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3:56 AM, Thursday October 27th 2022

Hello and congrats on completing lesson one. I'll be taking a look at your submission today. Starting with your superimposed lines these are off to a fine start. You are keeping a clearly defined starting point with all of your wavering at the opposite end. I'm noticing that you are getting quite a bit of wobble in your ghosted lines and planes. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/9/wobbling This is also quite present in some of the later exercises although I am seeing improvement with your final exercise but I still want to mention this advice here so you can understand what the problem likely is.

This is the important part we need to be focusing on and the real problem I'm seeing:

You're hesitating as you execute the line, rather than drawing with a confident motion. Finally committing to a mark can definitely be quite daunting, but it's integral that you get used to accepting that mistakes do happen. Things go wrong - you can prepare as much as possible (and you should) but the moment your pen touches the page, any opportunity to avoid a mistake has already passed. Now you must commit yourself, push through with confidence, and execute your line. It's also worth remembering: we can still work with a line that is smooth and even, but there's not much that can be done with a wobbly one.

What's most likely happening is that you are worrying about accuracy too much while making your mark and it's causing you to slow down your stroke to compensate which is giving you quite a bit of wobble in your lines. That hesitation because of your concern for accuracy while making your mark is what is reintroducing the wobble into your lines. Try and rely a bit more on the muscle memory you build up while ghosting your mark and almost make your mark without thinking. This will be less accurate at first but will give you consistently smooth and confident linework which is our first priority. Accuracy will come with mileage and can't really be forced.

Your ellipses are largely suffering from the exact same issue which really just goes to show that once you fix this problem it will improve every aspect of your drawing and that improvement is very evident with your organic perspective boxes and the line confidence I see there. Your tables of ellipses is coming along okay. You are doing a good job drawing through your ellipses and while you seem to be focused on consistent ellipse shape you are getting quite a bit of line wobble trying to be accurate. This is carried over into your ellipses in planes and you are still deforming your ellipses at times. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/12/deformed 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. This will be less accurate at first. Although accuracy is our end goal it can't really be forced and tends to come through mileage and consistent practice more than anything. Your ellipses in funnels are having the same issues. I'm also seeing a few ellipses in these exercises where you aren't drawing through your ellipses. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/12/drawingthrough So this is just a reminder that you need to draw through EVERY single ellipse you draw for all of these lessons. Even if you think you got it right the first time. There is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to your ellipses both in terms of overall consistency of shape and smooth lines so make sure you keep practicing these in your warmups as they can take a while to get used to.

The plotted perspective was supposed to be done entirely with a ruler. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/15/video So as a revision I'd like you to redo this page and also make sure you include more than per box per exercise. Your rough perspective exercises turned out pretty well. You are getting a mix of confident linework here along with wobble creeping back into your lines. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/9/wobbling This is probably happening because you are more concerned with accuracy now that you are constructing boxes and you are slowing down your stroke to compensate. You are doing a good job extending the lines back on your boxes to check your work. As you can see some of your perspective estimations were quite off but that will become more intuitive with practice. One thing that can help you a bit when doing a one point perspective exercise like this is to realize that all of your horizontal lines should be parallel to the horizon line and all of your verticals should be perpendicular(straight up and down in this case) to the horizon line. This will help you avoid some of the slanting lines you have in your constructions.

Your rotated box exercise turned out pretty well. I like that you drew this nice and big as that really helps when dealing with complex spatial problems. You also did a good job keeping your gaps narrow and consistent. One issue I'm seeing is that you only partially drew through your boxes. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/17/notdrawingthrough You basically gave up doing this for the corners. The reason you need to be drawing through your boxes for this exercise is to really help you think through where they are sitting in space. So please follow all of the directions for the exercises as you will be assigned revisions in the future for not doing so. You are still getting wobbly linework throughout so committing to your marks is something you need to keep working on. The rotations here are very slight to non existant for quite a bit of this exercise which is perfectly fine given the difficulty. Good job on finishing it regardless. The more you draw and develop your spatial thinking ability the easier these rotations are to handle. This is a great exercise to come back to after a few lessons to see how much your spatial thinking ability has improved. Your organic perspective exercises are where I'm seeing the biggest improvement in terms of line confidence. That said there is still line wobble happening throughout this exercise. So as a reviison I'd like you to do one more page of this exercise with a focus on confident linework. Make sure you are always plotting your points, ghosting your lines, and then make sure you fully commit to your mark and don't slow down for the sake of accuracy. Remember that accuracy is not the priority and it's more important to get a smooth confident line even if it's inaccurate. Your box constructions are decent but there are quite a few wonky ones so the 250 box challenge will be a great next step for you.

Overall this was a pretty good submission that did show growth when it comes to line confidence but there are still issues with line wobble persisting with the last few exercises that I'd like to see you get under control before moving on to the 250 box challenge.

Next Steps:

One page of the plotted perspective boxes - This exercise is supposed to be done entirely with the ruler and make sure you include more than one box in each exercise

One page of the organic perspective boxes - Focus on confident linework

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
9:35 PM, Friday October 28th 2022
10:10 PM, Friday October 28th 2022

The plotted perspective turned out okay. You do have some line wobble here and there which is a bit puzzling to me as you were supposed to use a ruler for the entire exercise. The other thing I'm noticing is that some of the legs of your boxes are slanting when in a two point perspective exercise like this all of your legs should be perpendicular to the horizon line(straight up and down).

The organic perspective exercise has mostly confident linework. You are still getting a little line wobble here and there so make sure you keep focusing on confident linework as you go through the 250 box challenge. I'm going to mark this as complete and good luck with the 250 box challenge.

Next Steps:

The 250 Box Challenge

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
10:26 PM, Friday October 28th 2022

Thanks so much! The line wobble in the plotted perspective exercise was caused by accidentally moving my sketchbook while I did the exercise lol

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Sakura Pigma Microns

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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