Hi! I'm Junnie! Congratulations on finishing Lesson 1! I'll be giving you feedback regarding your work.

1. Lines

Superimposed Lines

• Adding edge lines to create lines of equal length without a ruler was very resourceful of you! Good job!

• Very good line variety! I also like how you added lines with multiple curves

• You did a great job drawing straight, confident lines. There doesn't seem to be a lot of wobble, which means you're drawing the lines at the proper speed.

• There also doesn't seem to be any obvious arcing, showing that your drawing position is already pretty good. Always make sure you're in a comfortable position that lets you extend your arm freely and quickly.

• There's fraying on both ends of the line. Although it's more apparent at the end point (which is fine at the start; it'll get better as you practice more), there's some very subtle fraying at the starting point in a couple of lines. It's not as visible because they're very packed, but this ends up adding unnecessary line thickness to the earlier parts of the line. This is not good because ideally, we'll be using superimposed lines to add even line thickness in future exercises. Make sure to spend more time trying to properly place the tip of your pen before starting to draw.

• Another advice I can give is for you to keep your eyes on the end point instead of the tip of your pen as you're drawing. This is also helpful for ghosted lines.

• My last comment on this exercise is not really related to your lines. Please don't do the exercises more times than what was asked of you. You're only supposed to do two pages of the superimposed lines exercise. Make sure to follow the homework instructions precisely.

• Otherwise, excellent job with this exercise! Feel free to do this again as your drawing warm-up once you're marked as complete for this lesson!

Ghosted Lines

• Is the one in blue ink your ghosted lines homework? I'll assume it is for the sake of critique.

• When making ghosted lines, always make sure to plot both the starting point and the end point. I only see one plotted point for each line.

• While it's okay to add superimposed lines on your ghosted lines for warm-ups, it's not part of the instructions for this exercise. Comfy made each one with a progression in mind, backed by many years of experience. Please trust him and follow all of his directions.

• Please redo this exercise with the above points in mind and submit a link to your work by replying to this message.

Ghosted Planes

• There's a lot more wavering and signs of course correction in your ghosted lines for this exercise. This could happen when you're focusing more on hitting the desired end point, which shouldn't be our priority at our current level. Remember that there are three different levels for ghosting (level 1: straight lines; level 2: straight lines that pass through the end point but overshoot; level 3: straight lines that end exactly at the end point). Right now, you're at level 1. There's no need to rush to level 3 as you'll naturally reach that point with more practice.

• I noticed you repeated some lines whenever they don't hit the end point. Try to avoid doing this in your future work as these mistakes will serve as reminders of what not to do. It's better to have our mistakes be seen than to hide them, since mistakes are part of the learning process.

• Your line weight seems to vary a lot. If it isn't intentional, it could possibly mean two things. (1) Your fineline is running out of ink or is defective, or (2) you're subconsciously applying uneven pressure to your pen while drawing. Try to be more conscious of this because one of our goals as aspiring artists is to be intentional with each of our lines. That includes being intentional with line weight.

• I like the amount of variety you included in your exercise. Keep that up!

• Again, don't do exercises beyond what is required of you. This is considered grinding. I suggest revisiting Lesson 0 to review the purpose of these exercises and how to use this course (https://drawabox.com/lesson/0/)

2. Ellipses

Table of Ellipses

• The overall shape of your ellipses here are really good! A lot of them show proper symmetry! Most of the problem comes from deformation (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/13/deformed). This is what the TA said about deformation in his critique of my own L1 homework: "This is likely happening because you are too worried about accuracy and are probably slowing down your stroke to compensate. Try and rely a bit more on the muscle memory of the motion you build up while ghosting and almost make your mark without thinking. Although accuracy is our end goal it can't really be forced and tends to come through mileage and consistent practice more than anything."

• You did a great job drawing within the expected boundaries of each ellipse but this could partly be due to you slowing down your strokes in exchange for accuracy. One thing that might help you is to add more loops to your ghosting step. When ghosting ellipses, first, visualize the ellipse you want to draw, then trace over it multiple times as you ghost. Once you're ready, place the tip of your pen on the page and let muscle memory guide your hand.

• A lot of your ellipses were either drawn through more than 3 times or just one time. Remember to always draw through your loops 2-3 times, nothing more, nothing less. You can add more loops to your ghosting movement, instead, and focus on executing each ellipse to your fullest ability.

• I think you should fill in more of the empty spaces in frames with small ellipses in the future. You need to practice drawing smaller ellipses with your entire arm, as well, and those spaces give you the perfect opportunity to do so. You need to do this more as your smaller ellipses tend to be a lot more wobbly and deformed. If you feel a bit of jerking movement in your arm when drawing ellipses, check if you're in a comfortable drawing position. You can also do some arm stretches to loosen up your arms before drawing. A good stretch is always a nice addition to anyone's daily routine, not just artists.

• You did an excellent job adding variety to your ellipses! I'm seeing ellipses of different sizes and degrees, which is a great thing. Make sure to keep doing that when you do this exercise as homework!

Ellipses in Planes

• Your ellipses here are a bit smoother than those in your table of ellipses exercise, which shows growth and improvement! You'll get even better with more practice!

• However, in addition to some deformation (see comments above), undershooting and overshooting is a lot more apparent here leading to floating ellipses (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/13/floating). Although this problem is better resolved AFTER you become able to consistently draw smooth, confident ellipses, you should still be aiming to touch all four sides of the ghosted plane. You don't have to follow the midpoint lines you drew during the ghosting exercise as your main goal is to draw an ellipse that fits within a boundary with four sides. Feel free to rotate your ellipses and change their degrees to achieve this. Re-watch the homework video if you're having a hard time visualizing this.

• I also noticed that your ellipses here follow the 2-3 loops rule, which is good! Make sure to keep doing this in the future when drawing ellipses!

Ellipses in Funnels

• Great job! Your ellipses here are actually a lot smoother (with a few outliers, but at least your consistency is getting better)!

• However, a couple of your funnels have misalignment (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/14/notaligned). Try to be more mindful of this as you visualize the ellipse you're trying to draw while ghosting.

• Your funnels are looking a bit awkward because the circle edge you used are a bit too small. Try to look for something bigger to draw curves with less severe curvature. This will make the progression in your ellipse lengths look a lot more natural!

• You can try adding more variety to your funnels (e.g. drawing the curves farther apart) so you can practice drawing ellipses of different sizes!

• Once you've gotten better at drawing smooth, confident, and accurate ellipses, you can even choose to add progression to the degrees of ellipses in the same funnel. Refer to the homework page if you need an explanation or some examples for this!

• Overall, there's a lot of room for improvement in your ellipses than your lines. Make sure to work on this in the future during your warm-ups!

3. Boxes

Plotted Perspective

• These are pretty good and clean boxes! Good job! I think in the future, you can choose to add some line weight to the edges of the boxes and some hatching lines to improve their visibility and ability to convey a 3D shape!

• However, a majority of your vertical lines aren't perpendicular to the horizon line. It seems you ghosted the lines of the actual boxes, which is actually not what the homework asked for. You're supposed to use a ruler for all the lines in this exercise. With that, make sure to take the time to draw each line carefully to avoid overshooting and accidental slips!

• I won't ask you to redo this exercise as we won't be using rulers a lot in future exercises, anyway. The point of this exercise is to help you understand two-point perspective better, and I think your work demonstrated that. But, please follow the exercise directions next time.

Rough Perspective

• Many of your ghosted lines here are a lot smoother than before so great job! There's still some course correction and repeated lines, though (check line exercises comments).

• It's good that you draw through all of your boxes, meaning you drew the back face, as well! Drawing the back face will help us visualize the boxes as 3D objects in space instead of just a set of lines on a 2D surface!

• One of the pages has two plotted vanishing points. Remember that we're practicing one-point perspective in this exercise.

• One of the boxes is angled. To quote the exercise explanation: "In one point perspective, one of the horizontal vanishing points of our boxes is going to be at infinity, as will be one of the vertical vanishing points. As such, all of our vertical lines will run perpendicular to the horizon, and all of the horizontal lines will run parallel to it, leaving only one set of lines that converges (towards our single vanishing point)."

• The biggest problem I see with this exercise is the lack of extended lines. Make sure to draw the extended depth lines no matter how wrong they are.

• Please review the exercise instructions (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/roughperspective) and re-do this exercise with points I mentioned above in mind.

• I also suggest adding more variation in box shapes (like having more thin rectangles, etc.) to help you understand how depth lines would look at different distances from the VP.

Rotated Boxes

• I think you did a great job conveying an overall spherical shape! You also did a good job keeping the corners of the boxes close together. However, there a few issues that make the shape less readable.

• The line weights aren't properly used. Some of your boxes have edges that are properly thickened, but some don't. Make sure to prioritize consistency as failing to do so will make your drawings look messier.

• I think your hatching lines are also looking good, but make sure to only apply them to parts of the face that should be exposed and visible to the viewer. Otherwise, you'll end up confusing the viewers as to which boxes are at the back and which ones are in front. Take a look at this image and take note of how they used line weights and hatching lines (https://d15v304a6xpq4b.cloudfront.net/lesson_images/9a2db6a0.jpg)

• The boxes generally don't maintain a consistent shape (e.g some become longer/taller rectangles) and the rotations/rotation progression is incosistent. Carefully plotting each corner point with their VPs in mind should help with this. Don't worry about taking too much time as our goal is to execute each line to the best of our abilities (as I mentioned before)

• I think you made a lot of effort to complete this exercise so no revisions are necessary. This is a great exercise to come back to after a few lessons to see how much your spatial thinking ability has improved. If you plan to do it again, make sure to keep the above points in mind.

Organic Perspective

• I like how you challenged yourself with the pathing of your boxes in this exercise! Doing difficult things that may be beyond our current abilities help us grow more! However, some of your trajectory lines aren't very smooth, this might be because of an awkward drawing position or you slowing down your drawing speed. Make sure to properly visualize the line before drawing it.

• I also like how you draw through all of your boxes. This is good practice!

• One criticism I have of your work is that most of your don't exhibit a lot of foreshortening. Since you're drawing boxes in 3D space, it's better to draw line pairs with more convergence. You can also change the foreshortening to change how viewers perceive each box which could help convey depth and distance (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/7/foreshortening).

• You also have to more variation in your box sizes and spacing. This would serve as practice for drawing boxes with ghosted lines! Experiment with the sizes and spacing to help convey the illusion of depth and distance better.

• Some of your boxes are still a bit awkward but don't worry about this too much, as you'll get the hang of this as you proceed with the 250 box challenge!

• You're lacking one page of this exercise. Please do another page of it with the proper corrections. Do three frames instead of four to give you more working space.

Overall, I think your submissions showed a great deal of growth, especially with your ghosted lines. There are lots of mistakes, but that's normal so you shouldn't be embarrassed of them! Instead, use them as reminders for your further improvement. I'll be more than happy to mark your exercise complete once you've submitted the revisions I asked for! Just a little bit more and you can proceed with the 250-box exercise!