Hi there I'll be handling your lesson 2 critique.

You're making progress towards understanding the concepts introduced in this lesson, below I'll be listing some things that will hopefully help you in your future attempts at these exercises.

One thing I notice that's prevalent across the majority of your exercises is you tend to leave a lot of your page blank. Try to keep in mind that a lot of your understanding will develop through mileage so in a way if this is an attempt at saving time it may actually just delay your results in the long run.

• Your arrows are off to a good start, there are some spots where your lines start to wobble which shows you may not be drawing as confidently as you could be. One thing I'd like you to work on is your foreshortening, you don't always push it enough when it comes to the arrow itself and you don't utilize it much in the negative space between the arrow's curves. As seen here by applying foreshortening in both areas we can create a much stronger illusion of an object moving through 3D space.

• In the organic forms with contours exercise your forms are a bit too complex at times. Our goal in this exercise is to create forms where both ends are the same size and to avoid any pinching, bloating, or stretching along the form's length as discussed here. Your contour lines appear a bit stiff at times, again showing a possible lack of confidence, your ellipses are looking like they're on the right track however. I'd like you to work on trying to shift the degree of your contours in the future. The degree of a contour line basically represents the orientation of that cross-section in space, relative to the viewer, and as we slide along the sausage form, the cross section is either going to open up (allowing us to see more of it) or turn away from the viewer (allowing us to see less), as shown here.

• In the texture exercises you're focusing largely on outlines and negative space rather than cast shadows created by forms along the texture itself. This makes it difficult to create gradients with implied information which we could then use to create focal points in more complex pieces, by doing so we can prevent our viewers from being visually overwhelmed with too much detail. For more on the importance of focusing on cast shadows read here, I'd also like to quickly direct you to this image which shows that when we're working with thin line like textures if we outline and fill the shadow we will create a much more dynamic texture than simply drawing lines.

• In the form intersections exercise you left a lot of empty space on your pages, didn't always draw through your ellipses, and didn't attempt to draw the intersections themselves. A few of your forms look like they needed to be planned a bit longer as well because they converge inconsistently. I get the impression you may have either found the intersection concept difficult and weren't comfortable attempting them or you may have been trying to rush towards the end of the lesson but this is very much a case of we need you to follow instructions.

• One of your organic intersections pages is definitely weaker than the other, your forms appear quite flat and your shadows aren't being cast. The other page however is quite well done and definitely shows you can do this. Your shadows could be pushed a bit further, I'd recommend experimenting with lighting positions to build a deeper understanding, people often find pushing the light to the top left or right corner easiest. Remember to give yourself more chances at building up mileage and try filling your pages more.

I won't be moving you on just yet because I need you to put in a proper attempt at the form intersections exercise while following the directions. We don't expect perfection especially in difficult exercises meant to introduce concepts but we do expect your best effort.

Please re-read the form intersections exercise and re-complete all 4 pages, once you've done so put them in an album and reply to this critique. I'll go over them and point out anything that needs to be addressed and move you on to the next lesson once you've shown you're ready.