Hello I’ll be handling the critique for your lesson 3 homework.

-Arrows

Starting with the organic arrows you’ve done a good job handling the foreshortening of the ribbons, as they increase in width as they move closer to the viewer and at the same time you are also aware of how the negative space between the zigzagging sections of decreases as they move further back as explained here in this diagram https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/011d064f.jpg .

The only thing that may be worth calling out here is the hatching, it seems that your execution of those lines is a little rushed at times, so don't forget to give each individual mrk as much time and attention as necessary to draw it to the best of your ability.

Branches

Moving on to the branches you’re doing a good job following the instructions, although you’ve definitely got some trouble when it comes to making each segment overlap with the previous one. So keep in mind that you should use the previous segment as a sort of runway to guide your next stroke, and make sure that they overlap a good deal. Another issue is that you tend to overshoot , one thing that you can try is to actually draw your marks slower so that you can have better control, but it is a risky game as you may end up with a wobbly line and I think this has to do with your question.

Ultimately, this is a matter of practice,if you have trouble with accurate and confident curves then you may want to practice them more often, just don’t grind page after page of them because that will not get you anywhere.

Lastly, I can see that you are indeed aware of how the ellipses change degree as they move through space.

Leaves

Moving to the leaves you’ve captured the way these move through space, the main issue is that you may have gone in autopilot when adding those bump and cuts, as explained here in the principles of mark making https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/3/consistent , you should take your time to design each individual bump to the edges of the leaves.

I like to see that you’ve constructed some more complex leaf structures and for the most part you’re doing fine, so let's move onto the next section

Plants

-Moving to the actual plant construction you’ve done a good job trying to break them into their more simple elements, there are a few points that I want to call out.

-The first thing I want to talk about is when we draw a flow line or an ellipse to mark where our petals or leaves are going to end we should respect that boundary and do not extend them further, the edges of the leave , segment or whatever should meet right at the spot we’ve designated. For example on the sundew you’ve drawn some ellipses but it is not clear what their relationship to the whole is, it seems that you intended to use them as a sort of boundary to mark where you wanted to extend those filaments but in the end you didn’t respect that decision. The same issue can be seen in the daisy demo where the edges of the petal do not meet right at the tip of each flow line, and the bluebells where you’ve just sort of laid down a cylindrical structure and then drew the actual flowers inside but there is not a clear specific relationship between them.

This may seem nitpicky at first, but this is one of the most important things these lessons will teach you, to respect each decision you make on the page and plan it carefully beforehand, although right now we’re just getting used to using the construction method, so just keep it in mind.

-The second issue has to do with lineweight, keep in mind that we should reserve it only to clarify how forms overlap with each other, so don’t apply to the entire silhouette of a leaf like you did on the banana plant, as it can quickly flatten things, here is the relevant diagram https://imgur.com/WILCymm .

Another thing that can quickly flatten things is a bold use of cast shadows like you did on the pink mushroom, it is important that whenever you apply texture you should also keep in mind to make a gradient, that is a region with a high density of detail that moves to a regions much more sparse as explained in these notes https://drawabox.com/lesson/2/2/density .

On both mushrooms it seems that you are relying a good bit on outlines, as you are drawing the entire textural form along with its cast shadow, so try to only draw the shadows and do not worry too much about outlining the form casting it.

Okay that is about everything I wanted to address, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, good luck in the next one.