Hello Kavel, 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.
In general you're doing well, so keep tackling this exercise during your warm ups in order take your understanding of arrows and 3D space further, experiment with the different ways arrows can twist and bend and move across space, try different rates of foreshortening and experiment with the negative space between overlaps, all of these will help you challenge yourself and develop your skills further.
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.
Your application of edge detail can be severely improved, as it stands there are a couple of different issues present with the manner in which you're approaching it that hold you back from constructing solid looking structures. First things first do not forget part of the reason we draw with ink is in order to instill in us a greater respect for each and every mark we make, as such only go over your marks once.
You must also not zigzag your marks as that is a mistake that goes against the third principle of mark-making from lesson 1 and must be avoided. Each mark must be carefully executed, they must raise off from the existing outer edge and then come back down to it, integrating back into the preexisting mark seamlessly.
You must also make sure that you're approaching it additively whenever possible, that is, building on top of your preexisting structure, as cutting back into our forms can cause us to focus too much on manipulating the 2d shapes on the page, instead of how our marks represent edges in tridimensional space.
Moving on to your application of texture it's looking generally alright, as you're following the instructions for texture in these structures, however you can definitely push your application of it further, as you've got several small and timid marks alongside big areas of black and big spaces of white all throughout your structure, there's no focal points of detail which don't give your viewer's eyes space to rest as everything competes for attention.
Your shadows are also not designed to be dynamic, so take a look at this demo that explains how we can best design our shadows.
Branches
Moving on to your branches they are coming along really decently made as you're following the instructions for the exercise, you're drawing your edges in segments which allows you to maintain higher control over your marks and helps you create solid but still organic looking structures.
There are some visible tails present in these branch structures, while this is a very common mistake we can attempt to mitigate it by limiting the amount of ellipses in our branches, by spacing them further apart we'll allow for a bigger length of runway between ellipses, and ensure a smoother, more seamless transition between marks.
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, which are coming along quite nicely made. You're generally making use of the construction methods and techniques introduced in this Lesson which helps you create the illusion of tridimensionality in your work, you're not only trying to capture what these structures look like, but you also focus on how they work, how they exist fully in tridimensional space by drawing through your forms and thinking about the way each piece of your construction exists in relation to one another.
This is all very good and it's helping you develop a strong sense of spatial reasoning, there are only a couple of small things that if kept in mind will help you take your work to the next level.
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, you've deviated from the construction methods in this construction by not drawing the petal structures with the leaf construction methods, which has caused them to look a bit flatter and less energetic than it could be.
Despite the odd conical shape of this flower, it's petals are still very leaf-like in nature and should be approached with the leaf construction method. There are two ways we can generally approach it - either by drawing different sections of this structure with the leaf construction method, and afterwards connecting the different leaves together in order to build the complex shape, or by using a slightly tapered cylinder in order to construct the main body of the leaf shape, then afterwards make use of the leaf construction method, build it on top of the cylinder in order to capture the flow of the different sections of the leaf structure, and lastly connect them together, making use of edge detail in order to finish the complex structure.
I put a quick demo together once on how to approach this in the context of a narcissus flower and believe you will find it useful.
In that same vein for your Lilly of the valley I've noticed that your leaves weren't drawn with the leaf construction method, and you don't always draw through your forms. So don't forget to always construct structures with the corresponding construction method.
Your addition of texture is looking good as you're following the instructions for the exercise, just don't forget to consider where your lightsource is coming from in order to create a transition from light to dark abd focal points of detail.
Final Thoughts
In general you are doing well, I believe that in these pages you have demonstrated that you do understand the way these construction methods and techniques should be used and why they're important for your work even if it can be improved upon, as such I'm going to be marking this submission as complete. 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.
This is a remarkable little pen. Technically speaking, any brush pen of reasonable quality will do, but I'm especially fond of this one. It's incredibly difficult to draw with (especially at first) due to how much your stroke varies based on how much pressure you apply, and how you use it - but at the same time despite this frustration, it's also incredibly fun.
Moreover, due to the challenge of its use, it teaches you a lot about the nuances of one's stroke. These are the kinds of skills that one can carry over to standard felt tip pens, as well as to digital media. Really great for doodling and just enjoying yourself.
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