting with your arrows, they're drawn such that they flow smoothly and confidently through space, but I did notice that you're not applying any foreshortening to the spacing between your zigzagging sections as shown here in the instructions. That same confidence and fluidity is quite apparent in your leaves as well, where you're doing a great job of capturing not only how they sit in space, but also how they move through the space they occupy.

I'm also pleased to see that you played with the addition of more complex edge detail, and did so by building off the previous phase of construction, instead of zigzagging your lines more loosely. The only criticism I have here has to do with the detail you were adding. There were some places where you were more clearly trying to capture the veins along the surface of your leaves, but you did so representing each vein as a line. As discussed back in lesson 2, all your textural marks are to be drawn as cast shadow shapes, not lines, and that you need to think in terms of the forms themselves, and the shadows they cast. Given that this was just one lesson ago, you should be taking far more care in keeping the things we've covered previously in mind.

Moving onto the branches, these are coming along decently, though I did notice a pretty strong tendency in many cases not to extend your segments fully halfway to the next ellipse. As shown in the instructions, extending those segments as far as requested is important because it allows for an overlap between the segments. This overlap helps us transition from one to the next both smoothly and seamlessly.

Continuing onto the plant constructions, you have for the most part done a pretty great job! You're respecting the principles of construction quite a bit, building things up bit by bit, rather than skipping through steps and delving into greater complexity than the existing structure can support. There were just a few minor points I wanted to mention:

  • I noticed a tendency in some cases when drawing leaves that you appeared to redraw the entirety of a leaf's edges with every phase of construction. For example, we can see this here, where you appear to have redrawn even the bits that fell right on top of the previous phase of construction. You can see what I mean in this diagram, although I also have this demonstration for the same kind of leaf. Similarly, [the petals in this poppy]() were given a single continuous wavy edge. It's always best to try and create every individual bump of the wave separately, instead of trying to control the single line back and forth throughout its entire length.

  • The flower pot for this plant (it just occurs to me that it's the same one I referenced previously) has two issues. Firstly, you appear to try and maintain the same degree for both ellipses. The one that's farther away (the bottom one) will have a somewhat wider ellipse than the end that is closer to the viewer. Also, keep in mind that the flower pots themselves are not simple cylinders - they have thickness to them, and little rims, that should also be captured. You did a much better job of this here.

Aside from those points, you're doing a great job. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.

Next Steps:

Feel free to move onto lesson 4.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
11:35 PM, Monday October 26th 2020

Thank you very much for your detailed feedback! I'll definately take these points on board for the future lessons.

I've already started using these techniques in some of my 'drawing for fun' projects which I'm really excited about!

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