Uncomfortable

2016-05-14 20:57

Generally you've done very well! Your form intersections and dissections are very well done, and your organic intersections are solid. The only issue I want to mention relates to your organic forms with contour curves - your curves are overshooting right off the forms, which is contrary to their purpose. Remember that these lines are intended to wrap around the 3D forms, running directly along their surfaces. Therefore as the surface turns away, the curve should also be hooking back and wrapping around the form.

I often encourage people to overshoot their lines to really push this sense of wrapping around, but not quite as you've done it. Instead, it's like you're simply drawing more of the ellipse. The ellipse does not extend off the form, it fits snugly against it. I talk about this more here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms.

Now, all that said, you're doing it correctly when it comes to your organic intersections. So, just to confirm that you understand the concept, I'd like you to do one more page of organic forms with contour curves before I mark this lesson as complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-05-22 17:34

Pretty nice work across the board. Just a few little things I want to mention:

• I noticed that you doubled-up your contour curves in your organic forms with contour curves. There's no need to do that, and if anything, it takes the nuance out of the line (they look rather clunky because they're so heavy, and the additional lineweight on the internal lines compared to the external lines breaks the cohesion of the overall form). I talk a little more about line weight here: Line Weight.

• Don't use pencil for any part of these exercises, even if it's just adding a little shading to your form intersections. It's not really that big of a deal, but I want to nip that in the bud. There are some lessons where pencil is acceptable (lesson 8 and onwards) but it's important to stick to just the tools stated in the homework section of a given lesson.

Aside from that, your organic forms, dissections and intersections are all quite well done, and demonstrate a solid understanding of 3D space and well developed observational skills. Keep up the good work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2016-05-22 17:56

Your organic forms with contour ellipses are pretty well done. When you get into contour curves however, you run into a couple issues: http://i.imgur.com/O58dqFM.png.

Specifically, your curves don't quite wrap around the forms properly all the time (more about this here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms), and you're also not quite using the spine/minor axis line to align your curves. The minor axis should cut each of your ellipses (your curves are really just the visible portion of a larger ellipse that wraps all the way around) into two equal, symmetrical halves through its narrower dimension.

Moving ahead, your dissections are fairly well done, as are your form intersections. Your organic intersections do a pretty solid job of demonstrating volumes and especially the tension between the different forms as they rest against one another. There's still some of that same problem from the organic forms with contour curves where the curves don't quite fully wrap around, but to a lesser degree. I think when it's put into context as these solid blobby forms, you inherently convince yourself more solidly of how they exist in 3D space, causing you to do a better job.

Still, before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to do one more page of organic forms with contour curves. Try to channel what you've got going on in the organic intersections, but really push and exaggerate how the curves accelerate and hook around at the edge.

Uncomfortable

2016-05-22 18:10

Very solid work! I really don't think there's that much benefit in comparing your work to that of others - at this stage, a lot of people tend to not know their ass from sunday brunch when it comes to identifying the good and bad points in their own work, so they end up either being completely ignorant of their blunders, or they fixate on entirely unimportant issues and ignore the overall strengths of their work.

Despite your struggles, your arrows do a good job of flowing through 3D space, and their twists and turns are convincing and believable. Your organic forms with contour curves do a decent job of wrapping around the forms, though I do want to point you to the significance of the minor axis/spine line that should be passing through the center of each organic mass. You use this in your contour ellipses exercise, but it's equally important with contour curves, as it helps to align them. Each contour curve is the visible portion of a larger ellipse that wraps all the way around the form, and the minor axis line must cut each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves down its narrower axis.

Generally your alignment is fine, but this is something I really stress for this exercise.

Your dissections are looking really nice - lots of great experimentation with texture, and you're demonstrating solid observational skills as well as the willingness to use a wide array of visual patterns (instead of how a lot of beginners tend to just stick to using hatching all over the place).

Your form intersections demonstrate a solid understanding of space and how those forms relate to one another, and your organic intersections are pretty decent at showing the tension and interaction between all of the blobby masses as they push and sag against one another.

You're moving in the right direction, and are making great headway. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2016-05-22 18:35

You're getting very, very, very distracted. It's not really about sticking to the assigned minimum, it's about actually completing the minimum and not replacing it with your own exploration. There's a reason that this is written at the beginning of lesson 1 in red:

Approach these exercises with a blank mind. Do not rush. Demonstrate patience. Spend the hours required to give each exercise the attention it requires and deserves. Do each exercise as it is prescribed in the lesson. Often times I see people stray a little, trying to spice things up and make things more fun. While creativity is lovely, you risk missing some of the core concepts that each exercise has been designed to convey. Just be patient - it'll be over soon, and then you'll be able to get to the fun stuff.

Do every exercise exactly as it is described - do not blend it with your own things, and don't blend multiple exercises together on the same page. Each exercise has a specific purpose and goal to it, and it is very important that you understand what that is. I am going to ask you to redo the entire lesson, from start to finish, to drive home this point. But before that, I'll give you a critique based on the biggest weaknesses I see.

Your arrows are fundamentally alright, but they have a tendency to be very loose. It's very much about understanding how the 2D ribbon forms flow through 3D space, which you're doing an okay job of, but when it comes to adding the arrowhead, things fall apart a little. It really doesn't feel like you're putting much time and focus into each individual arrow, so the understanding we're after doesn't seem to stick. Furthermore, your application of lineweight isn't great. I fully expect applying line weight to a curved line to be rather difficult, but based on your question about whether or not you should ghost it, your current approach doesn't seem to be particularly effective.

At the end of the day, ghosting is one technique that you can use to help increase the fluidity and the accuracy of your linework - your application of line weight doesn't seem to be terribly accurate, so clearly you should use the tool that will improve that. The ghosting technique isn't just about drawing with a confident pace to maintain smoothness, but the act of ghosting itself is what counteracts the inherent inaccuracy that comes from drawing fast. If you want to improve your accuracy, ghost and prepare more.

Your organic forms with contour ellipses are really hairy. You're drawing through your ellipses way too much (do it 2 or 3 times max, ideally 2), and they're also not always aligned to the spine/minor axis line. Remember that the minor axis cuts each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves down its narrower dimension. It also helps to maintain a fairly consistent width in your organic form - simple sausages are really ideal here, because they're straightforward but allow you to grasp the purpose of contour lines just as much as more complex forms. When I say consistent width, I mean avoid areas where the form pinches or swells excessively. Keep the distance between the two sides of the organic form fairly even and equal throughout its length.

When you get to contour curves, your curves aren't wrapping around the rounded forms convincingly. You can read more about this here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms. Before even beginning to deal with this, you seem to start experimenting with shading. You'll notice I never actually teach how to shade - there's a reason for this. People always rely on it very heavily to describe form, and I find this to be a crutch. Before even beginning to think about light and shadow, you can already give a very solid and clear sense of how a form turns in space by using its silhouette and a few additional, well placed and well-designed contour lines. Once you understand that, and really grasp how a form sits in space, light/shadow just falls into place.

Your dissections are decent, though you could stand to focus on designing each stroke more. You tend to be more sloppy when drawing a lot of similar marks - the sheer quantity of it causes the quality you imbue in each individual one to drop. Understandable, but you're clearly not a terribly patient person, so you need to fight against that natural tendency and force yourself to focus on every mark you put down.

Your form intersections aren't going well, but that's also because you're doing something I specifically advised against in the lesson. You're incorporating a lot of longer, stretched forms (long tubes, long boxes, etc.) rather than sticking to relatively equilateral forms and shallow foreshortening. Longer forms bring too much perspective distortion into the mix, complicating an already challenging exercise. I am glad to see that you're drawing through your forms, but I don't want to see these tiny clusters of two or three forms - focus entirely on filling an entire page with a single network of forms. It's very easy to abandon sets - just push all the way through regardless of your mistakes.

For your organic intersections, again - fill a page, and don't draw so small (it restricts the amount of room you have to think through spatial problems). Also, I'd advise you to work with basic, short sausage forms, instead of these overlong snake-like things. Also, incorporating a ground plane as a starting point can help: http://i.imgur.com/tY6wPYK.png.

Anyway, like I said - do the whole lesson again, and think through every stroke you put down. Don't mix exercises, and don't try to spice things up. A lot of these exercises are boring, but you'll have to get used to that.

Uncomfortable

2016-05-24 21:01

Not bad. I am noticing a few issues with your organic forms with contour ellipses - your ellipses are rather stiff, because you're not drawing them confidently enough. You're focusing all of your time on drawing them carefully, rather than putting that time towards ghosting through the motion and preparing to draw, before executing the mark quickly and confidently. Also, remember that the spine line that passes through the organic forms is the minor axis of your ellipses, and they should be aligned to it as such. If you don't remember what the minor axis is, refer back to the lesson section of the ellipses part of lesson 1.

When you start off with the contour curves, you definitely struggle with the idea of wrapping those contour curves around the forms. Over the set you do improve, although there is still plenty of room for growth. The minor axis thing applies here as well, and you're falling short in that regard. Remember that each curve is just the visible portion of a larger ellipse that wraps all the way around - that ellipse needs to be aligned to the minor axis.

I think you're doing a decent job with your dissections. You start off REALLY timid, not entirely willing to texture all the surfaces of your forms, but as you move through the set you grow bolder and more confident, and the textures reflect that. Good work there.

For the ellipses in your form intersections, same thing goes as what I described for your organic forms - draw those ellipses confidently. Your first priority is to achieve smooth, even shapes. Drawing slowly and carefully will only cause them to come out bumpy and uneven. Also, I think it would be a good idea for you to tackle the 250 cylinder challenge, as there's some additional instruction on how to construct cylinders there that should be of value to you.

Anyways, I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. Remember to continue practicing these exercises regularly as you continue to move forwards through the lessons.

Uncomfortable

2016-05-24 20:52

You're generally doing fairly well. One thing I noticed that you're not doing however is drawing through your ellipses, as was introduced in lesson 1. I expect you to do this for every ellipse you draw for my lessons.

Aside from that, the only area of weakness I noticed was your dissections, where it seems to me that you need to be taking a closer, more focused look at your reference images, pushing yourself not to rely on your memory, and to look back at your reference after every second or two of drawing. It's very easy to try to rely on memory, thinking it's accurate, but it's not. Our brains have a strong tendency to immediately oversimplify things we've seen.

I've included some notes about your dissections here: https://imgur.com/a/cZHdS.

I'll still be marking this lesson as complete, and I encourage you to pursue that goal of completing the box and cylinder challenges, as it will help immensely.

Uncomfortable

2016-05-26 18:20

Generally pretty good work - there's one area where you do need some more practice however. It's the organic forms with contour curves. There's two related problems here:

• You're struggling to get your contour curves to wrap around the organic forms convincingly. I see some areas where this is better than others, but you need to push it much harder. You've likely already seen this, but in case you haven't, here's some more information on this issue: http://drawabox.com/lesson/2/selfcritique#organicforms-curvesdontwrap

• The other problem can contribute to the first one - you're not always using your minor axis/spine line to help inform the alignment of your ellipses. The minor axis, if you remember from lesson 1, passes through an ellipse through its narrower dimension and cuts that ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves. In order for an ellipse to be aligned to a line as its minor axis, it must meet this criteria, ensuring that the ellipse is angled in such a way that it is cut perfectly in half by the line.

The rest of your lesson is fairly well done, though I'd like you to try another page of this exercise to show that you understand the points I've made above.

Uncomfortable

2016-05-27 23:46

The wrapping is definitely improving, but it looks like you didn't understand what I meant by alignment. It's related to what I had been saying previously, in regards to the minor axis line. The minor axis cuts the ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves. If you draw the ellipse around the minor axis line such that this is not the case, then it is not aligned correctly. Take a look at this and try one more page of organic forms with contour curves.

Uncomfortable

2016-05-28 02:49

Looking better. I'll mark this lesson as complete, so go ahead and move onto the next lesson. Be sure to read all of the material this time.

Uncomfortable

2016-05-30 01:36

As long as the silhouettes of two forms overlap when drawn in 2D, they have the potential to intersect. It's entirely your decision as to whether or not they intersect, or if one is in front of the other.

See?. There's lots of potential intersections!

Uncomfortable

2016-06-06 20:01

Pretty solid work! Generally you're doing a good job. Your dissections and form intersections are especially well done. The only area of weakness I noticed were your organic forms/organic intersections and for the most part they're fairly well done too. On the organic forms with contour curves front, I want to point out that you do need to work on aligning your ellipses (each curve is part of a larger ellipse) to the minor axis (the spine that goes through the center of the form) such that the ellipse is cut into two equal, symmetrical halves by the line.

For the organic intersections, try and keep in mind that each form has weight to it - think about how they'd sag against one another, and wrap around each other. Convincing yourself that these forms are solid and tangible is more than half the battle - once you start perceiving them as real objects, you'll find it much easier to convince others of that as well.

Anyways, these are things you can continue to work on as you move forwards, so I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable

2016-06-08 18:31

On the topic of brushing up - more aptly, you should really be keeping up with the exercises from the first two lessons (that is, once the corresponding lesson is complete) as warmups, doing them regularly rather than letting them fade from your mind. The lesson being marked as complete doesn't really signify that you're finished - rather that you've started, and that you understand the goals of each exercise so that you can work towards achieving them on your own. Ultimately each one will take a great deal of time to master (really mastery isn't a tangible goal), but continuing to work on them regularly will result in noticeable improvements to these base technical skills over a long period of time. So, the recommendation is generally that you pick a few from your pool of exercises each day, so that they stay on rotation and none of them get left behind.

Anyway, onto your homework - generally your work is pretty solid. You demonstrate a solid grasp of the organic forms with contour curves, as well as with the form intersections (that is, drawing forms together within the same space while maintaining a sense of cohesion) and your organic intersections. Your dissections are successful to varying degrees, but I think you may be jumping a little too far ahead with some of these.

With your textures, you're jumping ahead to the idea of organizing your details into a clear hierarchy - what comes before that is developing the ability to observe, identify and carry over the vast amount of complex detail visible in your reference without simplification. The result will be very noisy and poorly organized, but in a way you can think of it as making your mess first, then learning to sort through it. Right now you're not yet accustomed to the mess itself, so when it comes time to organize it, you're left without much to organize.

Anyways, you can continue working on that sort of thing as you move forwards - for now, I believe you are ready to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2016-06-09 20:08

There's a few issues that I noticed.

• In your oragnic forms with contour curves, you're not successfully wrapping those curves around each form in a way that convinces the viewer (or yourself) of the fact that they follow along the surface of the form. As they reach the edge, those curves should accelerate and hook back around, giving the impression that they continue onto the backside. I talk about this common issue here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms. It's also important that you be mindful of the purpose of the spine line that goes through each organic form's center. This line represents the minor axis, to which all of the ellipses should be aligned (such that they are cut into two equal, symmetrical halves by it). This applies not only to contour ellipses, but also to contour curves which are really just the visible sections of larger ellipses that wrap all the way around the form.

• Your dissections are progressing decently, but you need to push yourself further in terms of carefully observing your reference image. Don't rely on your memory - the second you look away, the information you saw will be drastically simplified by your brain in an attempt to process all of this information. You have to look back at your reference after drawing only a few marks, so you're always working from an accurate representation of whatever it is you're drawing.

• Your form intersections aren't terrible, but there are a couple issues that hindered your approach. First and foremost, you missed the point that I made in the notes about not drawing forms that are overly stretched in one dimension. This adds a lot more complication to the spatial problems you have to figure out. Essentially you're taking a tough challenge and making it that much tougher.

• Your organic intersections suffer from the same problems as your organic forms with contour curves, though beyond that it's important to think through how those forms are going to sag and droop against each other under their own weight. Try to think about taking a big, sausage-shaped balloon filled with water and dropping it over your outstretched forearm. Think about how it's going to sag over either side, and how the tension's going to increase on the balloon's material as it strains to find equilibrium.

Anyway, I'd like to see another page of organic forms with contour ellipses, one more of organic forms with contour curves, and one more of the organic intersections.

Uncomfortable

2016-06-14 21:44

Pretty solid work - there's only a couple minor things that I'd like to mention. First off, as you approach your contour lines on organic forms, it's generally best to draw the contour ellipses/curves such that they align to the minor axis (the line that passes through the center of the form). I see here and there that you deviate from that significantly in a few places (though for the most part you're doing it fine). You'll find that those deviations are generally much less effective at describing the volume of the form.

Secondly, a very minor point - just an observation that while your textures are coming along nicely, you do appear to need to continue focusing on being able to transition from texture to blank space. This is fairly normal. Additionally, try to allow yourself to think not simply in terms of line. The marks you're putting down represent the shadows cast by little forms on the surface of your objects. These are not limited to line, but can have greater width and area, expanding into shadow shapes and ultimately merging with their neighbours to create larger areas of solid black. I noticed that you started playing with this notion in your beetle texture, but it's something you should play with in all your textures.

As for your question, it's absolutely still worth continuing. The important thing is that even while you may not practice daily, you should do so regularly. Also, ensure that you keep up with the exercises from lessons 1 and 2. Every day that you do draw, set aside the first 15-20 minutes, choosing a few exercises to do that day as a warmup before getting down to that day's work.

Anyway, feel free to move onto the next lesson and keep up the good work.

Uncomfortable

2016-06-19 20:42

Generally your work is decent. It will certainly benefit across the board from further practice, especially in the area of the solidity of your forms, and your form intersections could also benefit from drawing through your boxes more - though you're doing pretty well.

The one area where there is more weakness however is your organic forms with contour curves. There's two issues here - firstly, your curves aren't wrapping around the forms particularly convincingly. It's better in some areas and worse in others, and I get the impression that you do vaguely understand the premise, but you're approaching each contour curve a little sloppily, rather than taking the time to ensure that each one wraps around its form, accelerating and giving the impression that it hooks around and continues on as it reaches the edge of the form.

I've got notes on this subject, as well as a video. On a related note, I also noticed that you have points where the contour curves don't sit on the surface of a form - this generally comes from not planning and thinking through the drawing of each individual curve, so be sure to be more patient and conscientious.

The other issue is that you aren't drawing in the minor axis (the central spine of the organic form) for your contour curves. I also notice that for the contour ellipses, while you do draw the minor axis line, you don't heed it as much as you should.

Remember that the minor axis is the line that splits an ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves through its narrower dimension. In this case, you want to ensure that your ellipses (or the curves, which are merely visible portions of larger complete ellipses) align to the minor axis line in this manner.

I'd like you to do two more pages of organic forms with contour curves before I mark this lesson as complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-06-25 17:12

One thing I'm noticing in your work is that you're getting a little distracted from the exercises themselves. I can see you've put a fair bit of effort into the presentation - or at least, a part of it - by adding different grey tones and such, as well as the use of a white pen. This isn't necessary, and is likely to draw your attention away from what each exercises is intended to teach you.

Presentation certainly is important, but only as far as laying out your drawings on the page (that is, how they're organized so as to most efficiently use the space), and filling the page as much as you can. When it comes to beautifying your drawings, that's not a great use of your time right now.

The white ink is an interesting scenario - Peter Han taught us in his course to use white ink to add little highlights here and there, though to use it sparingly. I purposely decided not to add that component to my interpretation of the material he taught, because I always found it to be a big distraction that is better left for a student who has already been able to demonstrate a grasp of the concepts each exercises espouses.

Long story short - stick to the exercises as they're described, and fill your pages. Enthusiasm is certainly a blessing, but can also be a curse! You've got to reel yourself back, and stick to the task at hand.

Anyway, onto your work. Your arrows are coming along well, as they're demonstrating a growing understanding of how these flat shapes can flow through 3D space. That's definitely something to always keep in mind - like a ribbon blowing through the wind, consider a point that is farther away from you, and a point that is closer, and try to grasp how it would flutter between those two anchors, finding its way from one to the other in the meandering way ribbons do.

Your organic forms with contour ellipses are alright, though I do want to stress the importance of drawing through every ellipse (twice is a good amount). This isn't necessary when your contour is no longer an ellipse, but at this point the majority of them should be. It's all about maintaining the integrity and flow of the shape.

Moving onto the organic forms with contour ellipses, here some of your contour curves give a good sense of wrapping around the forms, while others don't quite accelerate enough to hook around at the edges. One important factor to keep in mind is that the minor axis - the center spine line that passes through each form is still very important here to align your ellipses. That is, the invisible ellipses of which the curves are merely a visible section. This alignment will help you maintain a cross-section that is perpendicular to the direction the organic form is flowing, which will help you push that wrapping illusion. Overshooting your curves a little, as I describe here.

Your dissections are coming along fairly well - it would have been nice to see more, but I can see that you've got a good grasp of the concepts of observing your reference carefully and using different visual patterns to capture various textures rather than relying on the same pattern all over. I'm also glad to see that you have no qualms about letting your individual marks merge together into solid black areas.

In your form intersections, I do want to stress the importance of the fact that the exercise said not to draw individual groupings of forms, but rather to fill an entire page from the center with a single connected network of forms. Your intersections and the general congruency between them within the same scene are consistent and well constructed however.

I do want to point out though that once again, you should be drawing through every ellipse you draw for my lessons.

Furthermore - and this applies very heavily to the organic intersections as well - do not go over your lines in an attempt to do a "clean-up" pass. When you try to replace a previous line with a new one, the outcome is always a stiffer, wobblier mark. You should never be drawing faintly in a first pass, and then cleaning it up after the fact. Instead, you should draw your first lines with confidence, planning them out and ghosting through them appropriately before putting those marks down on the page - and then afterwards, simply adding line weight here and there to emphasize lines that already exist, rather than replacing them. This addition of line weight will help you to organize the hierarchy of your linework, which may cause some lines to become less noticeable, but overall that is not its purpose.

When you try to draw certain lines more faintly, you will inherently undermine the solidity of your forms, and the integrity of their shapes. When putting down a mark, consider whether or not that mark is of value - for instance, a line whose task is already accomplished by another existing mark has no value, but one that helps you to understand the forms you are drawing, and helps you buy into the illusion that they are in fact three dimensional, has great value. If your mark is valuable, draw it with full confidence. If it is not, don't draw it at all.

Anyway, with your form intersections and organic intersections, as well as your organic forms with contour curves, there is plenty of room to grow - that said, you are demonstrating a reasonable grasp of the concepts, so I'll mark this lesson as complete and leave you to practice them on your own as you continue to move forwards. Remember that as I describe here, you should pick two or three exercises each day from the first two lessons to do as a warmup before moving onto that day's work.

Uncomfortable

2016-06-26 18:16

Generally fairly well done - the only area I noticed some weakness (which we'll deal with) is the organic forms, specifically organic forms with contour curves. There's two points here to pay close attention to:

First and foremost, the minor axis (the central spine that passes through the forms) is an important guideline - all of your ellipses (and curves, as the curves are merely the visible portions of the ellipses) must be aligned to it. If you recall from lesson 1, the minor axis is the line that passes through an ellipse's narrower dimension, cutting it into two equal, symmetrical halves. Aligning your ellipses in this way can be challenging at first, but the first step is an awareness of this as a goal.

Secondly, when tackling your organic forms with contour curves, you're not quite achieving the illusion of the curves wrapping around the organic forms convincingly. Rather than accelerating and hooking back around as they reach the edge, yours maintain a fairly consistent curvature which causes them to deviate and separate from what the correct curvature of the form's surface would be. I talk about this at greater detail here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms. Be sure to also watch the video included there.

Your form intersections are generally well done, though the ones where you drew through your forms tend to be vastly more successful, so be sure to keep that up when doing the exercise in the future.

Aside from that, you've done well. I'd like you to do one more page of organic forms with contour curves before I mark this lesson as complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-06-26 20:40

I decided to remove it because it had too many mistakes in it that were confusing people. I eventually hope to remake it, but until then it will not be an official part of the drawabox material. It certainly still has value, but at the same time it made me look like an asshat, so I'd rather not share it around.

Uncomfortable

2016-06-30 20:08

Your arrows are looking pretty decent. Your organic forms with contour curves however definitely need a lot of work. Your first page is alright, though by the bottom of it and into the next page you stop drawing your minor axis/central spine and your curves completely stop giving any real impression of wrapping around the rounded form. I talk about this common issue here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms. Be sure to watch the video included there as well.

Moving ahead, your first page of dissections is fairly well done - there's a couple things I'd like to point out for the second, however.

Firstly, the banana doesn't give the impression of being a banana at all - it's really just a bunch of cross hatching, entirely unlike the more thoughtful and carefully observed textures you drew in the previous page. It's very clear that you're capable of much better than this, but you got sloppy. We all get sloppy sometimes, but at those times it's better to take a break.

The other point in regards to the dissections that I wanted to mention was your "nose" texture. In reality, this does not constitute a texture. Objects can be divided into two components - form, the elements that exist obviously within three dimensions, and texture, which wraps around the forms - essentially the forms' surfaces. In truth the texture is actually made up of forms as well, but very small ones that have no consideration for perspective or anything like that due to their negligible scale.

Your choice of a 'nose' is a form, not a texture. This exercise is all about taking textures and wrapping them around a standard sausage-like form. The nose itself has a texture - the skins, with all of its little pores and whatnot - but the nose in and of itself is not what we're after. Keep that in mind.

Moving ahead to your form intersections, one thing that's clear is that your boxes deeeefinitely need a lot of work. Almost every single one has a far plane larger than its near plane, and entirely contradicts the basic tenets of perspective. Drawing through your boxes here, as covered in the 250 box challenge, would be very useful.

Lastly, your organic intersections show many of the issues I mentioned in regards to your organic forms with contour curves. When working with any forms like this, it's very important to keep in mind that your forms have volume to them, and weight. You yourself need to be convinced of this illusion, before anyone else will buy into it. It'll take some time, but that's really the purpose of these tricks like contour curves - to fool YOU. So when you're drawing them, try and keep in mind that you're not drawing a mark across a 2D page. You're drawing a line on the surface of that form, so it should physically be impossible to draw a simple, straight line with no curvature to it - because the surface is rounded, not flat.

So, I'd like you to do two more pages of organic forms with contour curves, one page of organic intersections and two pages of form intersections.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-02 16:20

Your arrows are looking good. Your organic forms with contour curves are generally solid until your last page (http://i.imgur.com/HgZstye.jpg) where they completely cease wrapping convincingly around the rounded form. This then carries on into your organic intersections to varying degrees, so it's definitely something you need to continue practicing and working on as you move forwards. It's normal for people to slip back into bad habits if they get too relaxed about it just after grasping the idea, so you'll have to be vigilant.

Your dissections are hit and miss - there are some where you clearly exerted more patience and care in observing your references and taking your time to actually apply the textures to your forms, like the wood, scales, banana, kiwi, etc. Others, however, show not enough focus on your reference image, along with key signs of drawing from memory rather than continually looking back. Never rely on your memory, as it is faulty and will immediately oversimplify anything you look at within moments of looking away. Look at your reference, then draw a few marks, then look back, and repeat.

Also, there are some textures where you didn't quite manage to take into consideration the curvature of the form, causing the texture itself to flatten the form out. Examples of this include the wood grain, wool, brick, etc.

Moving ahead to your form intersections - the ones with just the boxes are fairly well done. The other two pages certainly demonstrate a greater struggle, though I'd like to point out that you included a lot of stretched forms (long boxes, long tubes) which said to avoid in my instructions, as they complicate matters far too much. Stick to more equilateral forms, as you did with the box-only intersections.

I'd like you to do one more page of organic intersections. Try starting off with a ground plane (as demonstrated on the right side of this old demo: http://i.imgur.com/tY6wPYK.png), or even a box, and consider the weight of the organic forms. Think about how they sag against one another. One thing I like to do is imagining a long sausage-shaped balloon filled with water, how it would behave if it were dropped over my outstretched arm. Think about how its volume would have to be displaced on either side of the obstacle, and how it would hang there still maintaining its overall form due to the tension in the balloon's material.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-04 19:37

Your arrows are solidly done. Your organic forms with contour ellipses are good, those with contour curves are alright - though it's important that you continue drawing the central spine/minor axis line, as your ellipses and curves should be aligned to it, and leaving it out can result in some issues with the orientation of your curves.

Your dissections are very well done - lots of great detail work, and clear examples of careful observation. Your form intersections are okay, but there's a couple issues here I'd like you to work on:

• You're using some slightly dramatic perspective distortion on your boxes, a problem I mentioned in lesson 1 in regards to the organic perspective boxes. You can read about it here: Inconsistent Foreshortening Between Boxes in the Same Scene.

• When you add line weight, keep in mind that you're not by any means to see it as cleaning up a rough sketch. It's a common misconception that one is to draw loosely first, then clean it up by replacing the lines with those that are more purposefully drawn (which usually means going slow and steady, which we know to be a big no-no that leads to a wobbly mess). You aren't entirely doing that, but there are signs that you're still thinking in that manner. Instead of thinking of it as replacing, treat it as though you are emphasizing lines that already exist - you aren't adding weight to all of them, you are simply making some lines that are already there stand up amongst the others.

Your organic intersections aren't great. The contour curves are a little sloppy, and I'm not entirely convinced of the volumes and roundedness they're meant to describe. Also, while doing this exercise try to think about each form as being a sausage-shaped balloon filled with water. The volume can shift around, but the tension in the balloon's skin holds it all in place. Imagine dropping such a balloon over your outstretched forearm, and think about how it would sag over it, weighing down on either side of the limb. It's that sort of interaction you want to capture when having one organic form lay down against another.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to try the organic intersections once more.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-04 19:55

Generally pretty good. I do see you struggling a fair bit with the dissections and the form intersections, but for each of those you've pushed through and improved considerably by the end of each set. The only exercise I feel that is really lacking is the organic intersections, where your forms don't really feel to convincingly hold up their volumes - rather than feeling like firm, heavy sausages (or like water balloons, which I feel to be the better comparison), some of them feel rather.. deflated. It's important to remember that the more complexity you add to the edges of your form, the more you will undermine their solidity. The wavier they are, the flimsier they'll feel.

As for your question about pyramids, check out the fourth image in this album: http://imgur.com/gallery/udZZ8

I'd like to see you do one more page of organic intersections before I mark this lesson as complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-05 20:47

I'm kind of puzzled as to why you went with such ridiculously complex organic forms this time around. The complexity of the forms is introducing all kinds of other problems and are really undermining the basic concepts we're trying to nail down in the first place.

Look at the way your forms get skinny in places, and then swell up elsewhere. This kind of inconsistency makes it very hard to look at the forms and interpret them as actually having weight, solidity and volume to them. All I want you to do is draw simple sausages.

Secondly, your contour curves and ellipses pay no heed to the minor axis lines (the central spines). They should be aligning to them as mentioned in the lesson (the minor axis of an ellipse cuts the ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves).

Thirdly, your contour lines are very heavy, which again undermines the overall cohesiveness of the form. Try to have more nuance in your lines - vary the pressure you apply to your pen throughout the stroke, rather than keeping it uniform.

Lastly, your dissections are alright, albeit quite cartoony and oversimplified. This tells me you're likely working much more from memory than observation. It's very easy to fall into the trap of relying on memory - it'll happen if you're looking away for a little too long, because you convince yourself that you know what you saw, when in fact you don't.

We're going to do this again. Give me one page filled with sausages with contour curves. Filled, completely, to the brim. Pack it in with sausages.

Take a picture of it, then on that same page, turn the sausages into dissections. Cut out sections between contour curves and add texture to the different faces, taking the time to really look at your reference images, and continuously look back. Don't go more than a moment or two without looking at the image.

Do that correctly, and I'll let you move forwards. Before you do any of this though, I strongly recommend that you go back and read the material. It's been a month, you've DEFINITELY forgotten most of it.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-05 21:15

At the end of my last critique, I asked you to move onto the 250 box challenge next before moving onto lesson 2. I get that you did this beforehand, but you should not be submitting work to me that you know is wrong when I have already told you what to do to improve on it. It doesn't speak highly of your regard for my critiques, and the time I take to write them.

I'm going to be ignoring your form intersections (aside from pointing out the fact that your hatching lines are very sloppy, you should be more conscientious, drawing consistent parallel lines that stretch all the way across the plane from edge to edge with nothing floating in the middle, no scribbling or zigzagging, etc.), since critiquing them now would be a waste of time. I will however give you comments on the other portions of your homework.

I'm not sure what you misunderstood as far as those first couple pages of arrows go - the description of the exercise and the example there talks about considering how arrows twist and turn and flow towards or away from the viewer (rather than having no depth). Your subsequent pages are solid, though.

Your organic forms show a few significant problems. Firstly, when drawing your forms, try not to have them pinch and swell in various areas. This kind of complexity undermines the solidity of your form, and makes it that much harder to reinforce the idea that these are three dimensional objects. Sticking to simple sausages whose thickness remain fairly consistent would be ideal as far as this exercise goes.

Your contour curves tend to be very messy and poorly thought out, especially at first. You're not drawing any of your minor axes for the curves (the lines going through the center that should help you align your ellipses), and it's very clear that in your boredom you deviate from the lesson and start doing your own thing at times. I get that this stuff is tedious, but I expect you to focus entirely when doing this work. If you get distracted, lazy or tired, take a break or push it off til the next day. No one is holding a gun to your head and telling you to finish immediately. The more you deviate from the exercise and its instructions, the more likely you are to miss its point entirely.

In your dissections, your application of texture - as far as observing your reference images and carrying that information over into your drawing is quite good. You have a good eye for detail, and despite the lack of patience in the earlier section, you seem to be quite focused here. There is an overall issue with how you apply the texture, however - your forms are rounded, like sausages, but your application of texture does not wrap around some of them very convincingly. An example of this is the metal panel (which admittedly, is more of a pattern than a texture - the texture would actually be the metal surface itself). Here you can clearly see the pattern cut straight across, as though it were flat. You need to remind yourself that you're wrapping the textures around the forms. That is one of the reasons that I insist on starting off the dissections as simple organic forms with contour curves (which you did not do).

Your organic intersections are okay - not great, and generally your contour curves aren't doing a great job of really wrapping around the forms themselves, and their alignment is off at times as well. What I do like about them though is for the most part, you're doing a good job of understanding how the forms would interact with one another.

I'm going to ask you to do the entire lesson over, taking into consideration the things I've said here. Of course, before you do this, I expect you to go back and do the 250 box challenge. Overall, you need to work on how closely you follow instructions - both in my critiques, as well as within the lessons themselves. You skip a lot of things I've clearly written out, so you should be more mindful of reading what I write, and when necessary, rereading it as well.

Oh, about your question - use a 0.5mm pen only. I insist people work only with a single pen size because it forces you to control your pressure in order to achieve different line weights, rather than switching to a different pen altogether.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-08 19:03

Pretty solid work across the board. Your arrows are good. Your organic forms with contour lines are pretty well done, though when it comes to the contour curves I feel that you're just at the cusp of grasping the idea of wrapping your lines around the rounded forms - that is to say, you're getting it, but you're at that point that if you lose focus on it, you'll slip back. Always keep in mind the idea of how those forms curve, and so the contour line too must accelerate as it reaches the edge and hook back around.

Your dissections are pretty good. Here and there you kinda fall into the pit of scribbling and using randomness, but this is pretty rare and most of the time your textures are well planned and thought out. I also like the wide variety of textures and materials you've attempted, and that the majority of them are wrapping around the organic forms and deforming appropriately.

Moving ahead to your form intersections, mainly what I look for is not the intersections themselves, but whether or not the forms appear to be consistent in foreshortening and generally feel like they belong in the same scene. You've achieved this fairly well. Some of your boxes and cylinders could generally use some work (should probably take a look at the 250 box and 250 cylinder challenges if only to read the notes on how to approach constructing those forms).

Lastly, your organic intersections are well done - you've captured the general sense of interaction between the different organic forms very nicely, I can really feel each form wrapping around those around it.

Keep up the good work - I'll be marking this lesson as complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-09 18:46

Your arrows are good. Your organic forms with contour curves are alright, but make sure you align them to the minor axis (the center line going through the organic form that you drew some of the time). This will help towards being able to hook your contour line around at the edge of the form to reinforce the illusion of roundedness and volume. I notice that you didn't do organic forms with contour ellipses at all. Read the instructions more carefully in the future, please.

Your dissections, as far as the textures go, are looking a little simplistic. This happens when you rely too much on your memory when drawing textures, and don't spend enough time observing your texture. You may want to look into the 25 texture challenge to help sort this out as you continue to move forwards. Texture ultimately is not the focus of our lessons, construction and form is - so you can work on your texture steadily as you go.

Your form intersections are alright, although you should be drawing through all of the ellipses you draw for my lessons. This isn't a suggestion, it's a requirement. It keeps your ellipses even and and helps you avoid stiffness or wobbling, of which there is much in yours.

Your organic intersections are technically demonstrating, at least in places, what I'm looking for (the interaction between the different organic forms, where they wrap around and sag around one another). That said, they don't look great - your execution could be a lot better. Your linework is really timid here - you should be drawing every mark with confidence, after taking the time to plan it out and applying the ghosting method. Don't sketch, don't chicken scratch.

You clearly have a lot of room to grow, but you are demonstrating most of the things I'm looking for, so I will mark this lesson as complete. Keep in mind that you are expected to keep on top of practicing the exercises from the first two lessons pretty much until the end of time, as you continue to move forwards.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-10 17:16

Your arrows are looking good. Your organic forms with contour lines are well done too, though you missed the step about drawing your minor axis (the central spine that runs through the middle of the organic form). Your ellipses are supposed to be aligning to this (if you've forgotten, reread the bit in lesson 2 about the purpose of the minor axis of an ellipse), so it's important that you not skip this step.

Your dissections are alright as far as observation and complexity goes, but one thing I'm noticing is that you're exhibiting the common habit of treating the marks that make up your textures as being lines, and only lines. Keep in mind that all textures are made up of very small forms on the surface of your object, and that the marks we draw are in fact the shadows cast by these forms. Shadows are not limited to lines, but can expand into shapes which in turn can merge with their neighbours, creating large areas of solid black. Be sure to give the 25 texture challenge a look.

Your form intersections are generally well done - you're drawing through your forms confidently, but you're clearly planning out each stroke.

Your organic intersections have me a bit puzzled. I see two sets of lines in some of them, where you appear to have done an underdrawing, then replaced the lines with darker, cleaner marks. The problem with this approach is that the clean-up pass is always significantly more stiff - you get preoccupied with accuracy that you draw slow-and-steady, completely obliterating the flow of the lines.

Don't do underdrawings - like you did in your form intersections, plan your lines out and then execute with confidence. If you make a mistake, it's not the end of the world. And if you happen to make a mistake, don't correct it - this only creates a bigger mess and draws the viewer's eye right to your blunder.

I can see that through the set, you struggle with the idea of having different organic forms wrap around those around them - and this is the core of the exercise - but you do improve. Another area where you stumble is the alignment of the contour curves themselves (which harkens back to the lack of minor axes in your organic form with contour line exercises).

Anyway, overall you've done decently. You have room for improvement, but I'm going to mark this lesson as complete and leave you to continue practicing these exercises on your own as warmups over time, while you move ahead with the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-10 18:23

Your arrows are pretty decent. Your organic forms with contour lines are alright as well, but one thing that you're not quite doing is using the minor axis line (the central spine) to align your curves. The minor axis should cut each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves. If an ellipse is misaligned, you'll end up with the resulting curve either having the shape being thrown out of whack where you've tried to wrap the line around the form, or you'll end up not successfully wrapping the curve around the form at all on one side.

Your dissections are a good start, although they certainly need a lot of work. One thing I'm seeing is that you're trying to rely on the faded lines of a dying pen to create a sort of half-tone. The main feature of a felt tip pen is that it traditionally gives you full black at various weights, and nothing else. Rather than trying to get around this, work within these restrictions. Give the 25 texture challenge a read when you get the chance, and I highly recommend that you work on it gradually as you move through the next lessons.

You're definitely struggling with your boxes, you've got a LOT of near/far plane size relationship issues going on. Your form intersections are alright, though there's plenty of room to improve. Another issue I'm noticing is that you tend to apply some fairly dramatic perspective to many of your boxes (keep the foreshortening shallow, the organic perspective notes from lesson 1 talk about this), and you're using some stretched forms (as opposed to equilateral ones as you were instructed), which definitely makes things more difficult than they need to be.

Lastly, your organic intersections are alright, though again we're seeing the curves not being aligned to the minor axis, leading to a lot of them being a little skewed.

I am going to mark this lesson as complete, but you've clearly got a lot of things to work on as you push through the lessons. The box issue is a big one, but it won't hit you until you hit lesson 6 - but when you reach that point, it'll hit you hard if you haven't been able to sort it out by then. Still, that's a long ways off so you should have plenty of time to continue practicing the lesson 1 and 2 exercises as warmups, hopefully enough to fix these issues.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-11 22:16

Pretty well done. Your arrows flow nicely, your contour curves generally wrap nicely around the organic forms (the one in the bottom right corner of page 5 is very flat). Your dissections show a good start with texture - a lot of complexity, along with a good balance of noise/rest areas. To keep pushing yourself in that area, the 25 texture challenge is a good bet, just be sure to spread it out over time while tackling other lessons.

Your form intersections are pretty solid, though it's clear you've gotta work on your spheres, specifically keeping your perfect circles even and smooth, and tightening the ellipses up in general. Your organic intersections are well done, and show a growing understanding of how these different voluminous forms interact with one another.

I'll mark this lesson as complete, feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-11 22:53

The flow of your arrows is pretty good, but I'm noticing that your linework is rather hairy and sketchy here. Drawing a single mark with multiple lines, which contributes to that general hairiness, is definitely a bad habit that you should work towards avoiding. Make sure that every mark you put down is the result of conscious thought and planning, rather than reflex and instinct.

Your contour lines/organic forms are looking good, though I noticed you didn't do a whole lot of contour curves on their own. The three you did look solid though, so I won't ask you to do more. Note, though - it's ellipse not eclipse.

Your dissections are looking good. Lots of variation, lots of different textures, and plenty of visual information. One thing I noticed is that in some areas, where you try to fill areas in, you do so with very tight hatching which results in small white spots showing through. This is bad, because while solid black is very low-contrast, throwing a lot of white spots in there makes it extremely high contrast, noisy and distracting to the viewer. When you fill something in, make sure you fill it in with solid black. Half-assing it will have negative effects. Also, look into doing the 25 texture challenge, though be sure to spread that one over time as you move into the next lessons.

Another thing I wanted to mention about texture is that in general, fineliners allow you to work in stark black, and stark white. As pens die, you get a sort of grey area where they're able to make faded strokes, but I encourage you not to take advantage of that - the result is always going to be muddy and unpleasant. Same goes for most uses of cross hatching, or hatching in general - there's a few places where it makes sense, but you shouldn't use it just to quickly fill in an area with tone - at least, not when you're drawing with fineliners.

Your form intersections (not interactions) are reasonably good. I see you drew through one of your boxes on the second page of the exercise, but generally you'd benefit immensely from doing this for all of them. It helps you get a sense of how the forms sit in 3D space, which in turn helps you grasp how they should intersect with one another.

As for line weight, the last paragraph here might help: Line Weight. In form intersections, the best way to leverage line weight is to use it to demonstrate overlap, where the form that's in front is going to have more weight (on that overlapping line segment).

The organic intersections are alright - the second one has a bit of weirdness with that top sausage that seems to be supported by absolutely nothing, but generally you've captured a decent sense of how each sausage sags and weighs against its neighbours.

I really like the cross sectional drawings you included at the end there, by the way - they're very well done and demonstrate a solid sense of form and space, perhaps in a way that didn't come through as strongly in other exercises.

Feel free to move onto the next lesson. Oh, and by the way - if you've unchecked the "Show my Flair" on the sidebar, I use the flairs to keep track of who's completed what so it'd be best if you could leave that on.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-12 19:36

Looking good! Your arrows are smooth and your organic forms' contour lines wrap around fairly well giving a decent sense of volume. Here and there though I am catching your contour curves getting just a little bit... I don't want to say sloppy, but I just get the sense that sometimes you don't think through the curve quite enough. They still come out okay, but I feel like if you allow yourself to relax too much on that front, you might start slipping back.

Your dissections are good - nice variety of textures, and you're approaching them with a reasonable amount of complexity while taking care to organize and structure them so as to avoid really dense areas of visual noise.

Your form intersections are looking solid. I'm especially pleased with your organic intersections, the individual sausage forms really give the impression that you understand how each form interacts with its neighbours, properly considering their weight and tension.

I'll mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one when you're ready.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-15 00:07

Nice work! Your arrows, organic forms and form intersections all demonstrate a solid understanding of the concepts we're after. Your organic intersections were okay as well, though when you have a form wrapping around another, you have a tendency to cut it off a little early: http://i.imgur.com/nfkLLZQ.png

As far as the odd mistake, remember that I'm not looking for perfect work. I'm looking for signs that you understand what you're after, so I can confidently leave you to practice this stuff on your own, while moving through the rest of the material. Even if it's full of blunders, if I can derive the sense that you know what to aim for and that you're just bad at the execution, then chances are I'd let you pass. Your execution, of course, was for the most part spot on.

On the flipside, I'm very much against doing things "because I really wanted to." Your wish to submit it all today matters not in the slightest, and it's something you need to contend with. Our petty desires can often get in the way of the things that will allow us to develop, and will inevitably hold us back.

Anyway, keep up the great work, and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-16 22:01

Decent work. Your arrows are fine. Your organic forms with contour curves are coming along well - they wrap around the forms nicely. One thing to keep in mind though is that these lines don't have much nuance to them - that is, the lineweight is very uniform through the entire stroke. One thing to work on is applying slightly less pressure as your pen touches down and as it lifts up from a stroke, just to add a slight taper at the ends. This isn't something to stress about too much, but as you get used to it, it'll make your drawings a little less stiff.

It looks like the texture exercise was a good idea, and you did well there, as well as with the second page of dissections. The 25 texture challenge elaborates on this concept a little bit, though it's a great deal of work and isn't entirely necessary based on what you're exhibiting here.

Your form intersections are alright, but your boxes are more often than not, showing a slight near/far plane size issue. Keep in mind that the ghosting method's first step is to mark out the start/end points of your lines. This can help you plot out your lines without drawing them, in case you're relying too much on guessing with your box constructions. Placing the points of all your box's corners can help you get a handle on that and avoid issues where your far planes come out larger than your near planes.

Lastly, your organic intersections leave much to be desired. Right now they don't convince me that you have a sense for how these forms exist in 3D space, and how they interact with one another. They are improving a little bit between the two pages, but you really need to keep your mind on how one form would go about wrapping around another. Also, it helps to keep the thickness of a single form fairly consistent throughout its length, rather than allowing it to taper in its midsection or swell out at its ends.

I'd like to see one more page of organic intersections before I mark this lesson as complete. Try and consider how the contour curves you've drawn around your forms are curved, and try to match that with forms that rest on top.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-16 22:18

Generally pretty well done. Your arrows, organic forms with contour lines, dissections and form intersections are fairly solid. Your organic intersections are alright as well, though here and there you've got a few issues with the general solidity of your forms. Specifically, always try to keep the width of your sausage-forms consistent (no tapering in their midsection or swelling at their ends) and keep an eye on general... deflation, to put it plainly. For instance, towards the right side of the first set, you've got one there that's just given up on life.

Anyway, I'll mark this lesson as complete so feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-16 23:26

In general your understanding of the concepts is alright, and moving in the right direction, but your execution is sloppy.

In your form intersections, many of your boxes have near/far plane size relationships issues (despite drawing through your forms), and some of your corrections are off - for instance, the top left of your third page of the exercise. Also, you've complicated things by drawing stretched/elongated forms, something I explicitly asked you to avoid in my instructions.

Your linework in your organic intersections is sketchy and timid - every mark you put down should be done so with confidence, not impeded by the desire to draw something clean or pretty. Furthermore, when you have areas that you want to fill in with black, fill them in completely and try to respect the edges of those shapes that you've set out. Specifically I'm referring to the cast shadows, which have little white bits, and bits where your little strokes penetrate the silhouette's edges. It's a good idea to smooth this stuff out after the fact.

Generally your contour lines are okay, but you should think more about what degrees to use in each contour ellipse/curve. The degree represents how the circular disc (the cross-sectional cut of the form) is rotated through space, so if it's got a small degree it's turned away, if it's got a very large degree it's turned towards the viewer. I talk about this in this video.

Lastly, with your texturing, you're jumping ahead of yourself, trying to move onto the phase of learning how to organize and interpret texture before really pinning down your ability to observe and transfer it in all of its noisy, detail-dense glory. I strongly recommend that you take a look at the 25 texture challenge. Give the notes there a read, and then try doing the work bit by bit alongside other lessons.

I am going to mark this lesson as complete, because you do seem to generally understand what you should be aiming for, but your execution leaves much to be desired. Be sure to continue practicing these exercises as warmups as you move forwards.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-17 21:53

Sorry for missing this one, one always falls through the cracks every now and then.

Your arrows start off a little weak, but they get considerably stronger as you keep practicing them. One of the most significant improvements over the set is that you start maintaining a more consistent width, rather than allowing them to swell and shrink randomly. The only influence for size change should be perspective itself, with the parts of the arrow/ribbon that are closer to the viewer being larger, and those farther away being smaller.

Your organic forms with contour lines start off VERY sloppy, and for the first several pages it really looks like you're not really thinking about how you're using the lines, and are just putting marks on the page. You have to think through these things. You also start off with a habit of immediately reinforcing your lines - this is a common, but bad habit that comes from a lack of both planning and confidence.

Ultimately your work does improve - your contour curves start wrapping around the forms, and your lines get cleaner and somewhat more thought out. One issue that remains consistent though is a disregard for the purpose of the minor axis (the line that passes through the center of the form). As the name suggests, the minor axis is the same line explained in lesson 1, that passes through an ellipse through its narrower dimension, cutting it into two equal, symmetrical halves. All of your ellipses must be aligned to this - curves as well, as curves are merely the visible portions of larger ellipses.

This means it's imperative that as you practice, you draw the minor axis through all of your forms, and you try your best to get your curves and ellipses to adhere to it.

Your dissections are fairly well done. Lots of interesting textures, and a good balance between detail and rest areas. Your form intersections are also fairly well executed, although on your first page your forms tend to have a more dramatic foreshortening than they should, which causes the scene to feel inconsistent. Your later pages use a much shallower foreshortening, which works much better. You've also got some nice use of lineweight here.

Don't forget to draw through all of your ellipses - your spheres are looking rather lumpy and awkward.

Lastly, your first page of organic intersections is not great, but your second page is somewhat better in how the different forms wrap around one another. The biggest issue I see here however is something I really want to make clear:

Never use broken lines. Whenever you draw through a form, do so with a single, continuous, unbroken stroke. As soon as you break a line, you lose its flow and direction, and it cannot be regained. As a result, every time it breaks, your trajectory will shift slightly, causing a serious drop in precision and a general decrease in the solidity of the result. Always use continuous lines. Making a pretty drawing is not a major priority for us, and while we always want to be mindful of whether or not we're being frivolous with how many lines we put down, if a line has value (such as one being used to draw through and understand a form and how it sits in space), it should be drawn with full confidence.

I'll be marking this lesson as complete, as you've improved considerably over the various sets. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-21 18:35

Pretty well done! There's a few things that you can focus on as you continue to practice these exercises, though.

• Your first page of organic forms with contour curves are getting there, but I think you're still falling a little short when it comes to wrapping the curves around the forms. Overshooting helps develop this sense of the rounded surface. Your second page is better by a considerable margin, though it's still something you should focus on.

• Your dissections are a little on the simplistic end, as far as the textures go. Not bad, but I think you'd benefit from looking into working on the 25 texture challenge while you continue to move forwards through the lessons (it's a big challenge, should be spread out over a long period of time).

• Your organic intersections have a lot of gaps - that is, between the forms themselves. When drawing this sort of exercise, it's important to think about how the forms interact with one another - no hoverhand here, they should be clinging to one another and wrapping around each others' contours. Try and think about how each one has weight. I like to picture dropping a sausage-shaped balloon filled with water over an outstretched arm. Consider how the two ends of the balloon would sag with their weight, while the center would grow tense and wrap right around the limb.

Aside from that, very nice work. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-18 16:25

Not bad, though there are some things you can work on.

• In your dissections, your textures are generally well done but when you start tackling hair, you tend to get very scribbly. It's easy to fall into that trap, but there is almost no legitimate reason to ever scribble your lines and rely on randomness. You want to make sure that you put thought into each stroke, even if you have to draw a lot of them. In this case in particular, there are better ways to tackle hair and fur: take a look at this and this.

• Your form intersections are alright, but at a fundamental level your box constructions are on the weaker end, with a lot of far/near plane size relationship issues. I encourage you to take a stab at the 250 box challenge to iron that out. Also remember that the ghosting method starts off with dropping down the start/end points of each line, so rather than drawing each line one after the other, it may be better to drop down the points to define your estimates for the corners, so you can adjust them slightly before committing with actual lines.

• With your organic intersections, you should try to maintain a consistent volume and a solid form with each organic mass. Some of yours at the moment feel more like deflated balloons - think of them as balloons filled with water instead. Avoid any situations with tapered midsections or swollen ends, and generally try to keep the width of the form consistent.

These are all things you can work on as you continue to move forwards - but you may consider this lesson complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-18 16:44

• Arrows are generally okay

• Your organic forms with contour ellipses - you're not drawing through your ellipses.

• Your organic forms with contour curves are okay, but I'm noticing that your line weight for those curves are very very uniform, which causes them to feel very static and stiff. This can come from pressing too hard on the pen throughout, but regardless of the cause, try to use a little less pressure as you start a line, and as you finish it off, causing the ends to taper slightly. This will make your lines feel more dynamic and lively.

• With your textures, you jump into trying to simplify and organize your detail too early - you need to practice drawing them in full detail much more before you get into that. I strongly recommend that you look into the 25 texture challenge. It's quite time consuming, so it's best to do this one gradually while you also move forwards with other lessons.

• Your form intersections are alright, in terms of the forms themselves. You didn't heed my instructions in regards to avoiding long/stretched forms and keeping things generally equilateral, however. Also, when you add line weight, your lines get VERY hairy and sketchy, which is something you must avoid. You should never chicken scratch, regardless of the reason.

• Your organic intersections are moving in the right direction, but they could certainly use some work. For instance, the couple of forms where you try to use contour curves instead of contour ellipses flatten out completely, as those contour curves don't wrap around the forms convincingly. This is definitely something you need to keep working on.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete - I've let you know what you need to work on, so I certainly expect that you'll continue practicing these exercises as warmups as you continue to move through the next lessons.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-19 19:36

Pretty nice work. Your organic forms with contour curves are looking good, though you'll want to start focusing on getting those contour curves to fit snugly within the shape, rather than going beyond (or falling short) of the edges. Your dissections are going in the right direction, and I think the texture challenge will be hugely beneficial to you as far as mileage goes. Your form intersections are solid - the forms are looking consistent and reasonably solid. Your organic intersections are alright, though the forms themselves feel a little bit stiff. The big central one's nicely done, but as you build up, I think you stress a little about having them have to fall in specific locations and behave in certain ways, so you lock up a little bit. More practice will help, of course, and you're still generally showing that you understand the principles of the exercise.

I'll mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-20 19:28

Excellent work. Your arrows are consistent and give a good sense of depth. Your organic forms maintain a strong sense of volume, and the contour curves wrap around them quite well. Your dissections demonstrate a wide variety of textures, each one drawn carefully with special attention paid to your linework. Your form intersections are generally consistent and cohesive, in terms of the foreshortening applied to the different forms (so they look like they fit in the same space), and your use of line weight and sense of form makes them all appear very solid and believable. Lastly, you've done a pretty good job with your organic intersections, getting your head around how each form sags over its neighbours and capturing the tension between them.

I really have nothing to point out as far as corrections go - you're surging in the right direction, so keep up the great work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-22 15:17

Your arrows and form intersections are well done. As are your dissections. The biggest issue I'm seeing comes from the fact that you're not drawing through your ellipses. As I mentioned in the first lesson, I expect you to do this for every single ellipse you draw for my lessons. This issue impacts your organic forms most significantly, but also has some minor impact on your form intersections.

Another issue with your organic forms is that you're not drawing the minor axis (the central spine that goes through each form), to which each ellipse should be aligned.

Finally, when you move onto the organic forms with contour curves, due to the shortfalls of your contour ellipses, you struggle considerably with getting your curves to wrap around the forms convincingly. Giving this a read may help: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms.

While your organic intersections suffer from some of the same issues to varying degrees, I do see some signs of an understanding of how those forms would wrap around each other, and interact with one another. One thing to note though is that unlike the form intersections, these aren't meant to cut into each other (maybe intersection is the wrong word for this exercise). They're just meant to lay on top of one another, sagging and wrapping around their neighbours.

Anyway, I'd like you to redo the organic form with contour ellipse/curve section before I mark this lesson as complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-22 19:44

You've done a pretty good job. Your contour curves wrap around the forms well (though keep in mind that your minor axis should pass as close to the center of a form as possible, and then you should be using it to align your contour ellipses), your dissections show a good amount of detail and despite your concerns, don't get too noisy, your form intersections demonstrate a solid understanding of space and the interaction between the forms themselves, and your organic intersections are going in the right direction, wrapping around each other in ways that do a good job of depicting the individual forms' weight and tension.

On the topic of the dissections, the only thing that I'd recommend is not to use hatching or crosshatching to just fill an area in. Don't get caught up in using any sort of form shading - that is, the shadows that describe the overall organic form itself. Focus on the texture, which exists separately. It can get a little confusing at times, but the texture is more the result of the little shadows cast by tiny forms set into the surface. Like little bumps, scales, and so on - each one casts a tiny shadow. Focus entirely on those, and if you ever catch yourself wanting to fill an area in with hatching, ask yourself what exactly you're trying to capture with it.

Anyway, keep up the good work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-27 19:20

Your arrows are fairly well done. Your organic forms with contour ellipses and curves are also well executed. Your dissections are alright, though the textures are somewhat simplistic - I believe you're jumping ahead of yourself in trying to simplify and organize your detail before having sufficiently developed the ability to really identify and capture the wealth of noisy visual information present in a given reference image. As a result, you don't have a whole lot to simplify right now. Doing the texture challenge should help in this area, as it forces you to first come to terms with capturing all of the detail of a particular texture several times over, before moving onto the organizational phase.

With the intersections, you did the main focus of the exercise well (drawing a bunch of forms in the same scene such that they feel cohesive and consistent). The actual intersections... well there's really not a whole lot of that going on right now, as you said, they're random and it doesn't look like you put a whole lot of thought into how they actually fit together. At the end of the day, intersection itself is not really what we're focusing on, and it's not a simple concept to convey so early on. So we're going to leave it as it is. Over time you may want to revisit the notes in the lesson section every now and then.

In your organic intersection exercise, you do seem to be getting just the beginnings of an understanding of the purpose of this exercise. I can see some attempts at having the forms interact with one another, conveying a little bit of how they'd sag against one another where their weight is not quite supported. That said, there's a lot of room to grow. As always, the most important thing is to perceive these forms as having weight and solidity to them, and considering how they sit in 3D space, going beyond just what you see on the flat page. You must be fully convinced of the illusion that they are 3D - your goal is to fool your viewers, but before being able to do that you must first be able to fool yourself.

Also, for the forms themselves, try to stick to simple sausage forms and avoid any sort of tapering in their midsections or swelling at their ends. Swelling at the ends is something I see often when people try to over-exaggerate perspective in a way that doesn't entirely make sense. At such a small scale, perspective and foreshortening tends to be fairly shallow regardless.

Anyway, I'm going to mark this lesson as complete - you should continue to keep up with these exercises as warmups as you move through the later lessons.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-29 17:48

So you've got a few issues, primarily with your organic forms with contour lines, that run through the entire lesson. The biggest of these is that your contour curves, more often than not, don't give the impression of properly wrapping around the rounded organic forms. As they reach the edge of the form, their curvature should accelerate, giving the illusion that they hook back around and continue on along the other side. This is a common issue, and I talk about it more here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms.

Looking at your organic intersections, I did see a couple of instances where you did a good job of that 'hooking around' acceleration - I've highlighted them in this image: http://i.imgur.com/kTiZRTs.png. Notice how the start to curve much more quickly than those I highlighted as bad?

Generally when drawing contour ellipses, it's easy to get that sort of curvature, as you're forced to follow through an entire ellipse, whereas here it can be a bit of a struggle at first, since the curve simply stops at the edge. One way to connect the two in your mind is to overshoot the ellipse and continue on slightly after the line hooks around. You can also see this in the overdrawing I did of your organic intersections. Over time you can overshoot less and less, until eventually your curves stop at the edge, but for now it's a good idea to use this approach for all of your contour curves.

Another thing I noticed was that you're not drawing the central line through your organic forms as shown in figure 1.10 of the exercise description (the second step). Rather, you don't do it at all for your contour ellipses, but you do (sort of) for your contour curves. The problem is that you don't take advantage of them.

These lines serve as the minor axis, to which all of your ellipses (and therefore also your curves, which can be thought of the visible portion of a larger hidden ellipse) should be aligned. The minor axis, if you remember from lesson 1, is the line that passes through the narrower dimension of an ellipse, such that it cuts the ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves. So, each ellipse should be aligned to this central line in such a way. Maintaining this alignment will also help keep your contour ellipses and contour curves perpendicular to the general flow of the organic form, which will make wrapping the curves around the rounded form much easier (having a lopsided angle in turn makes it quite difficult).

Now, I don't want to lead you to believe that all of your contour curves are bad. Looking over the set, I can see some areas where you already are benefitting from overshooting your curves - many of these however suffer from having that alignment lopsided, so while one side of the curve wraps around nicely, the other one ends up failing to do so. You do however have other curves that may be aligned decently, but aren't drawn with any thought to the illusion of wrapping around.

For your dissections, you're making a good start at experimenting with different textures. It'd be worth while to look into the 25 texture challenge - it's a very time consuming challenge, so expect to spread it out over a long period of time while working on other lessons, rather than expecting to do it all at once before moving on.

For your form intersections, there's a couple bits of instruction that you seem to have missed, or ignored. First off, in the exercise I say the following:

For now, I strongly encourage you to avoid forms that are stretched in any one dimension. For example, long tubes, long boxes, and so on. At this point it is far better to stick to fairly "equilateral" forms. That is, forms that are roughly the same size in every dimension.

Also, in my critique for your lesson 1 work, I encouraged you to read the notes about drawing through your forms. You don't seem to have applied any of that to this exercise, and as a result many of your boxes are lopsided.

Lastly, you don't appear to be drawing through any of your ellipses - I very firmly insist that every ellipse you draw for my lessons applies this technique.

Now, before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to do one more page of organic forms with contour curves, and one more page of form intersections.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-29 18:02

Generally you've done a pretty good job. Just a couple minor things that I'd like to draw your attention to.

• Your contour ellipses are a bit on the stiff and wobbly side. Be more mindful of drawing them with a confident pace, after applying the ghosting method's preparation techniques.

• Your contour ellipses are generally okay, although I believe you could stand to take an extra moment or two to improve your precision when ghosting through the motion. You've got quite a few that don't quite touch the edges of your organic form.

• I believe your textures are quite well done! I can see the fear of them being too noisy, but I think they're just about where they should be.

• Form intersections are very nicely done.

• Your organic intersections are alright, though I'd say the one on the top there towards the left was a bit of a blunder. It doesn't really feel believable, as it doesn't sag much under its own weight where it is not supported by other forms. Overall though good work.

Keep it up, and consider this lesson complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-29 18:25

Some of your work is alright, but much of it is quite sloppy. One thing to keep in mind is that the very basis of these lessons is the ghosting method - that every mark you put down should be the result of planning and preparation, and that you should never draw anything by reflex and without conscious thought.

The first thing that jumps out at me is that your organic forms with contour lines undermines this notion completely. Your lines are sketchy, you reflexively reinforce your contour curves with additional lines, rather than taking the time to draw each one with planning and forethought once.

Additionally, your contour curves generally do not carry the illusion that they are wrapping around the organic forms convincingly. I talk about this issue more here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms. Lastly, while you are drawing the central line through many of your organic forms, you're not using it to line up your ellipses as described in the second step of the exercise description (figure 1.10).

Keep in mind that you're also inevitably struggling a lot due to the fact that you're drawing all of these organic forms very small, and sometimes needlessly complex. Focus on drawing simple sausage forms. Making things more complicated than they need to be is not going to improve your skills faster - if anything, it's going to hinder your progress and make it harder to grasp the basics.

Your dissections suffer from many of these same problems - poor contour lines, scribbly linework, etc. When drawing textures, I get that the details can at times seem overwhelming, but you should never just sketch and scribble without thought and consideration. Just like every other mark you put down, your textures should be the result of observation, planning and forethought.

Your form intersections are reasonably well done. You would benefit from drawing through your forms (as covered in the box challenge), however, and you also clearly ignored these instructions from the lesson:

For now, I strongly encourage you to avoid forms that are stretched in any one dimension. For example, long tubes, long boxes, and so on. At this point it is far better to stick to fairly "equilateral" forms. That is, forms that are roughly the same size in every dimension.

Lastly, your organic intersections are reasonably well done, and demonstrate a better use of your contour curves than the actual contour line exercises.

For now, I'd like you to redo the entire organic forms section, as well as the dissections. You may also want to read through the notes on the 25 texture challenge page to get a better sense of what you're doing wrong. Don't do that challenge now, but be sure to start on it once you've completed lesson 2.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-30 23:31

Generally well done. I do have a few concerns to share, but you're moving in the right direction.

My biggest concern: draw through your ellipses. I'm very adamant about this - every ellipse you draw for my lessons should apply this technique.

Aside from that, your organic forms with contour curves are reasonably well done. Your dissections are good too, aside from a couple - the riveted metal, the old stone wall. These are patterns rather than textures, which is why they ended up coming out more cartoony than the others. The texture would actually be the surface of the metal itself, whether it's smooth, rusted, dented, etc. or the cracked, porous, gritty surface of the stones.

Your form intersections are pretty well done, though you did ignore the instruction about avoiding overly stretched forms and sticking to those that are more equilateral in their dimensions. Also, again, draw through your ellipses.

Lastly, your organic intersections are generally okay, though I do want to stress the importance of keeping your forms simple and straightforward. The more complexity in a form, the less it's going to be able to maintain its illusion of solidity and weight. You've got a lot of forms that get wavy and irregular through their lengths, and they start to resemble deflated balloons, in that sort of flimsy way, rather than solid, weighty, voluminous forms.

Also, always remind yourself that these objects exist in 3D space - it's very easy, especially as a beginner, to lose hold of that illusion, to no longer be convinced of it, and to revert to simply drawing shapes across a flat page. Those organic forms move through space - they go from being closer to you, to further away, and sometimes parts of them will hide behind other forms. When one form rests against its neighbour, it's going to wrap around it, because it's flexible - and it has weight. It sags if nothing is supporting it. Certain orientations are simply physically impossible. When you're caught up in the illusion, when you've gone and fooled yourself, your brain won't even consider such impossible configurations as something you can draw on the page. Always push yourself to buy into the lie of it all. It'll be hard at first, but keep pushing.

Anyway, I'll mark this lesson as complete so feel free to move onto the next one. Of course, don't forget to keep practicing these exercises as warmups.

Uncomfortable

2016-07-31 00:35

Pretty nice work. Just a couple things I noticed.

• When drawing contour curves, you tend to draw two at a time, doubling each one up. Don't do this - it's a bad habit to immediately reinforce a mark with another one as a reflex. You want to be in full conscious control of every mark you put down, driving each one with thought and planning.

• Your dissection textures start off very weak, poorly thought out and kind of scribbly on that first page. You improve significantly on this front, ultimately leading into a variety of interesting textures, each one fairly well planned and executed with little to no randomness or chaos. Nicely done.

• Your form intersections are solid for the most part. Of course, my focus here is your ability to draw a bunch of forms together in the same scene without losing the sense of cohesion and consistency. The intersections themselves aren't of terrible significance, though most of yours appear to be well done. You do seem to have some weird ones going on between cylinders and pyramids, but for the time being I'm not going to delve into that. As you continue to work through the lessons, your sense of 3D space and your ability to think through spatial problems should improve, so we're not going to worry about that right now.

• Your organic intersections are okay, though you could have gone further to clarify what's going on - adding line weight and cast shadows to make the overlaps clearer. From what I can see though, your sense of interaction between the different forms is alright.

Anyway, I'll mark this lesson as complete so feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable

2016-08-06 17:42

You are a crazy person. I apologize for how blunt that is, but you really are. Your work is all more than adequate for this point in the lessons, you're conveying a solid understanding of all of the material presented here (even if you're not conscious of it). Of course, while you are among the higher ranks of those who've submitted work for this lesson, you're certainly not the best - and that doesn't matter at all, as comparing yourself against anyone else here is a fruitless and frustrating endeavor. Everyone has plugged along at their own pace, from their own circumstances, and so everyone's results in any one point in time will be different. Time is of course the great equalizer - at least, time and perseverance. Considering that you spent over thirty hours on two pages of dissections, you have the latter in spades.

Now, while your work is more than satisfactory, I'm sure you'd be pretty pissed if I left it at that. So, I do have a bit I can say about your textures that may help as you move forwards. Don't expect this to be a silver bullet, just something to keep in mind as you move forwards into the later lessons. It'll take time for this and any other concept I share with you to sink in, but as long as you think on it while you do the work in the future (and there will be so much work if you decide to continue), you will find yourself understanding it better and better along the way.

So, here's some notes on your textures: http://i.imgur.com/iwIsiSB.jpg

Anyway, I'll mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

At the end of the day, there's one really, really important thing to keep in mind: texture is not that important. At all. Construction and form is infinitely more significant, and if you spend all your time focusing on texture and very little on construction, your results will be very poor. If you do the opposite however, spend the majority of your time on construction and very little (or even none) on texture, you'll come out a significantly better artist than you were when you started.

Uncomfortable

2016-08-07 17:50

Despite your struggles, you did fairly well. There's a few things that need a bit more work to be squared up, but you're definitely heading in the right direction.

The biggest thing that stands out to me is your organic forms with contour curves. You're almost there, though you'll want to continue keeping your mind on wrapping those contour curves around the forms, accelerating them as they reach the edges and hooking them back around. Overshooting your curves a little bit may help with this. I talk about that here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms.

One important thing your organic forms with contour curves are missing is the central line. You drew this for many of your contour ellipses, but it's just as important for the curves. A contour curve is just the visible portion of the ellipse that goes all the way around the surface of the form. The central line serves as the minor axis of the ellipse, cutting it into two equal, symmetrical halves through its narrower dimension. If it's misaligned, it'll be more difficult to get it to feel as though it wraps around believably.

Moving ahead, your dissections are coming along nicely, demonstrating some interesting experimentation.

Your form intersections are coming along well, especially after all of the practicing. One thing I did notice though is that you largely ignored one of the instructions in the lesson:

For now, I strongly encourage you to avoid forms that are stretched in any one dimension. For example, long tubes, long boxes, and so on. At this point it is far better to stick to fairly "equilateral" forms. That is, forms that are roughly the same size in every dimension.

Lastly, your organic intersections are looking good.

I'll mark this lesson as complete, feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable

2016-08-09 20:35

Despite your struggles, I think you've done a pretty solid job. Your organic forms with contour lines give a good illusion of form, your form intersections are solid and consistent, and your organic intersections demonstrate a growing understanding of how these different forms interact with one another.

Your dissections are decent - definitely good enough for now - though there's two concerns that I have. Firstly, you're meant to start this exercise off as though you were doing another page of organic forms with contour curves. Don't jump right into the texturing, actually build out those contour curves first to make sure you're building upon a solid, voluminous foundation. Secondly, your textures are coming out just a little bit more cartoony and perhaps oversimplified. This comes from you attempting to organize the detail in your textures a little too early - before properly having the chance to develop your observational skills. As a result, you don't actually have a lot of visual information to be organizing, resulting in that oversimplified look.

Be sure to take a look at the 25 texture challenge. It forces you to try and grasp each texture's full detail, and then gives you the opportunity to try and organize it. This is an extremely time consuming challenge, so I recommend that you do it gradually, bit by bit, alongside moving forward on the other lessons. Keep in mind that texture is not that important - construction is FAR more significant, and it's the focus of my lessons. So, it's perfectly fine if you allow yourself to work on those separately, at different rates.

Anyway, I'll mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable

2016-08-11 19:13

I do have some concerns.

• Firstly, a general issue with how you lay out your pages. For the most part, they're not particularly.. full. I'll usually be fairly lax with this, since the amount of work a student puts in will directly impact what they get out of the lesson, but here I think it's definitely important to point out. For example, look at your organic forms. You've got a handful on the pages, but there's loads of room between the, plenty of space for several more. You should be much more conscientious about filling up your pages, and practicing the exercises as much as you can.

• Next, your ellipses are still quite stiff and uneven. The quality varies, but in general you are drawing too slowly, letting your brain course-correct as you draw, rather than pushing through a confident, persistent pace to achieve a smoother mark. This is something I raised in lesson 1. If you haven't been continuing to practice those exercises as warmups, you definitely should be.

• Your organic forms with contour curves need work. The contour curves aren't quite wrapping around the forms convincingly much of the time. I do see some signs of you attempting to hook around and overshoot the curves here and there, and that is looking a little better, but the vast majority of your curves fail to support the illusion of roundedness and volume.

• Your dissections are supposed to start off as an organic form with contour lines, before even starting to add texture of any sort. You are not just jump into the dissection portion, you must first establish the underlying form.

• Overall, for your textures, I believe you're trying to organize the visual information before properly developing your ability to really observe, identify and copy over the actual visual information of your reference. As a result, you don't really have much information to organize, so your dissections end up looking somewhat cartoony. You'd be much better off focusing on trying to copy over as much detail as you can right now, with no consideration for organizing it at all. The result will look very noisy and busy, but it's an important step to take. Additionally, remember that you must not work from memory - our ability to remember things is pretty poor as a species. Instead, you should be looking at your reference constantly, taking only a second or two to draw before looking at the reference again. Once you look away, your brain will quickly start simplifying the things you saw, throwing a lot of key information out.

• Your form intersections are coming along, but they do have plenty of room for improvement. The weakness in your ellipses is definitely a factor, and generally your box/cylinder constructions are kind of sloppy. Remember the near/far plane concepts (near planes are always going to be larger than your far planes), keep your foreshortening consistent by maintaining shallow rates of perspective distortion (the far plane shouldn't be significantly smaller, just slightly), apply the ghosting method to each and every line you draw to keep your lines straight and smooth, and as the lesson instructed, avoid including any stretched forms (longer tubes, etc) and stick to more equilateral forms - that is, forms that are more or less the same size in all three dimensions. This helps limit the amount of perspective distortion making a complicated exercise more complicated.

• For your organic intersections, one important thing to keep in mind is that you want to make sure every organic form feels solid. Looking at yours, I see a lot of wavy lines. This kind of thing will undermine the solidity of your forms - you want to stick to simple curves. Try to keep to drawing only basic sausage forms, and focus on how those forms interact with one another. How one form might be supported by the one underneath it at some points along its length, and then how it might sag where it ceases to be supported. Think about how they would wrap around each other. A good thing to visualize is a sausage-shaped balloon filled with water being dropped over your outstretched forearm. Think about how it would be supported by your arm in the center, but how the sides would sag downwards.

I know this is a lot to take in, so you'll probably have to read over my critique a few times. Once you've been able to digest it, I'd like you to try and take another stab at this lesson's homework. Take your time, apply the ghosting method and the principles it espouses, and remember to draw confidently. A wobbly line drawn too slowly and carefully will undermine the solidity of everything you draw.

Uncomfortable

2016-08-12 13:32

I won't be critiquing this right now. My instructions were to complete the 250 box challenge next, not to move onto lesson 2. Once you've completed and submitted the box challenge, you will redo the form intersections for this lesson and resubmit the whole set. Next time, follow my instructions to the letter, and if you're unsure of something I've said, ask.

Uncomfortable

2016-08-15 19:51

Pretty nice work! Your contour lines wrap around the organic forms reasonably well, your dissections show some solid texture experimentation, your form intersections are consistent and believable, and your organic intersections show a solid understanding of how each form sits in space, and how they interact with one another.

I have only one thing to point out - when doing your organic forms with contour ellipses, you left out the central line that should be passing through it, which doubles as the minor axis (to which the ellipses should be aligned). Your ellipses' alignment is still decent despite this, but it's important not to skip steps when doing these exercises.

Anyway, I'll mark this lesson as complete so feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable

2016-08-15 20:26

Here's a few things that I noticed, looking over your work:

• You skipped the organic forms with contour ellipses exercise (you jumped right into organic forms with contour curves)

• Your contour curves don't wrap around the forms convincingly. It's a common problem, and it likely has more than a little to do with the fact that you skipped the previous step. Additionally, overshooting your curves and hooking them back can help. I explain that further here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms

• You're not drawing through your ellipses. Specifically we're looking at the form intersections. You should be drawing through each and every ellipse you draw for my lessons. An explanation of what I mean by 'draw through' can be found here: Draw Through your Ellipses. Aside from that, your form intersections are reasonably well done.

• Your textures are alright, though a little sloppy, and at times a little too cartoony and oversimplified. This is by no means a problem at this stage - texture is something that you will improve at gradually over time. That said, always force yourself to constantly look at and study your reference image. The moment you look away from it, your brain will throw the bulk of the information you acquired out the window. You want to develop a habit of studying, studying, studying, then drawing for a moment and going back to studying. Additionally, you're thinking very much in terms of line right now - but those lines don't actually exist. What you're capturing as texture are actually the little forms that exist on a surface (for example, scales) that cast little shadows that you see as lines. But since they're not just lines, they're much more dynamic. They can expand into larger shadow shapes, and they can merge with other neighbouring shadows to create larger areas of solid black. Working strictly in uniform line will come out cartoony - think about how the lines would get thicker and heavier, or taper down to a light touch, as shadows do. Lastly, focus on those textures that result from shadow, rather than things that are explicitly patterns. Patterns include things like a leopard's spots - it's just coloration, and is not really what we're looking at here.

• Lastly, your organic intersections suffer from the same issue as your organic forms with contour curves. Additionally, your lines seem to get especially hairy/sketchy/chickenscratchy when you try and build up line weight. You should not be chicken-scratching those lines, but rather applying the additional weight in the way you would in the super imposed lines exercise from lesson 1.

I'd like you to redo the entire organic forms with contour lines section (ellipses and curves), and then redo the organic intersections as well.

Uncomfortable

2016-08-20 16:22

Nice work! Just a couple of suggestions.

• For your organic forms with contour curves, don't leave out the minor axis lines, to which each ellipse (and therefore your curves, which are just the visible portion of larger ellipses) should be aligned. If you leave them out, you risk drawing the curves at a slightly skewed angle, which causes them to wrap around the 3D form decently at one end, but miss the mark on the other.

• Your form intersections are coming along well, but you seem to have ignored one important point I mentioned in the exercise description - avoid forms that are overly stretched in any one dimension, like some of your pyramids and cylinders. This brings perspective very heavily into play. The exercise is already challenging enough as it is, so it's best to stick to more equilateral forms (think of the proportions of a cube), and focus just on getting your forms to feel consistent and cohesive within the same scene. All that aside, you still did a pretty good job.

• Oh also for the form intersections, when drawing cylinders, try and get those minor axes to penetrate all the way through both ellipses. Those ellipses are meant to be aligned to the minor axis, so it's easier to achieve this if they're sitting on top of the entire line, rather than just half. Look at the 250 cylinder challenge's notes for more information on this.

I'll mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable

2016-08-21 19:14

Not bad. Your organic forms with contour curves are a little bit on the fence, in terms of the curves wrapping convincingly around the forms (an issue I go into detail with here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms). I definitely recommend trying to overshoot the curves slightly as I mention in that link. Most of yours are okay, but they're at that point where I feel that if you were to relax a bit, you might slip back into the curves not quite running believably along the surface of the form.

Your dissections are coming along well. With your egg plant, you combined two rather different approaches (the solid black areas and hatching lines). Generally I would lean more towards the solid black, but with a greater mindfulness of how the edges of those black shapes would actually contain a sort of textured gradation in areas where you might want a softer, more gradual transition from light to dark rather than a hard, immediate one. I talk about this in the 25 texture challenge page. It's not a problem, of course - this exercise is all about experimentation, learning what works and what doesn't, so figuring out what things you probably shouldn't combine is plenty valuable.

Your form intersections are alright, though you appear to have ignored one of the recommendations I made in the exercise - to avoid forms that are overly stretched in any one dimension. Try to stick to more equilaterally proportioned forms for this exercise in the future, so as to not introduce too much perspective distortion into an already complex challenge.

Lastly, your organic intersections aren't great, but they are okay for the time being. There's a few things you should continue to consider:

• Firstly, and probably the more minor point - if you want to fill in a shape (like those shadows), fill them in completely. Don't leave little slivers of white in there, it's going to become very noisy and distracting. Brush pens can be quite useful when filling in larger areas with black.

• Secondly, always keep in mind how each form is going to interact with its neighbours. Try to imagine taking a sausage-shaped balloon and filling it with water. Then consider what it would be like to drop that balloon over your outstretched arm, such that either side of the balloon droops over each side, with your arm supporting the center. Those sides of the balloons will sag considerably, while the tension in the balloon's skin tries to hold it all together. I believe right now, that sense of tension is somewhat lacking in your organic intersections. That's totally okay, of course - that's your goal, and with practice you'll be able to achieve it, so long as you know what you're aiming for.

Anyway, you've generally done well. I'll mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2016-08-21 20:00

Pretty nice work. For your organic forms with contour curves, at times you get a little lazy with them - you've got to be way more mindful when drawing those curves. I think you understand what to do, you're just not putting much effort into it. Focus on each curve individually, don't just repeat the same motion a few times thoughtlessly and move on.

Your dissections are fine, though you should be more willing to create solid areas of black rather than maintaining a sliver of space between the densest area of hatching. Don't think of the texture lines as being lines - think of them as being little shadows that are cast by small forms on the surface. Shadows are free to merge with one another, creating large areas of black. This will also reduce the amount of unintentional visual noise you may be creating.

Also, while I think your work meets my expectations for this exercise, if YOU Think you got lazy with it, don't submit it. I expect to see your best work. An apology for a mistake noticed after the fact isn't worth much - going back and redoing it when you know you're capable of better is worth much more.

Lastly, your form intersections and organic intersections are both pretty solid. Your contour curves are again a touch on the sloppy side, but they still do a reasonable job of reinforcing the illusion of volume.

I'll mark this lesson as complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-08-21 20:32

Good news! Your form intersections look fine. You definitely got overly stressed focusing on part that I mentioned as not being all that important - the intersections of the forms themselves. The core of the exercise is about drawing forms that exist in the same space and appear cohesive and consistent. You managed that well, and your intersections are pretty good too.

Jumping back to your organic forms with contour curves, you need some work here. Your curves are not at all wrapping around the forms convincingly - they need to accelerate in their curvature as they reach the edges, giving the impression that they hook back around and continue on along the other side. I talk about this in greater detail here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms.

Your dissections are hit and miss. You've got some good ones, and some less good ones - there's a lot where you tend to fall into the habit of scribbling and relying more on randomness rather than intentional marks, and those tend to be the ones that come out worse. Additionally, you definitely want to be more willing to fill areas with solid black rather than creating extremely high-contrast, noisy areas where you've got tiny slivers of white in a sea of black. For example, the darker areas of your avocado texture have little bits of white in there that probably shouldn't be there. Also, the hatching you used to fill in the shadow on your copper pipe isn't the best choice. Here it appears pretty much as though you wanted to fill those blocks in - in which case you should have filled them in completely, with solid black.

Alternatively, long lines of varying widths running along the length of the copper pipe would also look fairly decent. Something like this: https://i.imgur.com/PzkC5p8.png.

Anyway, there's more information on the use of texture on the 25 texture challenge page.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to do one more page of organic forms with contour curves - try overshooting your curves a little bit as they hook around (I explain this in that link I mentioned).

Uncomfortable

2016-08-22 00:24

I've been critiquing all day, and I told myself that I've got a pizza coming soon and that I could just push yours off til tomorrow - but I scrolled through it and something about it made me want to critique it now. The pizza's probably going to come while I do this.

You start off weak. Your arrows are okay but leave a little to be desired (it's mostly the arrow heads really, the body section is fine), your organic forms start off with a lot of pinching and swelling which kind of undermines the solidity of the overall form. Generally you seem to grasp the core of the exercises, but they're not super great.

Usually when you see this at the beginning, you expect to see it all throughout. Yours was different, however. Over the course of the lesson's homework, you improve CONSIDERABLY. Your first page of organic intersections looks deflated and depressing, but the last page is excellent. Each form feels solid and confident, and the way they wrap around each other and interact feels completely believable.

Your first page of form intersections starts off with that same sort of "well i guess it's okay" impression but they become more solid as well. There's still room for improvement, but you're getting there - especially that page where you remarked that the right side is pretty nice - I agree, it's very nicely done.

For the form intersections, don't bother with any hatching - when it comes to capturing solidity of form, and the illusion of volume, you never want to rely on hatching lines or any sort of shading/lighting. In the case of basic geometric forms, it's more a matter of constructing those forms confidently and getting the angles of your lines, the degrees and alignment of your ellipses, and so on right. The rest doesn't matter at all, although line weight can help to make individual forms feel much more cohesive and feel more put together.

Now what really blew me away were your dissections. You were clearly uncertain at first, but you pushed through it and made some massive headway. You experimented with loads of different kinds of textures and approaches to fleshing them out, and it really paid off.

At the end of the day, this is what I'm looking for from my students. It's easy enough to try something, to read the notes at face value, and to decide "I don't get it". But this is a free service, and even those who donate donate faaaaar less than one would pay to an actual drawing instructor. This means that instead of paying with currency, you pay with effort and tenacity. And you've done that in spades.

Keep up the fantastic work and feel free to move onto the next lesson. You should be proud of yourself. Kind of makes me laugh that you were the uppity student who called me rude for pointing out that you didn't draw through your forms last week... I'm glad my curtness wasn't enough to drive you off.

...Now where's that pizza.

Uncomfortable

2016-08-22 00:29

To be honest, I don't have a whole lot to offer. You've done a solid job at every exercise. Your organic forms with contour curves successfully convey the illusion of volume. Your dissections demonstrate some excellent variety of texture. Your form intersections feel solid and cohesive. Your first page of organic intersections is okay, though your second page is better. I do think however that the choice to fill your shadows with hatching was a mistake, and weakens the result. You should be more willing to fill things in with solid black, and it would have been beneficial here. This can be difficult at times to do with a pen - brush pens are helpful. That's all a pretty minor point though.

You've done a great job, so keep up the good work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable

2016-08-22 22:38

Pretty good work. There is one thing that you're not doing nearly as much as you should, and that's drawing through your ellipses. You do it a bit in your form intersections, but you completely neglect it in your organic forms with contour ellipses. If you've forgotten, this is what I mean.

Your organic forms with contour curves are coming along okay, though keep in mind that each curve is part of a larger ellipse that should be aligned to that central minor axis line that passes through the form. This will keep the curve at a good angle, which will also help with that illusion of it wrapping around the rounded form.

Generally when drawing these organic forms, it's good to try and keep them fairly consistent in terms of width. Random tapering or swelling will cause them to feel less solid.

Your dissections show a lot of solid experimentation. That's what this exercise is all about, so don't worry so much about the results. Every different kind of texture's going to be a new problem to solve, and while you'll accrue some knowledge through your experimentation, each one's going to present some new challenges to face. Ultimately texture is not our focus - it pales in comparison to the importance of form and construction. As far as my expectations go, you're coming along more than well enough in this section. It's also nice to see how keen you were on pushing the limits of your patience with how intricate and well-planned each texture was. If you are interested in a more in-depth exercise in regards to texture, check out the 25 texture challenge.

Your form intersections are coming along well. One thing that I did notice is that your ellipses (at the ends of cylinders) aren't always aligned correctly. Make sure you start the construction off with your minor axis, and that you sit the entire ellipse along the minor axis line, rather than trying to draw it around the line's end point. The line's purpose is to show you how to align the ellipse - as explained in the 250 cylinder challenge page, the ellipse should be cut into two symmetrical halves by that line.

The other point I want to make is that you should avoid drawing through your forms with faint, timid linework. Draw those lines as confidently as you've drawn the rest. Faint linework tends to be less trustworthy, simply due to the mindset that goes into drawing that sort of a mark, rather than a confident one.

Your first page of organic intersections is so-so, but your second page does show some improvements. Try to focus on drawing those organic forms as being fairly voluminous, rather than having flat, deflated ones in there. It helps the aesthetic for sure, but it also helps you practice how to deal with these kinds of large masses and how they'd interact with one another.

Anyway, keep up the good work and consider this lesson complete.

Uncomfortable

2016-08-23 19:26

Your contour curves waver a bit. Sometimes they're alright, other times they don't quite wrap around the rounded form convincingly. Always keep in mind that these curves need to follow along the surface of the form, so as they reach the edge (which curves away), the curvature of your contour lines should accelerate and hook back around, continuing on along the other side. There are two things I can suggest that may help:

• Firstly, you're forgetting to draw the central minor axis lines that were used in the exercise description. You use them in your contour ellipses, but not with contour curves. The curves themselves are merely the visible portion of larger ellipses, so the minor axes are still important in regards to making sure they are aligned correctly. A misaligned curve can be much more difficult to work with, in terms of getting that illusion of the line wrapping around the form.

• Try overshooting your curves a little bit, as described here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms. The video linked there is also worth watching.

Your dissections are alright. At times they get a little hairy and sketchy, but in general you're making good headway. That exercise is very much about experimenting with different ways of approaching texture and ensuring that it wraps around the forms. I have one recommendation for you:

• Keep in mind that you're not drawing with a pencil or a ballpoint pen. Felt tip pens behave quite differently, in that ideally there's no midpoint between making a dark stroke or making no stroke at all. You can't control how faint your stroke is, like you could with a pencil. You can't produce different levels of greys. Just black and white. So, accept that as being part of the tool. It's not ideal for creating really nuanced textures, but it does force you to think differently. You can still produce soft transitions between full black and full white, but in order to do this you must use texture to alternate white and black within a small space. When looking at it from a little further away, these white/black marks blend together to create varying levels of grey. If your black marks are more dense, it'll feel darker, if they're more sparse, it'll feel lighter. You can find more information on this here.

Your form intersections are coming along okay, but I have a few suggestions:

• Read the instructions more carefully. I specifically stated that you should stay away from stretched forms, and keep to forms that are more equilateral in proportion. This way we don't have to add more perspective distortion to an already difficult exercise.

• Draw through your boxes, as mentioned in the 250 box challenge. I noticed that you did it once (and that one box came out well for it), but you should be doing it for all of them, especially in an exercise like this, based largely on understanding how each for sits in space.

• The 250 cylinder challenge should help with learning how to construct cylinders.

Your organic intersections are alright. Room for improvement, but you're moving in the right direction. The one that's upside down isn't great, but the one below it is definitely better.

Anyway, I'll mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable

2016-08-25 22:42

You're making some progress through this lesson, but overall I think there's a lot of room for improvement.

• For your arrows, try to avoid the kinds of turns that do not result in the ribbon-section folding over itself. When it turns much like a road, the lines remaining parallel, it reinforces the idea of the arrow being two dimensional, running along a flat page or canvas, rather than being 3D. Always try and picture points in space - the point where your arrow begins, and where it ends, and how they relate to each other in terms of depth. The arrow should be moving towards or away from you, not simply across.

• Your organic forms with contour ellipses aren't bad, but I'd recommend two things - work larger on the page, and for now try to stick to simpler forms. Basic sausages are totally fine, they allow you to really get your head around the concept without adding unnecessary complication into the mix.

• When drawing your organic forms with contour curves, you seem to have completely abandoned the minor axis line (the central line that runs through the middle of the organic form) entirely. Each curve is part of the larger ellipse, and each ellipse should be aligning to this minor axis such that it is cut into two equal, symmetrical halves by it. Again, try to stick to simple sausage forms for this, draw larger, and focus entirely on getting those curves to wrap around the forms convincingly. You may want to try overshooting the curves as described here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms. The video linked there is also worth watching.

• As it stands, your dissections are moving in the right direction, but right now they're (at least in certain planes) somewhat cartoony. This results largely from spending too much time drawing from memory (pretty much any time you draw longer than a couple of seconds before looking back to your reference). As human beings, our memory is pretty awful. We evolved to throw away all of the seemingly unimportant details and focus on the core elements, but this hinders us when attempting to faithfully reproduce any amount of detail. For example, looking at your strawberry texture, you seem to have noticed the seeds, and then covered your surface in them. There's many more levels to this that you left out, however. Firstly, how are those seeds arranged? Do they cover the surface evenly? Do they cluster and group together? How dense are they? Then, consider how those seeds actually fit into the strawberry's surface - if you look closely, you'll notice that there's little craters that the seeds lay in. Applying a little line weight on one side of the seed, and a little less on the other, may help achieve this sort of illusion. This is all fairly normal for a beginner, but it is something to keep in mind. As for your question, we do discuss hair and fur later on in lesson 5 but I don't think there would be any benefit in discussing it now, as hair can be rather... not so much complicated, as much as distracting. Like the strawberries have a few layers to them, hair's got a lot of layers of information to wade through before you can properly organize and convey it. Don't worry about it for now.

• You appear to have largely ignored the recommendation I made for the form intersections. In the lesson, I pointed out that you should not draw forms that are stretched, to stick to those that are more equilateral in proportion. By ignoring this, you made an already difficult exercise considerably more challenging, making it quite difficult to focus on the core of it. This inherently makes critiquing it fairly pointless, but I do have one thing to offer - draw through all of the ellipses you draw for my lessons. Every single one. No exceptions.

• Your organic intersections aren't bad, but one thing you should always focus on is how each form is going to behave, given that it's got a considerable amount of weight and volume to it. Think about a sausage-shaped water balloon being dropped over your outstretched forearm. Its center will make contact with your arm, and will be supported by it. The sides however will drop, sagging and somewhat wrapping around the limb. So, your organic forms should always sag where they are not supported, and wrap around the forms supporting them.

Anyway, I'm going to ask you to take another stab at this lesson. In addition to everything else I mentioned, I have one more important piece of advice - when scanning your work, scanners often have presets (usually b/w drawing, colour drawing, b/w photograph, colour photograph). Use one of the photograph presets, as the drawing ones will blast out a lot of the nuance of your linework, trying to raise the contrast and create stark black/white with nothing in between. The photograph presets will more accurately capture your work.

Uncomfortable

2016-08-26 20:57

Not bad, There is one significant hiccup I want to point out and hopefully correct, but generally you're doing well. Your arrows are very nice - they flow nicely and are quite fluid. Your form intersections are solid, though a little difficult to wrap my head around at times - using line weight to reinforce your overlaps, and perhaps shading one of the front-facing faces of each box with hatching would help to clarify things. Still, overall you seem to understand how to draw these forms together such that they feel cohesive and consistent.

There is certainly room for growth with your textures, but that is all I expect at this point. I see a lot of experimentation with how to tackle different kinds of textures, trying to get your head around how to depict all of these various different surface qualities. One thing I do want to recommend is to stay away from any sort of randomness. Squiggly/scribbly lines, chaotic marks, things like that - hold fast to the rule that while things may appear random, they virtually never are. If you look hard and deep enough at any texture created by nature, you will find a pattern, a flow, a rhythm. Sometimes it may be too difficult, and that's fine - your eyes are in the process of being trained to identify that sort of thing, and it will improve with practice and time.

The primary issue I wanted to raise was with your organic forms with contour curves. Right now, your ellipses are alright, but the curves themselves are not conveying the illusion of being wrapped around 3D forms. When you draw the curves alone, you fail to accelerate those curves as they reach the edge and hook them around. So, they feel like if they were to continue on, they'd fly off the surface of the form itself.

Read these notes, and watch the linked video here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms. Also, try to overshoot your curves, as mentioned on that link. It can help to sort of provide a link between the contour ellipses and the contour curves - over time you can decrease the amount you overshoot, until eventually you don't need to do it at all.

For now, try to limit your organic forms to simple sausage forms with no branching or complexity. This will allow you to focus on the challenge at hand. I believe improving your use of contour curves, and your understanding of those organic volumes should help you improve on the organic intersections as well, which is really all about understanding how those forms interact with one another. You have to keep in mind how a given form will sag where its weight is not supported, and how it will wrap around whatever is supporting it.

I'd like you to do two more pages of organic forms with contour curves, and one more page of organic intersections.