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25 Texture Challenge
The Challenge
Studying textures
This challenge revolves around the texture analyses from lesson 2. The only difference is that we are doing 25 rows rather than just one page's worth.
This is actually where the exercise began, as an independent challenge. I ultimately figured it was valuable enough to incorporate it into the main lessons themselves.
While you can watch the video linked here, I do recommend that you go to the texture analysis page and read through it thoroughly. In addition to this, do not plan to complete this challenge in one go. I strongly encourage you to do it in parallel with the other drawabox lessons, completing it one row at a time.
The reason for this is that it will give you the opportunity to process what you're learning and internalize your own discoveries. These aren't things the brain does quickly - it often requires long periods of time away from the task in question in order for the concepts to properly sink in. Grinding away at it simply won't give you that.
Drawabox-Tested Fineliners (Pack of 10, $17.50 USD)
Let's be real here for a second: fineliners can get pricey. It varies from brand to brand, store to store, and country to country, but good fineliners like the Staedtler Pigment Liner (my personal brand favourite) can cost an arm and a leg. I remember finding them being sold individually at a Michael's for $4-$5 each. That's highway robbery right there.
Now, we're not a big company ourselves or anything, but we have been in a position to periodically import large batches of pens that we've sourced ourselves - using the wholesale route to keep costs down, and then to split the savings between getting pens to you for cheaper, and setting some aside to one day produce our own.
These pens are each hand-tested (on a little card we include in the package) to avoid sending out any duds (another problem with pens sold in stores). We also checked out a handful of different options before settling on this supplier - mainly looking for pens that were as close to the Staedtler Pigment Liner. If I'm being honest, I think these might even perform a little better, at least for our use case in this course.
We've also tested their longevity. We've found that if we're reasonably gentle with them, we can get through all of Lesson 1, and halfway through the box challenge. We actually had ScyllaStew test them while recording realtime videos of her working through the lesson work, which you can check out here, along with a variety of reviews of other brands.
Now, I will say this - we're only really in a position to make this an attractive offer for those in the continental United States (where we can offer shipping for free). We do ship internationally, but between the shipping prices and shipping times, it's probably not the best offer you can find - though this may depend. We also straight up can't ship to the UK, thanks to some fairly new restrictions they've put into place relating to their Brexit transition. I know that's a bummer - I'm Canadian myself - but hopefully one day we can expand things more meaningfully to the rest of the world.