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9:08 AM, Friday June 5th 2020
Hi! Let's go through this one section at a time~
Starting off, your lines look a little wobbly. Remember that it's far more important for our lines to be confident, than accurate. Confident lines, even if they're inaccurate, can still be used as the foundation of a solid construction. Wobbly lines, however accurate, cannot. What this means is that it's perfectly fine for a superimposed line to miss its guideline, or a ghosted line its endpoint, so long as it's in pursuit of accuracy. I would also recommend that, same as for the rest of them, you plot start/end points for the non-diagonal center lines of the planes, too. By the way, in regards to those same lines, they need to go through the center point of the plane (in perspective), i.e. the intersection of the diagonal center lines. This is in response to your note on the second page of planes. It looks like you figured this out yourself, eventually, but i'll mention it just to be safe.
The ellipse section suffers from a similar issue- you're more concerned with accuracy, than confidence, but that's a little backwards. Accuracy is something that we train over time, through the use of the ghosting method, or just as a result of mileage. Confidence, on the other hand, is something that we have control over right now. For the ellipse section, you're generally aiming for an ellipse that's confident, and circular. Then, you can start to think about whether it hit all available sides of the frame, etc., but not until then. Thankfully, similarly to the lines section, all other aspects of these exercises are correct- it's just an issue of confidence. I will, however, quickly mention that your ellipses have a habit of deforming themselves, too- in the ellipses in planes exercise they become a little bumpy, as they strain to hit all 4 sides of the plane, and in the funnels exercise they bend a little, too. Remember: priority #1 is a smooth, rounded ellipse. Accuracy is of no concern.
The box section is, unfortunately, more of the same. Since i've covered the line confidence issues in the lines section, however, let's talk of some exercise-specific things. The rough perspective exercise starts off a little lacking, but improves considerably throughout the set. Still, i'll recommend ghosting a point multiple times before committing to it. A lot of times, we'll think that something is correct, but if we take a second to reconsider it from another angle, we'll quickly realize that it's not. It's an easy thing to notice, if you're looking for it, so see if you can do a little check before you move past the ghosting phase. Outside of those occasional errors, the rough perspective exercise looks nice, though i'll remind you that you shouldn't correct an incorrect line, ever. It's far wiser to leave our mistakes be, usually. The rotated boxes exercise is, as you've yourself noted, a little small. Bigger boxes are not only a sign of confidence, but they also provide us with a lot of room to think about spatial problems. I'll also note that your rotated boxes exercise is missing 12 boxes- 3 on each quadrant. Finally, save for the aforementioned issues, the organic perspective exercise looks quite nice. It flows quite well, as a result of the subtle increase in size, and many overlaps, and the boxes themselves are solid, too. There is the occasional divergence, but, given the usual next step, that's not going to be a problem for long.
Before i let you move on to that, however...
Next Steps:
I'd like to see 1 page of superimposed lines, 1 page of ellipses in planes, and 1 page of rotated boxes. Be sure to take your time here, and remember, taking your time doesn't necessarily mean going slow. It means making sure that each line is as good as it can be, accomplished by ghosting, but also smooth, and confident, because when we execute, we execute confidently. Good luck!
8:11 PM, Saturday June 6th 2020
Thank you for the detailed and thoughful feedback. It is so helpful to guide me. As background, I started my journey of learning to draw with the Proko Figure Drawing Fundamentals but quickly decided I do not have sufficient control over my pencil/pen to render what I intend. I have to unlearn years of wrist drawing while learning to draw freely and accurately with my whole arm. I think Drawabox will address that while helping me to 'construct' forms.
Here are the links to the three additional pages:
8:18 AM, Sunday June 7th 2020
Hello again! These show a tremendous amount of growth, so nicely done in that regard. I have a couple of minor things to point out, but they're to keep in mind for next time- i'll definitely be marking this lesson as complete.
Starting off, the superimposed lines are nice and confident, though there's a little too much fraying on their left (emphasis on 'little'- it's really not that much.) I'll echo your notes, here: ghosting is important, but so is hitting that starting point- be sure to leave enough room for both. The planes, as well as the ellipses inside of them, look quite confident, too. Though this aspect of them improves considerably, the ellipses are still a little deformed. I'll remind you that our main concern is for our ellipses to be confident, and circular. Meaning, they shouldn't strain to hit the 4 sides of the plane to the extent that they lose their roundness. Finally, though the rotation is a little minimal, the rotated boxes exercise looks much better this time around. I will, however, quickly note that there's a slight dip in line quality, here. Though it's just as likely to be as a result of the muscle memory from Proko, etc., i'll, just to be safe, remind you that our unit of work, here, and everywhere else, is a line. Regardless of how complex the task is, it usually boils down to a collection of lines, that we tackle one at a time. If they can be confident in the ghosted lines exercise, they can be confident elsewhere, too, so try not to get too overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task, if that is indeed what's happening.
ANYWAY, all of that aside, this is a considerable improvement over the original submission, and more than enough to have you move on to the box challenge. Good luck!
Next Steps:
250 Box Challenge
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