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8:49 PM, Friday June 7th 2024

Hello ThatOneMushroomGuy!

Here's my revision: https://postimg.cc/gallery/WZ5G0zw/7c26162f

The two plants I constructed were Hydnora Africana and Darlingtonia Californica.

Take care,

HeyIt'sAMarioParty

5:22 PM, Sunday June 9th 2024

Hello HeyItsAMarioParty, thank you for getting back to me with your revisions.

The linework for your leaves is looking smooth which helps communicate their fluidity and sense of energy, it's good that you're not only trying to capture how these structures sit statically within space, but also how they move across it from moment to moment. Your edge detail is also looking quite well made.

Your addition of texture is coming along quite explicitly made as you make use of large areas of black in your work which aren't actually cast shadows, make sure to carefully analyze your reference picture and find any grooves or any veins raised from the surface of the leave in order to identify any cast shadows present and only then translate them to your construction.

When it comes to your branches you are still not always drawing through your ellipses twice which is a mistake. Make sure to also pay close attention to the ellipse degree shift in your branches, while you seem aware of if your degrees are often too close together or there's barely a noticeable difference which flattens yohr structures.

Onto your plant constructions they're coming along quite nicely made. You're usually making use of the construction methods and techniques introduced in this Lesson which helps you create the illusion of tridimensionality in your work.

But do keep in mind that 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.

  • 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 in here spots where you cut back into the ellipse you've laid down. The way you've approached this structure is also very non-specific and does not communicate any clear sense of tridimensionality because there are no clear plane shifts.

You can find here more information that talks about how to make use of organic forms to construct plants that aren't simple branches with leaf structures attached to them, and you can see here how you can construct on top of your preexisting structures with new organic forms.

Your addition of texture is starting to head in the right direction but it still needs work as there are points where you start to outline your textures and think of them quite explicitly, so don't forget to revisit the feedback in my first critique and continue to practice your texture skills.

In general your work is good, you're on the path to understanding the purpose of these techniques and exercises and you're making good use of them in your work, if you iron out on a couple of issues you'll be on the path towards drawing even more solid and believable tridimensional structures.

I'm going to be marking this lesson as complete. Good luck in Lesson 4.

Next Steps:

Don't forget to add these exercises to your list of warm ups.

Move on to Lesson 4.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
5:46 PM, Sunday June 9th 2024

Great, thank you so much for your feedback!

Take care,

HeyIt'sAMarioParty

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