Hello I’ll be handling the critique for your lesson 2 homework.

Arrows

-Starting with the organic arrows, these are drawn with a good deal of confidence which really helps you to capture the fluidity with which they move through space, but I want to call out a few things.

• My major concern is lineweight, you tend to make them too thick and you apply it very hesitantly, this really undermines the confidence with which you drew your initial marks. Keep in mind that you should apply it with the same confidence you drew the initial lines for your ribbon. Take a look at this diagram which shows how to apply it correctly, another thing that can help you is to use lineweight only on the very specific parts where overlap occurs, avoid applying line weight to marks that are especially long - instead, it's more effective when we minimize its use, concentrating it instead on doing a specific task. You can see it in action on this image

• I can see that you are aware of the perspective and foreshortening of the ribbon but you still need to keep working on it, some of your arrows bulge throughout their length. Remember that the negative space between the zigzagging sections of the ribbon should decrease as it moves further away from the viewer, as shown here, .

Organic Forms

-You are sticking to the characteristics of simple sausages, and you are keeping them simple and easy to work with, only a few of them have some swelling so keep an eye out for that.

• Your contour ellipses are turning out nicely, as they are fitting snugly within the sausage and you are aware of the degree shifts throughout the length of the form, but I think you need more time to get comfortable with the contour curves, the degree shifts are not as visible here, and some of the curves flatten the sausage. Make sure you are using the ghosting method to think about each mark’s purpose and how you are going to achieve it best. Each mark is no less important for being part of a larger group, so give each one of them as much attention and focus as it requires. Lastly, try to imagine as if you were carving your pen along the surface of the form, that way you will start to get the little bits of nuance that help describe how this form sits in space.

Texture

-On the texture analysis you are doing a pretty good job focusing on the cast shadows rather than the outlines of the forms projecting them, and you are achieving a seamless transition from dense to sparse.

-On the dissection you have mixed a little of outlines and you are focusing on the negative space, a good example of this is the cracked dirt texture, remember that cast shadows are projected from one surface to another, even if it is farther away, so you should always try identify the form casting the shadow and the surface that receives it. 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.

Form Intersections

-You are doing a good job with these intersections and I can see that you are thinking about how these form relate to one another in 3D space, the only thing I want to suggest is that you should draw each form with roughly the same dimensions, avoid having small and big forms clumped together as it undermines the solidity of the whole set. Don’t worry if you feel like you don’t fully grasp this exercise as we will be revisiting it in future lessons.

Organic Intersections

Finishing with the organic intersections, I can see that your spatial reasoning is developing, as your forms begin to wrap around each other believably. Just try to keep them simple, do not let them wiggle and just like in the organic forms try to have them equally sized without any pinching or swelling throughout their length. In the future I want you to draw through your forms, and don’t let the sausages cut off each other. Lastly, you are not pushing the shadows far enough and they seem to be hugging the form which they are falling on, try to push them further as shown here

Okay, you have some things to keep working on, but you can work on them as you move on to the next lesson. I’ll go ahead and mark this as complete.