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should I use "planning points" to help me draw ellipses accurately?

9:14 PM, Monday March 10th 2025

Like, say I want to draw four elllipses of descending degrees through a curve (basically the branches exercise).

Should I just freehand them knowing I may not get the ellipse's width to follow the smooth pattern I intended to or could I just draw two dots that are equally as far from the stem (representing the degree) for every ellipse to help me nail them by showing me something concrete to aim for?

I am writing this because the demos don't really show this technique being put to use with ellipses, which might be for a good reason.

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6:28 PM, Tuesday March 11th 2025

If you feel they help you, then yes, you certainly can. They technically fall under the "planning" phase of the ghosting method, which doesn't simply relate to straight lines, but rather all freehanded marks we execute. There are different ways in which one can provide additional scaffolding for the ellipses we draw however - including defining the bounds of the ellipse (as shown in the case of the tables of ellipses and ellipses in planes exercise) as well as by predefining the minor axis (as shown in the funnels exercise).

These are also things we employ more in the cylinder challenge, which comes up after Lesson 5. Prior to that, in the constructional drawings from lessons 3-5 we focus more on building things inside-out, so when our ellipses come out larger than intended, it doesn't really interfere with the value of the exercise itself. Lessons 6 and 7 focus more on working outside-in, so those kinds of approaches to increase one's precision become more pertinent.

8:35 PM, Friday March 14th 2025

Thanks for advice, Comfy. I will continue adding the scaffolding because it helps me centers my ellipses better, which I believe gives the stems a greater sense of solidity.

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