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5:34 PM, Thursday May 21st 2020
Before I get into the critique, one suggestion for the future - as you're scanning your work, it looks like you're using a setting that ramps up the contrast of the resulting image, which takes away a lot of the nuance and subtlety of your lines. This often happens when students use a "drawing" preset in their scans. If you are relying on a preset, try and stick to the "photo" ones as they will capture your work more accurately.
So, starting on your arrows, you're doing a pretty good job of drawing these such that they flow fluidly across the page. One thing to keep an eye on however is that while you're applying perspective to the positive space (the width of your actual ribbons, which narrows as they move farther away), perspective is also applied at the same rate to the negative space - that is, the distances between the zigzagging sections. Perspective doesn't just apply to physical objects, it compresses all space as we look farther away.
Moving onto your organic forms with contour lines, you're definitely trying to move in the direction of sticking to simple sausage forms as explained here, but you're ending up with a few small deviations. For example, you've got cases where the ends of your sausages aren't spherical - sometimes they're more stretched out, causing a "pointier" end.
Looking at your actual contour lines, you're doing a good job of keeping them snugly positioned between the edges of the sausage forms. You are however too focused on this kind of accuracy, too early. Your first priority should be to draw those lines with confidence, and without any hesitation, in order to keep them smooth and evenly shaped. You are ending up with stiffness in your lines, especially in your ellipses. Don't forget that the ghosting method should be applied here as well, as its whole purpose is to split the mark making process into different steps, each with their own individual responsibilities, so you can execute your marks confidently without guilt, fear or hesitation. I explain this further in this response to another student.
In addition to this, your contour lines tend to all maintain the same width/degree throughout the length of the form. The degree of the contour line represents the orientation of this cross-section in space, relative to the direction the viewer is looking. This will change depending on where along the sausage we're sampling, as shown here, and so the degree should get wider/narrower as we slide along it.
Your work in the textures section is coming along well. You're definitely moving in the direction of thinking more in terms of shadow shapes rather than outlining everything beforehand. That said, there is still plenty of room for improvement on this front. For example, looking at your dissections where you've got textures with specific individual textural forms (like scales, for example) you still have a tendency to outline them all entirely. This doesn't allow for any sort of transition from dense/dark to sparse/light, and forces you to draw out each individual scale in its entirety. Remember that as explained here we're not to draw the textural forms themselves explicitly. We are implying their presence by drawing the shadows they cast on their surroundings.
Moving onto your form intersections, you've got a pretty good start. You're drawing the forms such that they feel cohesive and consistent within the same space, and you're applying the ghosting method quite nicely to most of these. Many of your narrower ellipses are also coming along really nicely - though I still do have to stress the importance of drawing through your ellipses for every ellipse you draw for these lessons. That means drawing around the elliptical shape 2 times ideally, and no more than 3. With the sphere on the top of this page you definitely drew through them too many times, and the bases of the cones you didn't draw through them enough.
When it comes to the intersections themselves, you've got a good start. I really only want students to try them here, so it can serve as an introduction - planting a seed - to a concept that we're going to explore much further throughout the rest of the lessons in this course. It's all about spatial relationships - understanding how those forms relate to one another in 3D space, which is at the core of Drawabox itself.
Lastly, you're doing okay with your organic intersections, though I think your linework leaves a lot to be desired. They're drawn quite stiffly and hesitantly, you're definitely drawing more slowly and not applying the ghosting method to your strokes here. You are however establishing these forms as being piled up with clear interactions in 3D space, and you are conveying a sense of gravity which is forcing those forms to slump and sag over one another. So as far as the exercise itself goes, you're fine, but your linework needs to be improved and your use of the ghosting method definitely needs more attention.
So! All in all, you're making good progress. As such, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete - but be sure to continue incorporating the exercises from Lesson 1, the box challenge, and Lesson 2 as part of your regular warmup routine.
Next Steps:
Move onto lesson 3.
6:13 AM, Friday May 22nd 2020
Thankyou very much for this long critique! I have a question to the last part about my linework. I can actually feel how I´m hesitating when drawing these big organic shapes with their curved lines. I don´t really know if I should draw these lines in one go or if I can split them. For example, when I draw these contour lines which are made of a big closed shape, I don´t really know how to do that because I get nervous about messing them up. I feel like its simply a too long stroke to do in one go. Do you have a tip for me?
3:19 PM, Friday May 22nd 2020
A lot of students do struggle with that, and many wonder if they should split things up into separate strokes. While there's nothing inherently wrong with splitting it up (assuming you're able to still make it appear like a seamless, continuous stroke all the way around with no breaks in its flow - something that is very hard to do), I'd still recommend you push yourself to try and complete them in one go. There are a few pieces of advice I have to offer:
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The obvious one - make sure you're drawing from your shoulder. It can be easy to accidentally slip back into drawing from your elbow, which limits your ability to turn evenly around the ends of the sausages.
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In describing the ghosting method, I specifically avoid talking about drawing "fast". I say that you should execute your mark confidently, without hesitation, etc. This is because as we continue to practice the use of the ghosting method, we will gradually find it easier to slow down a little without hesitating. Meaning, we still maintain a confident pace, but are able to regain a little more control which can in this case help a lot with the kinds of turns the sausages require.
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We all get nervous when we have to make a mark on the page - it comes out of a fear of making a mistake. Don't forget, however, that to hesitate is still a conscious choice you're making. It comes back to the explanation I gave about the ghosting method being all about separating the proces of mark making into stages each with their own responsibilities, so we can ultimately execute the mark without fear, guilt, or hesitation. Make sure you read the response to another student that I linked in my previous critique, as it lays out exactly why your nervousness should not be a factor when your pen touches the page.
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