How do I add lineweight to curving (organic flowing) and/or long lines?

Generally I would 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. Ideally it's used to help clarify the manner in which different forms overlap one another, and we can do this by limiting its use to the localized areas where those overlaps occur. You can see this in action in this example of two overlapping leaves.

As for longer lines, we do still need to be applying the ghosting method (which culminates with a smooth, confident execution), so it is inevitable that we'll make mistakes in doing this. That's simply part of the process - with practice, your execution of those smooth, confident strokes, reinforced by planning and preparation will get more accurate. What matters most right now is that every stroke is smooth. If your accuracy is undermined by this, that's fine - it'll come back in time. These drawings are, after all, just exercises.

How to I properly observe a reference? Like you stated in your critique, I am overwhelmed by the information I am seeing. In turn, I become frustrated and start guessing.

You identify one form at a time. One thing. Focus on it alone at first, to determine how it sits in space, and then expand that to look at how it relates to the forms around it. Then draw that one form, while adhering to the principles of construction (everything being its own self enclosed silhouette, with complexity only coming from contact being made with the structures around it). Then go back and do it again for the next form.

There are a few things to accept:

• Firstly, you will make mistakes.

• Secondly, in making such mistakes, you will end up deviating from your reference image in ways that you will not be able to correct while continuing to hold to the principles of construction. This is not a problem. Our goal here is not to reproduce the reference image perfectly, but rather to use it as much as we can as a source of information, to define the direction in which we're taking our construction.

• At its core, these constructional drawing exercises are each of them puzzles. We start with similar masses to start, and gradually build up complexity one step at a time, going back to our reference to identify our next step. The goal is to create something believable and solid, but not necessarily to perfectly replicate that reference.

Ultimately though, a lot of it comes down to an awareness of yourself. If you catch yourself getting frustrated, that's a good time to take a step back, and even to take a break. Not to push forwards and "finish the drawing at all costs". You control every choice you make - but it's easy to forget that fact.

One of the reasons why I tend to tack on flat shapes to my forms is I have a extremely difficult time understanding intersection lines. I greatly struggled with it in lesson 2 and to this day I still do not see those lines properly. In my warmups I have been mashing boxes together and while I do see (for the most part anyway) how they are intersecting with one another, I cannot identify those specific contour lines. Do you have any advice or resources to help me in this particular area?

So the thing is this - the kinds of intersections we tackle in these kinds of organic constructions are much simpler than the form intersections from Lesson 2. Being that they're organic, it's more forgiving, and so it is by working through them here and in Lesson 5 (and no doubt getting a bunch of them wrong. and having such things pointed out in critique) that your grasp of it will become stronger and more confident, which will then better equip you to tackle geometric constructions.

Unfortunately this means there are no tips and tricks to offer - it's simply going to require you to make the attempts, to stumble, to scrap your knees, and to work through it.

For my revisions I plan on not doing any textures. Is this okay?

That's fine.

Do you have any advice on persevering these skills while on break?

Taking breaks is perfectly fine. Just be sure to keep up with your regular warmup routine (as explained back in Lesson 0, where you pick 2 or 3 exercises from the pool of exercises you've been introduced to thus far and do them for 10-15 minutes at the beginning of each drawing session). This will help you avoid getting rusty, and will continue sharpening your skills.