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10:47 PM, Saturday May 4th 2024
Hello its_me, I'm ThatOneMushroomGuy and I'll be the TA handling your critique today.
Arrows
Starting with your arrows your lines are looking fairly confident and smooth, which helps communicate a nice sense of fluidity in your arrows as they move through the world. You're keeping foreshortening in mind while constructing your arrows which allows you to make really good use of perspective and the depth of your page, this gives a nice extra layer of tridimensionality to your arrows.
Your usage of hatching helps you establish how your arrows twist and turn in space and further your own understanding of the tridimensional space these objects occupy, it's good that you're making use of added line weight on top of the overlaps in order to reinforce their depth.
You've done a good job on this exercise, what I'd like to tell you so that can keep getting the most out of this exercise is actually to encourage you to get out of your comfort zone more often the next time you tackle this exercise, try arrows with different kinds of twists and turns and different rates of foreshortening, keep in mind that arrows are very flexible objects and can move freely across the world in all sorts of manners, so you should push yourself and explore the different possibilities.
Leaves
The linework for your leaves is looking smooth which helps communicate their fluidity and sense of energy, it's good that you're not only trying to capture how these structures sit statically within space, but also how they move across it from moment to moment.
It's good to see that you've experimented with complex leaf structures but remember not to skip construction steps when approaching these more intricate structures.
These structures are looser than they could be, because you skipped construction steps and tried to capture the complex form of the structure right away, you didn't construct each individual arm with the leaf construction method. Even though leaves are single entities they can still made be made up of several parts.
Your application of texture is moving in the right direction as you're following the instructions for texture in these structures.
Branches
Moving on to your branches you're not sticking to the instructions for this exercise as closely as you should. While it's good to see that you're drawing your edges in segments you're not starting your new segment back at the previous ellipse point and superimposing it on top of the preexisting mark, you're starting your new segments close to where your previous mark ended, which partially removes the healthy overlaps we seek to achieve in these structures.
So remember how branches should be approached, by having your segment start at the first ellipse point, extending it past the second ellipse and fully up to the halfway point to the third ellipse, afterwards you'll start a new segment, making sure to place your pen at the second ellipse and repeat this pattern until your entire branch is complete.
For ellipses it's good to see that you're making an attempt to always draw through them twice, as that allows for a smoother mark overall. When it comes to your application of the ellipse degree shift to your branches it can be improved, as it stands your degrees are too consistent and hardly change which is a mistake that flattens your structures. Remember that as a form shifts in relation to the viewer, so will the degree of the ellipses within that structure also shift.
Plant Construction Section
And lastly let's take a look at your plant constructions. You are starting to move in the right direction with your constructions, you're starting to make use of the construction methods and techniques introduced in the lesson and you're starting to demonstrate your developing sense of spatial reasoning.
However there are some issues present in your work which are holding you back from your full potential, so here are the points you should look out for the next time you attempt these exercises.
Always keep in mind that the construction methods and techniques introduced in this course must always be applied to your work, as they're tools which will help you construct much tighter and solid looking structures, there are several examples of times where you deviate from the construction methods.
A couple of examples can be found in these structures where you skipped construction steps by not starting your branch structures with a minor axis, which has made it more difficult for you to keep your ellipses aligned to one another, there are also some instances where you drew your branches as single lines that do not communicate any sense of form or tridimensionality, and alongside actual three-dimensional forms end up flattening the rest of the construction.
In this strawberry bush construction the circles in red denote leaf structures that were not constructed with the correct method, you drew their silhouettes only which stiffens and flattens them, instead of starting them with a flow line and building on top of it which would allow for a more tridimensional structure that also feels energetic.
Your strawberries must also be mentioned, since you're not actually constructing them with organic forms, instead you attempted to capture the shape of the strawberries right away by drawing their silhouettes, but this goes against the idea of ensuring that each structure we create is a fully fledged tridimensional form and flattens your structures.
Another issue that holds your work back from it's full potential is that you do not draw through a lot of your forms, such as leaves or branch like structures, this limits your ability to work through these tridimensional puzzles and limits how much you're getting out of the exercise as not drawing throug your forms means relying on your observation skills, instead of engaging your sense of spatial reasoning and truly trying to understand how the object you're drawing works, where it comes from, what it attaches to.
- When approaching cylindrical structures such as plant pots make sure to start with a minor axis in order to keep your several ellipses aligned to each other more easily. Going further don't forget to construct the outer rim that's present in most types of plant pots.
Final Thoughts
You're starting to move in the right direction but you're falling into a couple of traps and pitfalls which are holding you back from your full potential, and stopping you from getting the most out of these exercises.
I'm not going to be passing you onto the next lesson yet, these concepts will be highly important in the following lessons, make sure to revisit any relevant material mentioned here, once you're finished please reply with:
1 page, half of leaves, half of branches.
2 plant construction pages.
Next Steps:
1 page, half of leaves, half of branches.
2 plant construction pages.
5:36 PM, Monday May 6th 2024
Hi THATONEMUSHROOMGUY,
Here https://imgur.com/a/6Yh4Pxb you will find the additional pages you have requested.
Thank you,
its_me
10:33 PM, Monday May 6th 2024
Hello its_me, your new pages are a clear improvement over your first attempts, however it seems you did not fully apply the feedback you've received in your original critique as the same issues are still present in here.
For your leaves they are looking good, but don't forget to not deviate from the simple characteristics for leaves, which you do in this structure by attempting to draw it as a triangle shape rather than using organic curves, trying to capture it with sharp angles naturally kills the energy and flow of the structure. On top of that you must draw your lines fully, don't only draw the part that would be visible such as in here because this will kill the momentum of your line and it's confidence, it will also stop you from considering the structure as a tridimensional form and think of how each part of the structure connects and relates to the others.
Your branches are looking good.
It's good to see that you're sticking to the construction methods more closely but once again it is incredibly important for you to draw through all of your forms, as small or as unecessary as you might believe them to be, forms don't stop existing when they become obscured by other forms. Think of it as building a house and having a full X-ray view of the building, it's a tridimensional puzzle that cannot exist before the foundations are laid out, the roof cannot exist before the walls, the walls cannot exist before the foundation, and the furniture cannot exist before the building, in that same vein tips of leaves or parts of a construction cannot exist by themselves, they still exist as full forms even when they're partially obscured by other objects. Therefore you should make sure you're always drawing forms in their entirety, this will help you develop your sense of spatial reasoning and make all of the relationships between phases of construction in your drawing clear and defined.
Don't forget to approach cylindrical structures such as plant pots with minor axis in order to keep your several ellipses aligned to each other more easily.
Don't use generic hatching in your work. Hatching will flatten out the structures it's applied to and it must be used sparringly and with intent in order to be used to it's full extent.
In general your work is looking more solid but you must draw through your forms, this is necessary in order to develop your skills to their full extent. I believe you understand these techniques and construction methods, now it's a matter of you applying them thoroughly to your work. Good luck in Lesson 4.
Next Steps:
Don't forget to add these exercises to your list of warm ups.
Move on to Lesson 4.
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