MartinBowers

I can see that you've moved from going drawing through your ellipses several times, to drawing through your ellipses twice, which is good. The curve of your ellipses is a little wobbly, you should focus on smoothness and flow, before fitting it into your shape

Therefore I've come up with a simple exercise that might be able to help you. Simply draw a page of ellipses freehand focusing on a smooth, symettrical motion from your shoulder, then return to your other ellipse exercises once you understand the concept.

Here's an example page. https://imgur.com/a/ui3UbAJ I could work on the tightness and smoothness of my ellipses a little myself, but I hope this helps you see what you're aiming for. Don't forget to rotate your page to find the most comfortable angle to draw your ellipses.

I think at this point you might want to move on to the 250 box challenge, you can continue to work on your skills by selecting three random exercises to do for five minutes a day.

It's okay that your lines don't go back exactly to the vanishing point, The issue is in the lines that you made with a blue pen. You need to use a straightedge, and plot those lines to the horizontal line in the middle of the screen instead of stopping before or after, That way you can see how close you got to the vanishing point along the horizon line.

I hope that helps.

Hello and good job on finishing lesson 1. Don't worry about getting frustrated on some of the exercises, I just completed lesson 1 myself, and understand how it feels. Anyways, enough chat your here because you want a critique.

Lines: For your lines exercises you tend to leave a lot of empty space on the page. This is especially evident for the ghosted planes exercise. I'd recommend looking at the example homework on the ghosted planes page of the drawabox website. You seem to understand that the prioritization of Drawabox is flow over accuracy and precision, now I'd recommend that you work on lifting your pen once your finished with your lines, you tend to overshoot quite a bit across your exercises.

Ellipses: Your ellipses tend to float a little bit in the frames you set up for them. For the table of ellipses exercise try fitting your ellipses snugly together, and for your ellipses in planes, try aiming for an ellipse that take up the whole frame. Good job on making sure that your ellipses are parallel to the minor axis in your funnels.

Boxes: For the plotted pespective exercise, don't use squiggles for the shading of a face, instead use your straightedge to shade using evenly spaced parallel lines. For your rough perspective exercise You are supposed you chart your lines to the horizon line, you won't learn much by extending lines to random places. Also you don't need to add a trapezoidal prism, stick to the exercise as it's assigned.

Good job on finishing lesson 1. I think coloured paper is okay to use, as long as it's light enough that it isn't too hard to see your work. Now are you ready for your critique? Let's go.

Lines: Your superimposed lines are good, but you needn't scratch out your work if you feel you've made a mistake. Especially if it's only one group of lines. You don't need to hide the mistakes, especially when the rest of your work shows that you understand the lesson.

Your ghosted lines tend to arc slightly, perhaps try arcing them the other way slightly until you find a comfortable middle and your lines appear straight.

Ellipses: Your ellipses are pretty good, you seem to understand what you should be aiming for. You've drawn through your ellipse a few too many times on at least one occasion, remember that you only need to do it twice, but overall I don't have much to say.

Boxes: In two point perspective your vertical lines should be completely parallel to each other and perpendicular to horizon line. Next time you do the plotted perspective exercise, try taking time to make sure that your straightedge is aligned properly to these orientations. For your organic perspective exercise, try not to draw your lines multiple times, it makes things fuzzy and hard to see.

I hope this helps when you add these exercises to your catalog. I think you understand most things and should be ready to move on, congratulations.

I think that doodling on the exercises is discouraged because it makes it can cause your brain to split its attention between doing the work and playful doodling, it can also be distracting to those trying to give critique, but it's not a problem for me critiquing this. Good job on finishing. Now on to my critique.

Lines:

For your superimposed lines you tend to fray at the starting end. It's recommended to make sure you take the time to begin your mark at the same point each time.

Ellipses: In your table of ellipses exercise, your ellipses appear to float in the middle of the tables, next time try to get your ellipses to touch the edge of the table, as well as their neighboring ellipse. Remember that you only need to draw through your ellipses two to three times, preferrably twice. Drawing too much makes your ellipses imprecise and fuzzy. Another thing I've noticed as that a few of your ellipses seem to be egg shaped, the best way I find to correct this is to make sure you're drawing from your shoulder, and practice the motion before commiting your line.

Boxes: The freehand lines in your boxes exercise are more wobbly than the lines in your lines exercises. Remember to keep using the ghosting technique for each freehand line you make in this course, and to draw from your shoulder. Your organic perspective boxes often seem like they'd be large at the back then at the front. Remember that your lines should converge to an imaginary vanishing point, even when you can't see them. Although your lines are rough you seem to understand the concept of the vanishing point well in previous exercises.