Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

6:13 PM, Thursday May 9th 2024

Dropbox - Draw a box homework - Simplify your life

Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/f6saetqvsgztbcjxa1qs3/AAtMA2GrFxP9Rv1m51aqbwc?rlkey=wffqp7ao9hg01bluicvd14l9t&dl=0

Sorry I've done this in pencil I've just delt with what I got. I'm planning to do the 250 box challenge and the rest of draw a box in pen. Sorry for the low camera quality I have a really bad android phone.

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11:29 PM, Thursday May 16th 2024

Hello! Good job finishing the lesson. Let's get it critiqued! Since this is in pencil, my feedback will have a larger margin of error.

Starting with the lines

You did Superimposed Lines well. No fraying at the start point, some arcing, which can be helped by being more confident when drawing the line. Focusing on the end point as you're drawing may help too.

Ghosted Lines: noticing some wobble, which may stem from hesitation and desire for accuracy - always draw from the shoulder and don't try to avoid mistakes once your writing implement touches the paper, execute with confidence. Your ghosted lines are fairly short on average, so it's hard to judge any further.

The first page of your Ghosted Planes, while very uniform, is fine. I'm seeing some arcing, which can be helped by consciously arcing in the opposite direction slightly, which will eventually become subconscious. A bit of wobble on the large scale; suggestions from Ghosted Lines apply.

On the second page, with the introduction of variation in side length, I'm noticing you start arcing much more. Here I'm unsure whether this is on purpose and stems from a misunderstanding, or an honest mistake. I'm going to assume the latter, as all lines in this exercise are supposed to be straight. Along with the previous recommendation for arcing lines, considering your arm pivots may help, i.e. making sure you're drawing from the shoulder and not the wrist/elbow.

Moving on to ellipses

Tables of Ellipses: It's hard to judge from the picture, but I assume you drew through these 2-3 times, no more and no less. A lot of these aren't touching the borders or each other, which is fine if you couldn't quite get them to, but remember that you're supposed to strive to lay them out snug against the borders and each other, as outlined in this section of the exercise. Some of the ellipses are not quite evenly shaped. Try to minimize movement from the wrist and elbow to counteract this. Experimenting with drawing speed and taking even more time to ghost the ellipses may also help.

Your Ellipses in Planes are mostly fine in terms of being even, however, a lot are "floating" inside their planes, a mistake outlined in this section of the exercise: "While getting the ellipse to touch all four edges is your second priority, it is still something you should strive to do."

In Funnels, a lot of the ellipses aren't aligned with the minor axis. You want to make sure that the minor axis cuts each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves, down their narrower dimension, as mentioned here in the course. About half of ellipses aren't touching the sides of the funnel, which you should strive to do in this exercise, but they are mostly snug against each other.

And finally, boxes

Plotted perspective seems to be done correctly. Some edges are slanted, which can be mitigated with taking your time to align the ruler. Remember that in this exercise's perspective, all vertical edges are supposed to run perpendicular to the horizon line, and therefore parallel to each other.

Your Rough Perspective has several issues. Most of your line extensions are going from the front corner to the vanishing point instead of extending the whole depth line to the horizon line, as shown in the lesson's examples. By seeing where your depth line trajectories actually hit the horizon, you can see how far off your estimation was, which is the goal of these extensions.

I see increased wobbling your linework here. This may be from being more cautious now that you're constructing boxes, and can be helped by ghosting your lines more thoroughly and executing confidently from the shoulder.

A lot of slanted lines, resulting in non-rectangular faces of your boxes. These can be mitigated by remembering that in this exercise's perspective all horizontal lines should be parallel to the horizon, and all vertical lines should be perpendicular to the horizon. Plan out the lines accordingly.

In Rotated Boxes, you did well by drawing through the boxes and trying to keep your gaps tight and consistent. All required boxes are present as well. It's hard to see, but it seems as though you did the initial cross, the boxes at the ends of the cross, and the initial central box without a ruler. If that's the case, please be more careful following exercise instructions.

Some of the boxes converge towards the same vanishing point rather than rotate, which is a common mistake as explained here in the course.

Your Organic Perspective shows varied rotations, good scaling with depth, and no leaning into dramatic foreshortening, although I feel you could fill the frames out with more boxes. I'm noticing the same wobble in the linework here, probably from the ever increasing complexity of the task. Remember to always draw your lines confidently from the shoulder and give yourself time to ghost thoroughly.

The prevalent issue here is that the parallel edges of your boxes diverge from each other, as opposed to converging towards their vanishing point, which is what makes them look off. This part of the Rotated Boxes exercise can help with your convergences; take your time planning out the lines for your edges accordingly so divergences don't happen.

Overall, I feel like some of these exercises will need to be revised before you can move on to the 250 boxes challenge. I'll be requesting for a page of Ellipses in Planes, a page of Funnels and a more populated page of Organic Perspective so that you can get more targeted practice in ellipses, linework and converging edges before moving on. Revise the instructions for these exercises, consider my feedback, and, if possible, use at least a ballpoint pen.

Next Steps:

1 page of Ellipses in Planes

1 page of Funnels

1 page of Organic Perspective

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
6:53 PM, Saturday May 18th 2024

Hello I've finished my revisions, I'm still struggling with funnels. Do I add this exercise in my pool of warmups?

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/zg5aacgrx68jh4jtvrapk/AB6c0f8vT1U8V4QOkD1tCDg?rlkey=j3yne1fxe9vl8035lx9kswf61&dl=0

7:47 PM, Saturday May 18th 2024

Alright! I see in your Ellipses in Planes you are now less concerned with accuracy and more with confidence, which is good. Your Funnels ellipses are less loosely fit than before, strive to make them fit even tighter in your warmups. While still not quite aligned with the minor axis, I think the issue here is that the axis isn't quite centered between the arcs, so you can't quite divide your ellipses into equal halves with it. See if drawing the axis or the arcs first helps you make it more centered. As for Organic Perspective, while there are still diverging parallel edges, I think you're on the right track, and it will only get better with the 250 boxes challenge.

About warmups: you'll be adding all of Lesson 1 exercises to your warmup pool, revisiting 2 or 3 of them randomly over 10-15 minutes every time you sit down to do your homework. This part of Lesson 0 explains how warmups work, please review it so there's no confusion, and feel free to ask people on Discord or the forums if anything remains unclear.

Next Steps:

Add Lesson 1 exercises to your warm-ups pool and move on to the 250 boxes challenge.

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