The thing about chicken scratch as a habit is that it comes down to the fact that the way we attempt to draw things is a decision we make. We decide to draw with a single continuous stroke, and we decide not to. It is however a natural response to being overwhelmed, to stop making conscious decisions and instead fall back to our gut reactions. That is precisely what we have to force ourselves to avoid. Instead of panicking and putting down whatever marks, we need to take a step back, take stock of the situation, and then go back to making individual, purposeful decisions.

Starting with your arrows, these are coming along okay, though I am noticing that you've got some clear breaks in trajectory where you try to transition from one stroke to another, like here. Note that in my demonstration, I draw one stroke back and forth for each edge. The first one is usually pretty easy, but obviously the second one is more challenging. Slowing down a little bit (while still drawing with a confident stroke from the shoulder and no hesitation) can help without having to break the stroke down into separate parts.

Moving onto your leaves, you've got the first part of this exercise - that is, establishing basic leaf shapes such that they move confidently and fluidly through space - down pretty well, but you haven't actually finished the exercise. You haven't explored any more complex edge detail or more complex leaf structures. Do not strive only for the bare minimum. In the instructions/notes associated with this exercise, there are plenty of examples of tackling complex edge detail and complex leaf structures.

Continuing onto your branches, you're headed in the right direction here, but there are two key things to work on:

• Firstly, be sure to extend each segment fully halfway to the next ellipse. You did this in some cases, but less so in others.

• To reduce the prevalence of visible "tails" where your segments separate from one another, you should be using the last chunk of the previous segment as a runway, overlapping it directly before shooting off towards your next target. Currently when you don't quite manage to draw the previous segment correctly, you're still drawing the next one where the previous one ought to have been. Drawing over that previous segment directly will mean dealing with the mistake, and while this will make things harder in the short term, it'll help you learn from those mistakes and improve more quickly overall. Right now, you're given no reason to hold yourself back and really plan through your strokes/apply the ghosting method, since you can always start over with the next mark. And so, from what I can see, you have a tendency move more quickly through that process than you ought to.

Moving onto your plant constructions, you're applying the processes reasonably well, although aren't investing quite as much time into each individual stroke (that is, planning/preparing) in order to improve overall control and accuracy while maintaining a confident mark, and as a result there are a lot of little mistakes that undermine the solidity of the resulting object. Specifically, you should be avoiding gaps/breaks/holes in the silhouettes of your forms. Remember that what we're doing here is not simply sketching loosely on the page. We are drawing individual, solid, enclosed forms, and attaching them together to create more complex objects.

Another issue I'm seeing here and there is that the relationship between your different phases of construction tend to be quite vague and unclear. For example, if you look at drawing 3 on this page, that initial ellipse we start with answers a question. It tells us how far out our leaves are going to be extending from the center, creating a sort of perimeter. Therefore when we draw the flow lines for each individual petal, they're going to extend from the center of the flower, and stop right on that perimeter - no farther, no closer. Then the side edges of the petal will similarly extend out and stop right at the end of that flow line. Each and every phase of construction establishes clear answers, and we build directly on top of what is already there. This is how we maintain solidity as we gradually build up complexity in our construction.

Moving forward, I noticed that you are pretty inconsistent in how you approach drawing your ellipses. You tend to jump between not drawing through them at all, or drawing through them too much. Try and stick to going around the elliptical shape two full times before lifting your pen. No more, no less.

Lastly, a minor point - taking a look at number 14 on this page it's pretty clear that you didn't really approach this with any attempt to apply the concepts covered in lesson 2's texture section. I'm not going to elaborate on that, as it simply seems like you need to review that material.

I'm going to assign some pages of revision below. I expect that you'll apply a lot more patience and care with each mark you draw, thinking through how every stroke is meant to contribute to your drawing before executing it. The overall issue is that you're rushing too much - there is a lot more time that can be invested into each decision you make, and every action you take.

Edit: I forgot to address your last question there. If drawing insects and arachnids is simply out of the question for you, you may draw crustaceans instead. Crabs, lobsters, shrimp, etc.