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8:16 PM, Monday April 26th 2021

How long have you been doing Drawabox? What have you been doing for previous exercises? Your questions suggest you might be rushing too fast through things without really letting enough time for new skills to embed.

The old joke about you can't create a baby in a month by getting 9 woman to work on it applies. Some things take time to inculcate and form. This is one of the reasons why, for the official feedback route at least, you have to wait for feedback before starting the next exercise and you cannot submit new homework until two weeks have passed from your last. The muscle movements for good pen control will take months of disciplined practice to become second nature.

The bottom line is that this is a structured course with rules. Ultimately you can do what you want with the exercises and homework and it will help you but for proper feedback, especially official feedback, the rules need to be followed. Otherwise it's not Drawabox.

8:49 PM, Monday April 26th 2021

I'm almost finished with lesson 2. Took me a few weeks to get though both. I know I'm not going to get good lines right away. My main point is that the exercise starts to feel like a waste of time if I've already messed up the perspective-- continuing to work on that doesn't help me understand perspective any better.

I understand and respect the structure of drawabox. My original point is basically just inquiring if there is any flexibility for people who have mental health concerns or who aren't learning efficiently within that system. If there's zero flexibility in that regard, maybe the system is flawed, because not everyone is the same.

9:18 PM, Monday April 26th 2021

It's actually the opposite to what you say although I can understand why you might think that. By not allowing corrections it brings your drawing problems to the fore so that you can review and address them. If you are constantly erasing them it hides them. That is my view anyway. If you submit perfected and corrected homework it negates the learning goals and does not allow for rigorous feedback.

The system is not flawed. It is what it is. A tough approach that is maybe not for everyone. In this respect, it may not be the right approach for you at the moment. There are many alternative ways of learning that you may find more suitable.

I can empathise with the anxiety issue as a recovered agoraphobic, but compromising the course is not the solution.

9:36 PM, Monday April 26th 2021

That's a good point about better feedback if you can't erase, but honestly, if you're messing up your lines all the time, the feedback is going to be, "your lines aren't accurate, draw from your shoulder." Well duh, I already knew that I sucked at lines. At worst, it could confuse feedback because an incorrect line could give the impression that someone doesn't understand perspective when in fact, they just slipped with their hand.

My point about the system wasn't that it's hard. I'm not averse to hard work. My point is that, if something is meant to teach people, and 100% inflexibility when dealing thousands of humans, many of whom learn differently, might not always be ideal.

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Sakura Pigma Microns

A lot of my students use these. The last time I used them was when I was in high school, and at the time I felt that they dried out pretty quickly, though I may have simply been mishandling them. As with all pens, make sure you're capping them when they're not in use, and try not to apply too much pressure. You really only need to be touching the page, not mashing your pen into it.

In terms of line weight, the sizes are pretty weird. 08 corresponds to 0.5mm, which is what I recommend for the drawabox lessons, whereas 05 corresponds to 0.45mm, which is pretty close and can also be used.

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