Hello Ninnicoop, I'm ThatOneMushroomGuy and I'll be the TA handling your critique today.

Arrows

Starting with your arrows you're drawing your marks with a great deal of confidence which helps solidify the feeling of fluidity that arrows posses as they move through all the three dimensions of the world they exist in. You're making good usage of the depth of the page with your application of foreshortening to your arrows.

It's good to see that you're making use of added lineweight on top of your overlaps in order to clarify the depth of the overlaps, however keep in mind that lineweight must be subtle - a single line superimposed only on top of the overlaps where the lines meet, not the entire length of the line, as too much lineweight can soften the distinction between forms, and flatten the structure out somewhat.

I'm also happy to see that you're making use of some really nicely applied hatching to your work, as this helps you clarify how your arrows twist and turn in 3d space, but the placement of your hatching can be improved as there are a couple of times where you've added it to the incorrec side of the arrow's overlap, making it seem like your arrow is getting bigger the further away it is, and becoming smaller as it gets closer, which goes against the rules of perspective.

• Perspective works in the following manner: things that are further away from the viewer will look smaller, and as they get closer to the viewer they'll look bigger. The way this affects an object of consistent size and width that stretches across space is that certain segments of this object will look bigger and others smaller, either gradually or dramatically depending on the perspective of the scene, as such the bigger part of the arrow will always be the one that's closest to the viewer so the segment that's behind it should be the one receiving the hatching.

In general you're doing well, so keep tackling this exercise during your warm ups in order take your understanding of arrows and 3D space further, experiment with the different ways arrows can twist and bend and move across space, try different rates of foreshortening and experiment with the negative space between overlaps, all of these will help you challenge yourself and develop your skills further.

Leaves

The fluidity present in your arrows translates really nicely into these new structures, they have a great sense of energy and it's good that you're not only trying to capture how your leaves sit statically within space, but also how they move across it from moment to moment.

It's good to see that you've experimented with some complex leaf structures and to great effect at times, such as in here but remember not to skip construction steps when approaching these more intricate structures.

This leaf structure could really use a tighter and more specific construction, as you skip construction steps by trying to capture the complex shape of the leaf structure right away, cutting back into the initial structure you've drawn which stiffens and flattens your form, zigzagging your edge detail is also a mistake that goes against the third principle of mark-making from Lesson 1.

Your edge detail is looking quite well made, you generally don't attempt to capture more than one piece of edge detail at a time although there are a couple of times where you fall into this bad habit, so make sure to keep it in mind, and you're often approaching your construction additively whenever possible - as well as putting it down with the same general line thickness as the rest of your construction, all of these are good things that help you construct solid and tight structures that still feel fluid and energetic.

Branches

Continuing on to your branches they're coming along quite decently as you're generally following the instructions for the exercise. You have some visible tails in your compound strokes, but this is completely normal and a mistake we all make, as you continue practicing your accuracy will naturally improve.

One thing you should keep an eye on for this exercise is to make sure that you're always extending your lines fully to the halfway point between ellipses, at times you only extend your lines slightly up to the next ellipse point, which partially removes the healthy overlaps we seek to achieve with this methodology.

It's good to see that you're following the instructions for drawing knots and forking branches correctly.

For your ellipses it's good to see that you're making an attempt to always draw through them twice, as that allows for a smoother mark. It's also good to see that you seem generally aware of the ellipse degree shift, but be careful, as there are times where your ellipses' degrees don't change when they should, or get wider when they should be thinner, and thinner when they should be wider, if the rate of change in your degrees is not in line with the rules of perspective you will end up flattening your structures by accident.

Plant Construction Section

And lastly let's take a look at your plant constructions, which are looking incredibly well made, you're sticking to the construction methods and techniques introduced in this Lesson which helps you to create some very tridimensional and solid looking constructions, you're demonstrating a strong sense of spatial reasoning in these pages.

You're not only trying to capture what these structures look like, but you're focusing on how they work, how they exist fully in their tridimensional space by drawing through your forms which and carefully thinking about the way each piece of your construction exists in 3d space and how the different parts of your structure exist in relation to one another.

This is all very good and it's helping you develop a strong sense of spatial reasoning, there are only a couple of small things that if kept in mind, which will help you take your work from great to awesome.

Because we're drawing on a flat piece of paper, we have a lot of freedom to make whatever marks we choose - it just so happens that the majority of those marks will contradict the illusion you're trying to create and remind the viewer that they're just looking at a series of lines on a flat piece of paper. In order to avoid this and stick only to the marks that reinforce the illusion we're creating, we can force ourselves to adhere to certain rules as we build up our constructions. Rules that respect the solidity of our construction.

• For example - once you've put a form down on the page, do not attempt to alter its silhouette. Its silhouette is just a shape on the page which represents the form we're drawing, but its connection to that form is entirely based on its current shape. If you change that shape, you won't alter the form it represents - you'll just break the connection, leaving yourself with a flat shape. We can see this most easily in this example of what happens when we cut back into the silhouette of a form.

• While this is something that you do generally respect, we can see some spots in this Venus Flytrap where you did cut back into some of your forms here, as well as in this cactus.

• This can also happen accidentally when dealing with looser ellipses. This can be handled pretty easily though by simply treating your ellipse's outermost perimeter as the edge of the form's silhouette, as this keeps any stray marks contained within the form itself.

In quite a few places in your constructions, it's possible to see several lines drawn over and over again, such as in this Succulent construction and in the petals for this flower, while it's possible to tell some of this was lineweight that wasn't completely accurate, there are times such as in here where there's 3-4 marks drawn in the same place, attempting to capture the same edge.

Never forget the principles of ghosting and mark-making, you must carefully plan your lines and put your energy into ghosting it, and once you're certain of the mark you wish to draw, draw it swiftly and with confidence, if the mark turns out as planned, great! If not, oh well, move on to the next mark, but ask yourself why so that you can attempt to avoid the same mistakes next time. Never redo a mark, the same goes for added lineweight, it shouldn't be thick and focused on the silhouette of your structure such as in this mushroom, as this can soften the distinction between the overlaps, almost as if pulling a sock over a vase. Instead it must be added subtly on top of your mark, focused on clarifying the way different forms overlap one another.

Now let's talk about your usage of texture which can certainly use some more work, as it's not adhering to the principles of texture as it's taught in Drawabox as closely as it should. You focus a lot of form shadows when adding big areas of black, and when adding it to other structures you often make very timid, thin marks, which is a step in the right direction as it shows you're thinking about cast shadows, but there's a lot more that we can do.

Let's revisit how texture in Drawabox is approached, by looking back at this page we can refresh our memory and see that texture through the lens of Drawabox is not used to make our work aesthetic or pretty, instead every textural form we draw is based on what's physically present in our reference. Our focus should be on understanding how each individual form sits in 3D space and how that form then creates a shadow that is cast onto that same surface, after analyzing all of the information present in our reference we'll be able to translate it to our study. This means that the shape of our shadow is important as it's the shape that defines the relationships between the form casting it and the surface it's being cast on, which is why we need to consider carefully how to design a shadow shape that feels dynamic.

This approach is of course much harder than basing our understanding of texture on other methods that may seem more intuitive or basing it on the idea that texture = making our work look good, but in the long run this method of applying texture is the one that enforces the ideals of spatial reasoning taught in this course. By following these ideals, you'll find yourself asking how to convey texture in the most efficient way possible, with less lines and ink, focusing on the implicit mark-making techniques introduced in Lesson 2. Going forward here are a couple of final reminders of how texture in Drawabox is approached.

Final Thoughts

You're doing some amazing work here, you're showing a great sense of form and understanding of tridimensional space. You're using the techniques and methods introduced in this lesson to great effect and capturing really solid tridimensional objects on your page.

I'm going to be marking this lesson as complete, I believe you've understood the purpose of these exercises and executed them really nicely, I believe you're ready to tackle the challenges in the next lesson. Good luck in Lesson 4.