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8:10 PM, Monday November 2nd 2020
Some of your drawings are visibly more haphazard, but others are coming along noticeably better, so I'm going to be focusing on this one.
Here are some issues that jumped out at me, which I pointed out here.
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While you are clearly making an effort to use the sausage method, you are not adhering to all of its steps (for example, you're not reinforcing the joint between the sausages as explained in the middle of the sausage method diagram). This is an important step because defining the relationships between your forms in 3D space goes a long way to making them each feel solid and three dimensional. Otherwise they read largely as flat shapes, with no real reason to be interpreted otherwise. This technique can be used for all of our forms, and the contour lines that sit at the joint between forms are always going to be vastly more impactful than those that sit along the surface of a single form.
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Construction is all about building things up with solid, three dimensional forms - this means that any action you take that contradicts the solidity of a form you've already drawn is going to undermine that for the entire drawing. Looking at how you constructed the head, you cut back into its initial silhouette because you felt it didn't match your reference closely enough. It is incredibly important that in situations like this, you accept the fact that while it may not look just like the reference, it is better for the drawing to look different but still read as solid and 3D. I showed a little demonstration there of how I would construct that head - starting with a ball that I make purposely solid and three dimensional, then attaching a box-like form (with a clearly defined relationship between it and the original ball), then wrapping additional forms around it. Every stage reinforces this illusion of solidity.
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I didn't point this out on the page, but I did notice places where your linework - especially where you built up line weight - got kind of scratchy and stiff. Remember that line weight should be drawn with a confident stroke, not tracing carefully but made without any hesitation to keep it smooth.
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You don't appear to have made much attempt to observe your leg structure of your insects more carefully, as I mentioned in my last point in my initial critique. As shown in this ant leg demo, which I shared before, you're not moving past the top example.
I still think there is a lot of benefit in having you take a little more time to reflect on the critiques you've received, as well as the demonstrations in the lesson itself, before doing two additional insect drawings. Limit yourself to just one insect construction per day - don't attempt to rush through and get them all done in the same sitting.
It is really important that you look at the demonstrations from the lesson and attempt to replicate the kind of general approach. The louse demo, for instance, clearly defines how all the forms are introduced as solid, three dimensional entities, rather than being sketched more hesitantly on the page.
Next Steps:
2 more insect constructions.
6:20 AM, Monday November 16th 2020
7:30 PM, Monday November 16th 2020
While this is moving in the right direction, and you've got some very nice areas of additive construction, there are issues that are still standing out to me.
First and foremost, you're still not fully treating your forms as though they are consistently solid and three dimensional - specifically in that you're cutting across those forms' silhouettes when it suits you. We can see examples of this in the following, where I've marked things out in red:
Now, I explained the principles behind doing subtractive construction incorrectly and correctly, but I may not have been clear enough, so I've written up a new explanation with a fresh example.
The issue overall is that you're not necessarily thinking about how you're interacting with the forms you're constructing. If you're able to cut back across the silhouette of a form, then it suggests that you're not maintaining the belief in your mind that the form is solid and 3D. Now, there are areas in your construction that are quite nice, like along the back of this insect where you've piled on those additional forms, building things up additively. That is precisely why we push students away from using subtractive construction with organic material, especially this early on in the course. Where subtractive construction makes heavy demands of your existing spatial reasoning skills, additive construction helps develop it further.
On that page, you also showed far better use of the sausage method, whereas in other drawings like this one you used it quite loosely, added contour lines where they weren't necessary, etc. As a whole, there is a clear difference between what you draw when you're really thinking, and how you draw when you're not quite as focused.
As a whole, I think this is good enough to mark this lesson as complete, but you need to review the past critiques I've given you, and really take them to heart, thinking about them every time you draw your homework for the next lesson.
On top of that, two things to keep in mind:
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Don't draw so lightly when putting down your initial construction. All of your marks should be drawn with confidence, don't waste cognitive capacity on keeping your marks faint.
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Try to avoid letting your drawings get cut off the side of the page. I know sometimes it happens, especially when focusing on drawing large (which is good), but try to avoid it to the best of your ability.
So, as I said, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.
Next Steps:
Move onto lesson 5.
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