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1:07 AM, Monday February 20th 2023

https://imgur.com/a/Pp2ybhO

I feel compelled to share that I draw everything from my shoulder and ghost all strokes. I do not do arbitrary gaps on purpose or because I don't care. I missed. I have found ghosting 1)curves, 2)the mid point to mid point on the branches (and not terminating at the next ellipse), and 3)ellipses not contained in boxes/bounding lines very difficult. I tried to go from middle to middle on the branches, and tried to touch the ellipses. I missed and overshot.

I tried to go slower overall, take more time, and draw bigger. Drawing bigger isn't a great solution to my issue when doing a study of a complex thing like a plant, from what I've experienced, because things that were a line zoomed out become a tube when you zoom in. And you said how I handled the small clove outgrowth on the orange was wrong, so I tried to do the small tubes. Getting two 'draw throughs' from the shoulder on small ellipses is very hard for me. All these things are still harder for me than anything else asked thus far in the course. I did catch the instructions I missed and tried to apply them but it was fewer than you maybe thought--I was just struggling to execute on a number of them. And I think I still am?

11:31 PM, Monday February 20th 2023

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

It's important to note that the feedback we provide is based on what we see in the work - it is necessary for us to set aside what the student themselves reports about their experience and focus entirely on what the work itself tells us, as it is very common for a student to think they're doing something one way, or to think that a certain thing is the ultimate goal or focus, when it is in fact not.

One such example of this is that your comments suggest you're not just focusing on applying the instructions provided, but rather that you're also trying to solve the problems yourself. While this is certainly laudable, it is as explained in this video from Lesson 0 not what this course requires of its students, as it can cause students to commit their efforts in directions other than what we intend. I strongly recommend that you review that video, in order to refamiliarize yourself with how this course works.

We can also see this in how your comments seem to prioritize actions that will make the activity you're doing right now easier rather than harder - where you express that because something might be more difficult to achieve (like drawing through smaller ellipses two full times, drawing smaller branches, etc.) that it might be wrong, or wrong for you.

I want to stress very strongly that the goal here is not to find the method that is easy for you, but rather to ensure that you understand how to approach the exercises we are doing here, so that you can continue improving your skills. The techniques are difficult, and they're going to continue to be difficult and taxing for a good long while. That doesn't mean they're not extremely useful exercises however.

Lastly, in attempting to direct how you're tackling the work here other than simply doing your best to follow the provided instructions, you end up committing less of your mental resources to following those instructions (which means that because you're changing things up to suit your own judgement, you may end up neglecting specific things that were pointed out). One example of this is the branches exercise, where by your own description you are trying to go "from middle to middle" - but that's not what the instructions ask. They ask you to go from one ellipse, past the second, and stop halfway to the third.

I believe that it's also important to mention that the problems you're facing here are exactly why you need to be drawing bigger, when we attempt to use a complex structure as a reference for our construction but try to fit it into a tiny space what happens is that we're forced to omit details and the scale of the drawing makes it difficult, or straight up impossible to make full use of the methods that were previously introduced in the lesson material. Remember that in this course we're going through what are essentially 3D puzzles in order to develop our sense of spatial reasoning, if we're not able to make use of the pieces of the puzzle - in this case, the techniques shown - we won't be able to "solve" the puzzle , our sense of spatial reasoning won't develop and we'll be left with a flatter drawing.

Onto the rest of your work, your page of leaves is coming along much more nicely as you start taking more time with your edge detail, although due to gaps or running strokes this still suggests that in some level you're still zigzagging your edge detail.

Your plant constructions are looking solid as they already did in your original construction for the most part, revisiting these exercises especially at a bigger size has definitely helped the quality of your work as your leaves are more solid and well defined along with your branches being able to have a stringer sense of form. But the issues present in your leaves and branches can also be seen here, another problem present in these constructions is that for your branches you're adding too many ellipses along it's length, this means that your ability to fully engage your shoulder when drawing and extending a segment is limited, make sure to draw less ellipses for your branches, for the most part ellipses should be used to indicate a slight shift in the form's angle or to help you simplify more complex curves, in general, if the form is very straight you can afford less ellipses for your branch structure, and adjust from there since you can always add more ellipses, but you cannot take away.

Since your work here doesn't follow the steps for drawing branches introduced in the lesson material I'll be asking for a final page of branches before giving you the go ahead on to the next level, please revisit the instructions for this exercise and then please reply once you're finished.

Next Steps:

1 page of branches.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
8:44 AM, Saturday February 25th 2023
edited at 9:50 AM, Feb 25th 2023
edited at 9:50 AM, Feb 25th 2023
10:22 AM, Saturday February 25th 2023

Hello Purplerains, your reply does not contain any contents, please reply with the link for your revisions when they are finished.

7:13 AM, Sunday February 26th 2023

Sorry, I think I accidentally replied on my phone the other night without realizing.

https://imgur.com/a/d5VTR9S

I have reviewed your feedback carefully.

I have ADHD and as part of my personal situation I can struggle with straight forward directions at times--even when I have reviewed them carefully--in ways that seem strange and extremely frustrating to others. It happens to me less know than as a kid but sadly if it strikes it strikes at 100% power.

I read those plain English instructions for branches many times, and watched the video at least 2 times in full and did work alongside it. Did my brain overwrite start from the ellipse with middle to middle everytime? Did it take me multiple minutes of looking and rereading the instructions to see my fundamental misunderstanding you pointed out, even though it is there in words and illustration, very plainly and clearly? Sadly yes. I probably would have gone for ages doing that even when rereading and looking if you hadn't told me. Thank god for these official critiques!

Following directions you (think you) understand and know, and doing them the same way every time is a problem for many people with ADHD. Links are being real weird I barely got imgur in so I promise if you google it there will be a barrage of info. It is a very embarrassing problem. I think I struggled in L3 on getting it all together and ADHD and had a grand ol time while I as a whole biffed it a bit. That is not always why I biff it, its not the most common reason I biff it. I have no issue admitting to lack of effort, care, focus, aliging goals etc (The lotus leaf was a big flat smooth leaf but yeah it intimidated me and I gave up. That was not good effort and no parts of my assignments moving forward should have anything like that) But I am really confident (and dismayed) that ADHD shenangians have probably been making me hit a hard wall this lesson and done most of the damage. It was due I guess, somehow I got through L2 without revisions lol. Anyway, it's very distinct in that myself and people go "uh you followed the directions and tried your best?!" and get really confused in general. It's always pretty embarrassing and it's important to check my understanding of what I am doing to overcome the problems because some illogical, inexplicable things have maybe wormed their ways in. And so with this specific situation the request to 'just read the instructions and do it again and pay attention', yeah. Sadly, was already doing that. For me I need to talk to someone, then the weird stuff comes out. Like middle to middle!!

It is it often multiple things together and not just one inexplicable mistake. It has a chain reaction. Right now there is middle to middle and a zig zagging issue? Is from the shoulder on the table as well? I hope we can revisit everything you say it appears im not doing so we can possibly for more "i didnt know I misunderstood" errors.

I have redone the page of branches, I did a few practice pages before this one it seems rough to me but I also did fewer ellipses so I changed two things. It's clearly much better to execute.

You say I must still be zig zagging my leaves to some degree: I will walk through, after reviewing the instructions again, what I do so you can tell me what is wrong because my understanding is zig zagging is one continuous stroke where you don't lift the pen and make many if not all of the edge details in one go.

What I have done since the original submission:

  1. I complete the ‘outline’ of the leaf form.

  2. I decide to make sharp points as the edge detail while referencing an image of a leaf with sharp points along the edge.

  3. Starting my first stroke, I ghost it from the shoulder.

  4. Drawing from the shoulder I make a point by starting at the edge of the leaf form, going out and returning to the edge again. I have made one single, pointy edge mark.

  5. I repeat this along the entire edge of the leaf form.

And finally I’m still confused by narrow structures in plants like little tendrils off of branches or flity stamens in a flower etc. In some of Uncomfortable's examples, some are simplified as lines, some are drawn as a 2d shape but not with a guidng line or ellipses, like there is no branch construction or a single line. Like the hibiscus example for those off shoots. Or is this just another moment where “the example videos have some out of date info” ?

I also need to clarify that my comment my comment was asking for your help, but wasn't very good at it. I was not trying to twist your arm. I thought I was saying what was hard for me in the moment, not that I thought all of it was wrong for me and impossibly hard. I know “for me” has connotations that I just laid out, but I meant it in the simplest way, that its a thing, challenging me. I groan when I see the phrases I used in talking about drawing bigger especially. I really meant things so fundamentally, often the opposite, of what you saw and interpreted off of it. I never meant, and did not ask for an easy route as in a shortcut, I did not ask for any exceptions, I didn't an don't disagree with or purposefully ignore any instructions, (I have tried very hard to follow them.) I especially wasn't saying I could never do these things. I regret that there was such a gap in my intention and your understanding.

I want to be clear I don’t disagree with any of the things you have said are mistakes, are executed poorly, what I need to do as next steps, and what draw a box is and is about. I agree 100% . I am so grateful for this feedback, your time, your expertise and draw a box. I have tried my best in L3 though (bar Lotus Leaf, not my best), as much as every previous exercise and lesson and I only say this all because I care and think I've grown so much from your wonderful course and I want to go all the way to the end. So it was a little hard to process everything in L3 up until right now and I was questioning everything I was and had been doing--pretty disorienting. Also a big ADHD is having a field day sign.... It still took me a sec :/ Nature of the beast haha. I feel much better now.

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11:58 PM, Thursday March 16th 2023

Sorry I think maybe my later replies aren't pinging? I submitted the homework about two weeks ago but I responded to your "this is blank" comment.

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