Congratulations for completing the 250 Box Challenge! From what I can see your line work is fairly well done and your boxes are coming along well. I can see you made some good improvement with the quality of your mark making. Your lines steadily become straighter and more confident looking as you progressed through the challenge.
Before we begin I just want to mention that in the future, when you go to scan your homework submissions, it would be better to scan your homework using the "photo" setting instead of the "drawing" setting. The drawing setting tends to up the contrast on an image and can cause you to lose some of the subtlety in your line work.
I also want to let you know that in general TAs will ignore student self assessment or critique so as not to contaminate our own critique of your work. If you have any questions not answered in your critique, feel free to ask them here.
Back to your critique.
While your mark making has improved, I do see that you still hesitate in some areas. This is likely due to prioritizing your accuracy over creating a smooth, confident looking line.
Just remember that the confidence of the stroke is far and away your top priority. Once your pen touches the page, any opportunity to avoid mistakes has passed, so all you can really do is push through. Hesitation serves no purpose. Mistakes happen, but a smooth, confident mark is still useful even if it's a little off. If the line is wrong, we leave it and move onto the next step. Accuracy is something that you will improve on as you continue working through Drawabox and practice ghosting.
Now, while it is important that you use the ghosting method of each mark you make while doing Drawabox one thing you can try to help with ending your marks closer to where you want them is lifting the pen off of the page rather than stopping the motion of your arm. I would also recommend that you read this comment by Uncomfortable, where he talks more about hesitation.
You appear to have crossed out a few box you made and replaced them. For future reference, while working through Drawabox we do not cross out or attempt to cover up our mistakes. Mistakes happen. It is important to recognize when a mistake is made and why. Then, we move onto the next step. You should not start over or redo work unless a TA or Uncomfortable has told you to in an official critique.
I would also recommend that you also try adding extra line weight to your boxes as an added step.
When you go to add weight to a line it is important that you treat the added weight the same way you would a brand new line. That means taking your time to plan and ghost through your mark so that when you go to execute your extra line weight, it is done confidently and so that it blends seamlessly with your original mark. This will allow you to create more subtle and clean looking weight to your lines that reinforces the illusion of solidity in your boxes/forms. Extra line weight should be applied to the silhouette of your boxes. I recommend that you try adding your extra line weight in no more than 1-2 pases. This diagram should help you better understand how to properly apply your extra line weight.
Extra line weight should never be used to correct or hide mistakes. You should read more about this here. Something to keep in mind as well, when you are working through Drawabox you should be employing the ghosting method for every mark you make. This includes the hatching that we sometimes use for our boxes.
I see that for some of your boxes, you appear to have purposely tried to keep your sets of lines parallel on the 2D page, drawing them all to an "infinite" vanishing point. As explained in this section, because these boxes are oriented with us looking at the corner of the box, we should be drawing it in 3 point perspective - meaning with 3 concrete vanishing points, each set of lines converging towards a real point in space, even if that point is far off and the convergence is gradual. You can also watch this video I made where I demonstrate how I approach drawing boxes.
To clarify, when I say "sets of parallel lines" or refer to your sets of lines as parallel, I am referring to lines that are parallel in 3d space not parallel on the page. If you remember from lesson one, the core principle of perspective is that when we draw a 3d form on a flat surface those lines that are parallel in 3d will now converge towards a shared vanishing point on the page.
Which means your sets of lines will not appear perfectly parallel on the page. Think about how those lines converge, do not purposely try to keep them parallel on the page.
Keep in mind as you progress through Drawabox and begin to construct more complex forms that it is important to put in the time and focus required to execute each step correctly and to apply the ghosting method to every step of the process, as explained here. If you ever have any questions or are uncertain about what your next step is or how you should be doing something, you should first reread the instructions and if you are still uncertain you can always ask questions here.
I also noticed that you drew some of your boxes quite small. Part of the reason for the 5-6 boxes per page rule is so that students have enough room to draw their boxes larger while having room to check their convergences. By drawing your boxes very small you limit your own ability to execute your lines from the shoulder confidently, which affects the quality of your mark making. Drawing bigger also helps engage your brain's spatial reasoning skills, whereas drawing smaller impedes them. This, along with varying your foreshortening and orientations of your boxes will help you get the most out of the exercise.
I did see that you were checking your convergences incorrectly.
Checking your convergences is an important step so you should always take your time and make sure you are extending your sets of lines correctly. Noticing and identifying mistakes is a major part of the learning process. Checking your boxes for mistakes is how you know what areas you need to address so that you get the most out of each exercise.
Your line extensions should extend away from the viewer and towards their implied vanishing point. You should do this for all three sets of lines that make up your box. You can refer to the diagrams in this link if you are ever confused or uncertain.
I think this diagram will help you as well. When you are looking at your sets of lines you want to be focusing only on the lines that share a vanishing point. This does not include lines that share a corner or a plane, only lines that converge towards the same vanishing point. Now when you think of those lines, including those that have not been drawn, you can think about the angles from which they leave the vanishing point. Usually the middle lines have a small angle between them, and this angle will become negligible by the time they reach the box. This can serve as a useful hint.
Before moving onto lesson 2, I am going to have you draw 50 additional boxes.
For these boxes you will do the following:
Use the ghosting method for every mark you make, including hatching and extra line weight
Apply extra line weight in a single pass along the silhouette of your boxes
Draw all of your boxes in 3pt Perspective
5 boxes per page maximum
I will mainly be looking at the quality of your mark making to see if you are employing the ghosting method correctly. I will also be looking at your boxes to make sure your sets of lines are not being kept purposefully parallel.
Make sure you visit every link I have left for you and reread the challenge instructions in their entirety before beginning your revisions.
Next Steps:
50 additional boxes as described in the critique.
These are what I use when doing these exercises. They usually run somewhere in the middle of the price/quality range, and are often sold in sets of different line weights - remember that for the Drawabox lessons, we only really use the 0.5s, so try and find sets that sell only one size.
Alternatively, if at all possible, going to an art supply store and buying the pens in person is often better because they'll generally sell them individually and allow you to test them out before you buy (to weed out any duds).
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