Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

8:04 PM, Friday July 23rd 2021

Elnu's Blog

Elnu's Blog: https://elnu.com/art/lesson-1

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This is my second time doing Lesson 1 of Drawabox, the first submission I made over a year ago is here. After reaching the beginning of Lesson 3 in early December of last year, I got burnt out and I haven't done any drawing until this past week when I've been starting again from the beginning. I think I retained some of the skills from the 250 Box Challenge, but I'm pretty rusty.

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3:04 AM, Saturday July 24th 2021

Hello ! Elnu. I'm chiran. Thanks for submitting your assignment to the community.

This submission reveals that , you've got pretty good understanding of purpose of each exercise and executed every individual marks to the best of your ability prioritizing the confidence. since this is your second time, there is nothing I can point out as flaws here I'll try my best to provide useful and effective feedback as possible. Alright! lets explore some part 1 and Part 2.

Part 1: WHERE IT SLIGHTLY OFF?

  • starting from your lines; you got pretty decent work here. I can say that you are continuing to use shoulder to draw the lines and prioritizing confidence over accuracy so thats perfect!.

  • Its quite normal to have long lines that bend a little but no big deal, you will have plenty of time in your future to work on

  • In page 1 of super imposed lines ( regarding the curve 22) you can also try and build that curve in part by part if it is comfortable, but if you are confident enough, then you can execute in a single shot also.

  • Ghosted lines exercises are done pretty well too!. I can advice you that , you can next try and work on accuracy as well since you are pretty much confident in executing

  • Coming to your ellipses: Yep they are smooth, confident and drawn through 2- 3 times so good job!.nothing to mention in ellipses in funnels exercise cuz, you did strive to keep your ellipses aligned to minor axis as well as within the bounds of funnels.

  • now boxes: your boxes are awesome!. In rough point perspective its not required to apply line weight to the boxes.

  • regarding your line weight, you also applied to the internal lines as ell ( we can see page no 1 scene 2 and 3). thing to remember here is that, even though some lines are off you should not try to repeat or correct them which will thereby result in a messier box.improvements can be seen in your page 2 and 3 but some internal lines of boxes are repeated though.

  • sometimes you did seem to hesitate while executing and prioritized accuracy over confidence which resulted in a darker and wobbly lines. although they are in minority you should keep this point as well.you will have plenty of time to work on those in future.

  • Rotated boxes exercise: page 1; just to mention that, still the line weight is added to the internal lines or if you seem to course correct your lines then its advisable to not to rush and take some breaks. but the extreme corners of the boxes are missing. Even if you feel burned out , you should atleast try to complete it.

  • you seem to have improve in your redo; but still the extreme corner ones are missing ( only 4 boxes)

  • fantastic work on your organic perspective exercise. some little depth inconsistency can be seen in page 1 scene 1 and page 2 scene 1 and 2..

  • another last thing to mention here: Its not required to do warm ups a complete set of page . you can mix different exercises from lesson and try to do it for 10- 15 min (no more!). Yes I said no more, if you find in a situation that where you start grinding these exercises. Its worth to stop the grinding because its definitely a waste of time . these are the basic exercises that requires plenty of time to achieve the exact required results. the improvements can be seen through gradually not by drastically by grinding. ( i can attest myself to this fact)

now moving on to part 2

PART 2: WHERE YOU SHOULD KEEP AN EYE ON? AND WHAT ARE THE POINTS TO BE KEPT IN MIND IN ORDER TO IMPROVE

  • Speed of execution: when to increase the speed and when to slow down?

    If the lines came out dark, wobbly, contains subtle S curve and undershooted then increasing the speed of drawing your lines can reduce these issues. however if the lines are overshooting more and the flow of ink in your pen is inconsistent then its advisable to reduce the speed and try to lift the pen off the page when reaching the end dot.

  • feel free to experiment with different speed of drawing your lines from point A to point B during your warm up session and opt for the smooth and consistent ones. Increasing the speed of execution can really help in reducing wobbly lines and subtle S curves. If arching persists even after using shoulder to draw the lines then they can be reduced by arching consciously in opp direction to compensate the error. through practice they will get better.

  • of course continue to draw 2-3 times through your ellipses cuz, they will help in developing the muscle memory

  • sometimes the tiny shoulder of ours will not obey our orders and try to push our arms creating a gap between successive ellipse or the gap may also happen if you try to course correct your ellipses along the way. in that case trusting your shoulder muscle will really help. you should not course correct it; simply stick with it: let your muscle memory draw for you after ghosting enough times.I think its definitely worth to continue to use shoulder and ghosting method and draw through the ellipses 2- 3 times because it will really help in increasing the muscle memory.

  • Just to mention here: if you want to apply line weight to the boxes. make sure to apply to the body( silhouette) of the box with a confidence line ( remember to keep it subtle).

  • to avoid inconsistent depth in your boxes ( in organic perspective) scene its worth to start with a very small boxes at the end line (thinking that box is very far away from the observer) and try to increase their size as the approach the observer( the starting end of swoosh or swoopy line)

Little tip on your rotated boxes: while drawing your corner boxes, you can use the neighbouring edges as hints and can try to keep that boxes edges parallel and same length to the boxes besides and below it.( this advantage can only be taken when you keep the gaps between the boxes narrow and consistent)

last but not the least, continue to incorporate these exercises in your regular warm up routines. pick any 1 or 2 exercise and try to do it for 10 -15 min with striving towards the goal. because these warm ups are the hard requirements for any artists at any skill level !

overall I think you are doing great !. i personally think you can now move on to lesson 2 by including 2 boxes in your warm ups since you already completed 250 box challenge.

did your 250 box challenge get critiqued? if not feel free to resubmit again and get critiqued.

CONCLUSION: This was a solid submission. I'm marking this lesson as a complete.

Awesome ! you made it through lesson !. Congratulations. I hope this feed back helps. have a wonderful journey!

Thank you.

Next Steps:

  1. feel free to move on to lesson 2

  2. Include warm ups in your drawing session. you may want to make it as a routine.

  3. to avoid being burned out, you can use 50 % rule to your own advantage.remember half of your drawing time should be spent for having fun also.

This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete. In order for the student to receive their completion badge, this critique will need 2 agreements from other members of the community.
7:39 PM, Sunday July 25th 2021

Thank you for the critique! I really appreciate it and will keep it all in mind. Yes, my 250 Box Challenge submission did get critiqued. I was thinking about redoing it, but it would probably be a better use of time to jump right back into redoing Lesson 2. Thanks again!

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Staedtler Pigment Liners

Staedtler Pigment Liners

These are what I use when doing these exercises. They usually run somewhere in the middle of the price/quality range, and are often sold in sets of different line weights - remember that for the Drawabox lessons, we only really use the 0.5s, so try and find sets that sell only one size.

Alternatively, if at all possible, going to an art supply store and buying the pens in person is often better because they'll generally sell them individually and allow you to test them out before you buy (to weed out any duds).

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