Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes
7:30 PM, Monday March 9th 2026
Alternatively you can access my homework on my website: https://roelsmeets.com/draw-a-box-lesson-01/
Alternatively you can access my homework on my website: https://roelsmeets.com/draw-a-box-lesson-01/
Welcome and congratulations on finishing the first lesson of Drawabox! I'm Mada and I'll be taking a look at your submission.
Overall you did an excellent job here, but I do have a bit to mention so let's break them down one by one. I'll write the most important things in bold.
Lines
Starting with your superimposed lines, these are looking good. Ghosted lines look correctly ghosted and confident too, and there are barely any arching. You've also demonstrated the same confidence in your ghosted planes with a great accuracy. However, I noticed that you didn't put the start and end points when you bisect the planes horizontally and vertically. This can easily result in floating lines or overshooting since you don't have a more concrete end point when you ghost, like this: https://imgur.com/a/Ud2O6tR. Do not forget to always plan your lines first when ghosting, even though you already kind of know where they should be.
Ellipses
Now with the tables of ellipses, you've demonstrated a great understanding of the concept in executing confident ellipses. The ellipses in planes are nice, you drew it confidently and snugly in their respective planes.
The funnels are also looking great; you've managed to fit them snugly and aligned to the minor axis and carried the same confidence as in previous exercises. I have no complaints here as your ellipses will tighten as you get more practice. This is optional, but you can attempt the extra step of varying the ellipse's degrees as you move outwards in your warmups, as mentioned here: https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/18/step3
Boxes
You've shown a good understanding of how to make 2 point perspective in the plotted perspective. I did see some skewed back vertical lines here and there, which is usually caused by an accumulation of human error as you plot more and more lines. I assume that's the case and you understand that every vertical line is straight in 2 point perspective. Even if the points are not aligned correctly, try to find a middle ground and draw it as vertical as you can.
You've applied the ghosting method and lines extension correctly for the rough perspective. You also drew the front/back faces rectangular (aside from a few skewed lines), which is correct for 1 point perspective.
As the notoriously most difficult exercise in this lesson, you've done a great job at doing the rotated boxes. You've rotated them pretty well (while making sure to move the converging lines) and used neighboring elements to deduce the next orientation of boxes, which is the whole purpose of this exercise.
Finally, organic perspective looks great as well. They look like they belong in the same page and the lines converge as they move farther away from the viewer. There are a few hiccups here and there where there are divergences that results in skewed boxes, but overall they're minor and they look pretty solid.
This will get more relevant as you get to the box challenge, but any hatching from this point on should also be done with the ghosting method. It will make your stuff cleaner and more practice is always good! Try to cover the whole area of the box with consistent spacing.
Anyway, I think you've grasped the concepts of the whole lesson and ready to put them into practice in warmups. Remember to keep working on your lines & ellipses confidence. Again, congratulations and keep up the good work!
Next Steps:
Move onto the 250 box challenge.
Do the lesson 1 exercises as your regular warmup and don't forget your 50% rule art.
Hi Mada,
Thanks for the thorough feedback.
Roel
Michael Hampton is one of my favourite figure drawing teachers, specifically because of how he approaches things from a basis of structure, which as you have probably noted from Drawabox, is a big priority for me. Gesture however is the opposite of structure however - they both exist at opposite ends of a spectrum, where structure promotes solidity and structure (and can on its own result in stiffness and rigidity), gesture focuses on motion and fluidity, which can result in things that are ephemeral, not quite feeling solid and stable.
With structure and spatial reasoning in his very bones, he still provides an excellent exploration of gesture, but in a visual language in something that we here appreciate greatly, and that's not something you can find everywhere.
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