Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes
1:14 AM, Wednesday November 18th 2020
Took me a while to complete!! Please leave honest comments
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3:01 PM, Wednesday November 18th 2020
Okay, this is my first critique so here goes.
Lines:
They start off a bit wobbly in the beginning and middle but I noticed substantial improvement as you went on. Even so I get the feeling that you're still not super confident in your lines. There is still some noticeable arching as well, even in the later parts of the lesson. But neither the wobble nor the arching are anything to worry about too much. With more practice you will be able to iron these out. Just remember to use your elbow as little as you possibly can. More shoulder action will take care of both issues.
Ellipses:
As far as accuracy goes these look pretty good. All I can say, though, is that, like with your lines, I am sensing a slight lack of confidence. Here and there I see instances where you have consciously corrected yourself WHILE you are drawing an ellipse. This manifests in a section of the curve that looks like a bump. With more practice in using your shoulder more and simply believing in the movement of your arm, you will see fewer bumps. And, while the ellipses may not be as accurate as you might like at first, the more you practice with this the more accurate you will become on your own.
Boxes:
With the rough perspective exercise you did a pretty good job at keeping the width and length lines looking parallel. Although due to the wobble and arch it can be a tad difficult to tell. But if you fix those issues you'll be better able to gauge how accurate the angle is between two lines.
With the Rotated Boxes exercise, and this might just be a nitpick, it seems that the boxes all the way in the corners aren't rotated much if at all. Just be sure that those boxes are rotated with respect to EVERY adjacent box. Whereas it seems like you rotated the corner boxes with respect to only one adjacent box. But those are the toughest boxes to draw in this already difficult exercise so don't beat yourself up over it.
All in all I would say your biggest hangup is confidence. If you have to, just get an empty page and draw a crap ton of lines and ellipses until you are somewhat comfortable with the motions. Something I never thought about that much prior to starting DaB is the "physical" element to drawing. You're exercising your muscle memory like you would in playing an instrument.
You seem to already have a solid grasp of perspective and of where lines SHOULD go, so that's good.
Overall, I'd say you're ready for the 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.
4:04 PM, Wednesday November 18th 2020
Wow, I thought I was ready to start critiquing other people's lessons, but I don't think I could write a critique as good as this. First of all; thank you! I know my confidence isn't great, I think it is mostly from pride and not wanting to fail, despite knowing that failing early and often will make me better. That bad habit of not trusting myself is ingrained so deeply in me I'm not sure if just one page of practicing will cut it hahaha. You're right, I definitely arch my lines a bunch, BUT I SWEAR I was ghosting with my shoulder!! I think it's hard to always be 100% mindful about your technique when you're just going through the motions of the exercises, which sometimes leads to me unintentionally falling back to elbow drawing. Also, now that I look at my rotated boxes, I super agree that the corner boxes are basically not even rotated, I think I was just ready to finish the exercise at that point lol.
Like you said with the physical element, there are definitely times when I just want to zone out and draw on autopilot, and that is probably what leads to a lot of the sloppiness in my exercises. I think I need to be more mindful in my drawing and that will prevent me from moving my wrist/elbow even when I'm ghosting using my shoulder. Thank you for the critique, I will take everything you said to heart and continue to work on those things!
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