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Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

4:15 PM, Tuesday January 25th 2022

Drawabox Lesson 1 - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/ehdNsPM.jpg

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Some notes for this lesson:

Usually when I plot my dots so that I know where my lines will end, I'll realise that the box that I'm drawing is "wrong", proportionally speaking. Because of this, I usually add another dot and use that for my line instead, but this results in my drawings becoming really messy. How can I avoid this?

Still overshooting and undershooting, but I realise my linework is better when I'm focusing on a shape instead of fussing over how each line would look.

I took really long to do the exercises. I'm sure that the reason I took so long is a lack of confidence, but at the same time I wanted to make sure that I understood what I was trying to do and execute it to the best of my ability instead of rushing and winging it. But it's a huge timesink- rotated boxes took me two days and organic perspective took me 4 days to do it. At one point it took me two hours to draw 4 boxes (the outcome was satisfactory). In Organic Perspective, I really tried to rotate the boxes in my head before putting pen to paper. I understand that these two are supposed to be throw-you-into-the-deep-end-before-you-can-swim kinda exercise, but is it okay to be taking this long, or is there a faster approach?

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10:53 PM, Tuesday January 25th 2022

Good afternoon.

  • Lines: No issues here to speak of. Lines are generally smooth and confident.

  • Ellipses: Also good overall.

  • Boxes: This is where I see you having some problems. Your lines are frequently wobbly. Since I saw that you can do them in the earlier assignments, this is probably due to focusing on accuracy over confidence and smooth lines. Accuracy is something that will come with time but you need to first have those confident lines. Confident inaccurate lines are preferred to wobbly accurate lines.

That's all of my offical critque of the actual homework. Now to address the concerns in your notes.

  1. At this stage, even if your boxes are disproportional, avoid placing that extra dot. Once you place your intial dots, leave them be. This comes back to the confidence over accuracy problem I mentioned.

  2. As far as I know there is no stated time limit in the course instructions so this is just my personal take on finding a faster approach. I understand your concern about wanting to do things well. However, I suspect the issue you are having is over analyzing which is slowing you down immensely. Something you may want to start to internalize is your going to mess up and that is okay. You actually probably need to wing it a bit to prevent yourself from overthinking the problem.

  3. Are you following the 50% rule? If you hit a particularly diffucult section, take a break and draw something fun. And absoultely do not practice during your fun drawing time. That time is purely for the joy of drawing.

Next Steps:

  • 1 page of rough perspective with a focus on smooth confident lines. Also, use this time to challenge yourself to work more quickly.

  • Go back over Lesson 0 or read it for the first time if you haven't done so. Focus on the changing your mindset section.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
10:58 AM, Thursday February 3rd 2022
edited at 11:04 AM, Feb 3rd 2022

Done. Please have a look: https://imgur.com/a/Nfx28QA

I'm also planning to go down the official critique route. Should I include this additional page in the submission?

edited at 11:04 AM, Feb 3rd 2022
10:03 PM, Monday February 21st 2022

I apoligize for the late response. I have a chronic health issue and my health has been bad the last couple weeks. I've been laid out and not functioning real well. It looks good to me. Much more confident and more importantly you are doing it faster. If you decide to go the offical critque route, I recommend replacing one of the orginals with the page you just did. That way they will get a better idea where you are at the moment. Thank you for your patience.

Next Steps:

Move on to the 250 box challenge or resubmit for official critique. Whichever you would prefer to do.

This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete, and 2 others agree. The student has earned their completion badge for this lesson and should feel confident in moving onto the next lesson.
1:20 PM, Thursday March 10th 2022

Hey! Sorry for the late reply too, but I hope you're doing better :}

1:25 AM, Wednesday January 26th 2022

Hi Monkeeboom, thanks for the constructive comments!

Regrettably for myself, I've seen most of the points you've mentioned in some way in the lesson material. I thought Ive been trying to make my lines confident more than they are accurate.

Need a second opinion on something: there was actually quite a large time lag between me doing the Rough and Organic Perspective exercises (about a month or so). I feel like the lines Ive been making on the latter is much more confident compared to the former, although there are definitely a few which were wobbly due to hesitating before completing the line. Largely tried to follow Uncomfortable's advice on confident linework. Disregarding the time taken to plan the line (definitely will try to cut down on that!!) Do those line appear confident to you? Or do they still fall short of the standard?

1:47 AM, Wednesday January 26th 2022
edited at 1:49 AM, Jan 26th 2022

I would say your linework improved between the two. There is much less visible wobbling and cleaner lines so you are improving. So take heart. I believe in you. I'd still like you to do the rough perspective exercise. More to train yourself to manage your time better. I'd say set a timer or alarm for 1 hour. If it takes longer that, no worries. We all work at our own pace. I just forsee the 250 box challenge becoming painful if you dwell on it too much. Does that seem good to you?

Next Steps:

1 page of Rough Perspective

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
edited at 1:49 AM, Jan 26th 2022
2:50 PM, Thursday January 27th 2022

Yup! Agree with your prediction, having some time restriction would be good. Thanks for the help again.

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