Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

8:37 PM, Wednesday July 15th 2020

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admittedly had more than one attempt on the rotated box assignment as I kept messing it up after the third box and making small dumb mistakes.

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1:26 AM, Saturday July 18th 2020

Hey there, I'll be checking this out! Let's get started:

Starting off with the lines section: The superimposed lines are nice. They're smooth and fairly accurate, but do remember to try not to fray the lines on both ends; Always carefully place your pen on the starting dot. Also, though it's more of a personal (and utilitarian) preference, I think it would be better if you keep each set of superimposed lines nice and parallel rather than making a neat composition here with all those diagonals, mainly because you can get more lines on the page and its more easy for you to see the progression of your lines getting better (or worse). As for the ghosted lines, they look very accurate, though I do see a bit of arcing. That's completely normal, but its good to notice that now and begin trying to correct that by consciously arcing the lines slightly in the opposite direction until your brain associates that with making straight lines. Also, and this is mainly nitpicking, but I notice that at the end of a couple of your lines begin to wobble just a little, which to me signals that your slowing down and trying to course correct the lines to hit the dot. After you've prepped your line with ghosting, always execute without hesitation (in any other context, that phrase would sound quite gruesome, but here its important!). Finally, the ghosted planes look real nice, no real comment here other than me seeing a little bit of automatic reinforcing of your lines: remember - if your line is wrong, it's wrong. Don't try saving it, do better next time (this is something I'm gonna come back to often).

Next is the ellipses: Your table of ellipses look pretty good, just a couple of things. First, I see that on a lot of these, your making quite a few rounds: try to draw through your ellipses max 2-3 times, after that it just becomes a little bit amorphous and sloppy. Beyond that, your degrees look nicely aligned and consistent, and as you keep practicing your ellipses will tighten up and become more accurate, so no comments there. As for the funnels, seems like you decreased the rounds to 2-3, which is good. The degrees are nicely aligned, and again, with practice you'll get better at hitting the edges more accurately, although they are quite good so far.

Finally, the boxes: Seems like you got quite creative with the plotted perspective. Taking creative liberty with the exercises is quite heavily discouraged by Uncomfortable himself, but (and don't tell him that I said this) I don't really mind too much IF you do all that is required. In this case, I think you could have stood to benefit more from doing more boxes rather than making an (admittedly cool) arch house thing and a ditch and tall building taking up entire spreads. That said, these plotted exercises are mainly to focus on understanding perspective, so I don't see too much of a point in redoing them, so I'll give this one a pass. As for the rough perspective, Your lines look good but (and here's where we get back to it) you are reinforcing your lines far too much. Almost all your lines have a sketchy-look to them, which defeats the purpose of making smooth, accurate, and confident lines. Again: if your line is wrong: it's wrong, do better next time, don't try to fix it. Your rotated boxes look really good, but you did say that you redid it. I know I'm beating a dead horse but this shouldn't go understated - if its wrong, it's wrong. Especially on the rotated boxes, this work is supposed to challenge you, and we don't want you to spend forever trying to grind to perfect an assignment. Alright enough scolding - overall it looks real nice, its nice and symmetrical and the lines, besides from some of the reinforcing, look pretty good. Some of the boxes at the end don't rotate quite entirely, but the point was to attempt the exercise, and you did much better than most. Finally, the organic perspective. This stuff looks real nice, I especially like the gradual rotation on all of these boxes, and it looks like you started getting a little better at holding back your urge to redo lines, though I do see a few crossed out boxes. Overall, nice work though.

Alright, in summary, you did some great work on these. Just make sure, real sure, that you address the habit of trying to fix your lines: a big principle in Drawabox is confidence in markmaking and a big part of that is moving on from your mistakes. You will be in for a world of pain if you try to fix every single mistake moving forward, especially in stuff like the 250 box challenge, so do yourself a favor now and kill that bad habit. I don't really see a point in you revising any of your work though, since this is something you can practice moving forward, so, overall good work.

Next Steps:

250 Box Challenge!

This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete, and 2 others agree. The student has earned their completion badge for this lesson and should feel confident in moving onto the next lesson.
5:39 AM, Wednesday July 22nd 2020

Thank you for taking the time to review my work, this is very much appreciated. You were very insightful and to the point, I will work on the things you have pointed out.

thank you, I gave you a good feedback rating

2:42 AM, Thursday July 23rd 2020

Hey I appreciate it! Good luck on the boxes.

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