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7:53 PM, Monday April 19th 2021

If these were submitted as part of Lesson 1, they'd all be pretty solid. Plenty of room for improvement, but definitely moving in the right direction.

Your ghosted lines definitely have the capacity of being straight and smooth, although it varies as you still have quite a few that waver somewhat. This begs the question, what exactly changes from one line to the next? Some lines are shorter and others are longer - this is a very common factor, and struggling with drawing particularly long segments is going to be hard one way or the other. We still do however see wavering with some of the shorter ones though, like this one from the top right of this page.

There are other possible factors, but these are only things that can be known from actually watching how you draw. So either you can assess this for yourself, or perhaps if possible, perhaps you could record yourself from the neck down, as you work through some of these exercises. Anyway, here are the other factors that come to mind:

  • Are you rotating the page for every mark, to find a comfortable angle of approach

  • Are you drawing from your shoulder, using your whole arm

  • What kind of environment are you working in - do you have a relatively clean space, a proper desk, and is your chair the appropriate height such that you can rest your hands face-down on the tabletop and have your elbow set at a 90 degree angle?

  • Are you investing as much time as you need into each and every step, and are you making good use of that time by going through all of the steps of the ghosting method? Generally I'm seeing you putting points down for the 4 corners, but not as consistently for the midpoints of those edges when drawing the cross through the plane's center.

As a whole, your ghosted lines are okay but considering that you've been working on Drawabox for as long as you have - and therefore I can only presume that you've been practicing these exercises as part of a regular warmup routine, it seems fair to expect improvement on these fronts.

The same goes for your ellipses - while there is a tendency to stiffen up a little more when dealing with larger, more awkwardly shaped planes, you're still doing okay with the more straightforward ones. You're drawing your ellipses with an amount of confidence, and while they all appear to have a certain degree of looseness to them that I'd expect to be tighter (again, assuming you've been practicing them all this time as part of a regular warmup routine), they are all roughly functional for our purposes. I'd just push you to keep forcing yourself to draw more confidently, prioritizing the evenness of the shape over getting it to fit snugly in a given space, and to keep working on tightening up those ellipses when drawing through them (also, limit yourself to drawing through the ellipses 2 full times before lifting your pen, rather than going for 3).

I've referenced the whole "practicing them as part of a regular warmup routine" a lot, and the reason is this: If a student understands what they should be aiming for, which you appear to, then they will likely demonstrate a sort of hit-and-miss spread of results. A good chunk of it will be pretty good, with some issues present as well. It almost seems like "the luck of the draw" where whether or not it'll come out well isn't entirely in the student's control.

Practice takes that understanding and allows the student to build up their consistency. With more regular practice (whilst frequently reviewing the instructions to avoid forgetting things), we start executing things as we intend them more often, and make mistakes less frequently. If of course we don't practice all that frequently, then this consistency doesn't develop. I can't really speak to whether you do in fact practice these exercises multiple times a week, and have been doing so for the 1.5 years since you first tackled these exercises, but the results themselves don't suggest that you have.

I'd like to hear your own thoughts on this. How frequently do you do your warmups, and what do they consist of? What I mentioned previously - a recording of you actually drawing something like ghosted planes - would be extremely helpful if you are indeed practicing these things regularly, as there may be some key misunderstanding that is getting in the way, which I cannot identify through your work alone.

I understand that not everyone can record themselves drawing easily, but a cheap mini-tripod and a phone, or even some other person present to record you, can make this much easier.

I'll leave you to answer those questions and provide a recording (if possible), and we'll move forward from there.

2:43 AM, Thursday May 13th 2021

• Are you rotating the page for every mark, to find a comfortable angle of approach

I tend not to rotate the page enough. I usually try to keep things upright. If I don't sometimes I find it harder to refind the vanishing points when it comes to perspective.

• Are you drawing from your shoulder, using your whole arm

Yes, for the most part. Very small lines/ellipses are difficult to draw like that though.

• What kind of environment are you working in - do you have a relatively clean space, a proper desk, and is your chair the appropriate height such that you can rest your hands face-down on the tabletop and have your elbow set at a 90 degree angle?

My environment is clean and it feels like I have enough space. I am able to set my hands face down and have my elbows at a 90 degree angle. I feel it is comfortable enough to work in.

• Are you investing as much time as you need into each and every step, and are you making good use of that time by going through all of the steps of the ghosting method? Generally I'm seeing you putting points down for the 4 corners, but not as consistently for the midpoints of those edges when drawing the cross through the plane's center.

That is not something I know. Sometimes I think I'm taking too little time other times I think I'm taking too long or wasting time looking at something that isn't relevant.

How frequently do you do your warmups, and what do they consist of?

Not frequently enough. I spend a lot of time doing warmups outside of class related material (IE Gesture drawing, portraits, and a couple of other things). I need to refocus on perspective related materials because I'm still having trouble.

Most of my warmups are ellipses in planes and funnels and sometimes boxes but, not much else.

What I mentioned previously - a recording of you actually drawing something like ghosted planes - would be extremely helpful if you are indeed practicing these things regularly, as there may be some key misunderstanding that is getting in the way, which I cannot identify through your work alone.

I have no tripod for my cellphone and no one else is around here so I needed to use my webcam on my desktop and record it through OBS. Unfortunately the files are incredibly large since I'm not sure how to properly compress them.

I also hosted on them media fire since that was the first decent file host I came across

Ghosted Planes (almost 853 MB / 5:11 )

https://www.mediafire.com/file/cip3ym9rbo0qks2/1+Ghosted+Planes.mkv/file

Funnels (635 MB / 4:07)

https://www.mediafire.com/file/f0rw6j4va9b2efs/2+Funnels.mkv/file

let me know if you want me to record more.

5:18 PM, Thursday May 13th 2021

Thank you for the recordings, and for your honest answers to those questions. They definitely bring some issues to light.

The biggest one I'm noticing here is simply the fact that you're picking and choosing your battles, but not according to what the course imposes. For example, rotating the page - you opt to take on the challenge of drawing your lines at many different orientations because you preferred to fight that battle, rather than practicing your ability to keep your vanishing points straight in your head (since they get kind of thrown off kilter whenever you rotate the page).

In doing this, you made a call that contradicted the instructions, going against what the course has you focus on. I really cannot stress this enough - this course is designed purposefully, with certain choices being made on your behalf. The expectation is that regardless of how easy or difficult it is for you to follow them, you do not alter what is asked - you do your best to follow those instructions as they're written.

This course's main focus is on spatial reasoning. Keeping track of where your lines should be converging towards is a big part of that, and it's not something I expect students to be able to do on their own. It takes practice, and time, and hard work. If instead you choose to target your effort towards something else, in order to avoid this prescribed difficulty, you're not going to develop in the particular way the course intends.

When it comes to keeping track of vanishing points, you're not expected to hold the specific location of that point in your mind at all times. Instead, students are being trained to be able to identify the relationships between lines that are already on the page, at a glance, to get a general sense of where they're converging towards, so more lines that do the same can be added to the drawing. If you've got two lines converging together, then it's a matter of being able to draw another line that converges consistently with them based on the lines themselves - not based on some imaginary vanishing point. The vanishing point exists, but that is not what we're deriving that information from. It is from the relationship between the lines already present.

This in turn means that rotating the page doesn't really change things - since we're not holding anything in our heads, we're deriving that information live from what's already on the page. That, of course, is not easy - it takes intentional practice. But again, if you change the nature of what is asked of you to make it different, then you're not going to be working towards those same goals.

When it comes to taking your time with the execution of your marks, it seems to vary. Sometimes you ghost a decent amount - never really all that much, but at least a few strokes. But there are other times you jump straight in without ghosting or planning. Your marks in such cases don't always come out badly, but you're basically leaving yourself up more to chance than you need to. Using the ghosting method is about increasing your chances - you may still screw up (although if you execute with confidence, then you'll always end up with a straight, smooth mark). You execute with some confidence, but I can definitely see a bit of hesitation which results in a bit of wavering.

None of it's horrible, but you need to push yourself to employ the ghosting method more regularly.

When it comes to whether you're drawing from your elbow or shoulder, it's hard to tell. The motion of your arm makes me suspect you may actually be drawing more from your elbow than you realize, but I can't really be sure without seeing the whole arm. At best, I can say that this is something for you to reflect upon, and to assess for yourself. Watch the relatively recently updated video about drawing using your whole arm, and see if it matches with how you're approaching your arm movements.

When it comes to ellipses, you are probably executing many of those I saw in your funnels video from your wrist, and that is indeed a mistake. I get that drawing smaller things from your shoulder is hard, but the only way to address that is to keep practicing it. Going back to drawing from your wrist is a choice you make - you can just as well opt to draw them from your shoulder. If they come out badly, that's perfectly fine, but with further practice you will find them improving.

Lastly, as for warmups, it is not an arbitrary thing where you're just doing whatever to loosen up. This course specifically states, here in Lesson 0, that you will be doing 10-15 minutes of warmups at the beginning of your drawabox sessions. These warmups consist of picking 2 or 3 exercises from the pool of those you've already encountered in the course, keeping them on rotation to ensure that you don't leave anything behind.

If you haven't been practicing the exercises that were introduced earlier in the course, then it is largely understandable that you'd be struggling with these mechanics. The work assigned in the lessons are simply not enough - they're introductions to how you can continue to practice and learn.

So this puts us in a rather odd predicament. You're pretty far through the course, but without consistent warmups, and the way in which you've altered what has been asked of you, there are significant gaps. For now, I'm not going to go nuclear and ask you to start Drawabox over. What I've shared with you here has identified areas where you were doing things incorrectly, so the first thing to do is to rectify the main issues:

  • Make a greater conscious effort to work through these lessons and exercises as instructed, not making changes based on your own judgment.

  • Incorporate regular warmups, as mentioned in Lesson 0, into your routine, doing them for 10-15 minutes at the beginning of each sitting.

We're going to jump back on the cylinder challenge, but before we do that, I want you to go back through the Lesson 1 videos and notes for the Lines and Ellipses sections. Then I want you to spend a couple weeks just doing your warmups. So, as if you were sitting down to do a regular Drawabox session, start with your warmups, with 2 or 3 exercises for 10-15 minutes, keeping them on rotation. Then when your warmup session is done, get up and go do something else, instead of jumping into Drawabox work. For any exercises whose instructions you haven't reviewed in a while, be sure to do so in detail. Don't just skim.

Once you've done that for a couple weeks, you can move onto doing revisions for the cylinder challenge:

  • 25 cylinders around arbitrary minor axes

  • 25 cylinders in boxes

For both of these, stick to no more than 5-6 per page, and take your time with every step of the process.

Next Steps:

  • Go back through the videos/readings for Lesson 1's lines and ellipses sections

  • 2 weeks of just doing the warmup routine

  • 25 cylinders around arbtirary minor axes, 25 cylinders in boxes

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
6:00 AM, Friday June 18th 2021

I went back and read lesson 1 and watch the videos. Also rewatched the videos on the 250 Ellipses again.

25 Cylinders and 25 Cylinders in boxes.

https://imgur.com/a/OVYBxCF

I've been turning my page more often but, I'm concerned that I'm doing something wrong. I made it a point to stop drawing from my wrist at all.

I've been getting back into the habit of doing the exercises but, I'm still not very good at them. I have uploaded all the exercises I did as well.

https://imgur.com/a/kHBfU3h

Unfortunately my weakest appears to be textures. I feel really inept at them. It feels like it takes me about 4 times longer than what is intended to do most things for this course.

If I had to restrict myself to 15 minutes, then things would get really sloppy. These pages are around 25 minutes to 45 minutes each.

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