Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

10:27 AM, Friday April 26th 2024

Draw a box - Lesson 1 homework by Antti Kriikkula - Album on Imgur

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Hello,

first of all huge thank you for hosting this site. I have been dormant for 15 years when it comes to drawing, and just started out again drawing and saw people suggesting your classes. This has already been a blast and you instructions are easy to follow and really really helpful in terms of understanding.

I have a question about warmups, I have now been doing 1 or 2 pages of just random stuff we have learned through the course before starting the actual homework, is this okay amount or do you have some kind of warmup routines on the site posted that I am unaware of.

Best regards and sincerely thank you,

Antti

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12:32 PM, Friday April 26th 2024

Hi, I'm Laura, I'll first critique your homework and answer your question after.

Lines

Superimposed Lines - Some fraying on one side(which is normal and expected really), otherwise pretty good.

Ghosted Lines & Ghosted Planes - There's some large scale wobble and arcing on some of the lines, can be helped with more consciously using your shoulder to execute the strokes, and trying to intentionally arch the line in the opposite direction to cancel it out if it persists, as well as rotating your pages, and make sure you're ghosting at least 5 times, it should help with getting the final execution.

Looks like you understood what was presented.

Ellipses

Table Ellipses - Drawn through 2-3 times as instructed, but often quite lumpy and uneven, as well as not fitting into theis environments, using your shoulder is very important here, try to minimize movement from the elbow or wrist(This section helps with more explanation https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/16/remember), and try following through the ellipse as closely as you can on the second rotation as well as ghosting each ellipse before you even put it down, experiment going faster or slower with each ellipse to see what turns out better.

Ellipses in planes - Same as the previous one, but try to not worry as much about fitting the ellipses inside plane exactly, smoother ellipses are more important initially.

Funnels - all have the right rotation, mostly fit their borders, and almost all exactly divided by the minor axis, but again, try to focus on smoothness and following the rotation through the second time.

Overall you understood the assignments, but I'll ask for one page of table ellipses with a focus on smooth ellipses. Rereading and rewatching this section https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/16/remember and implementing the tips should help.

Boxes

Plotted perspective- Good, nothing to say here.

Rough perspective - Pretty good, make sure to use the ghosting method and give yourself more time to put down each point, as some of the lines have noticeable angles to them, you aim to have 2 rectangles, one in the back of the box, and one in the front, with each line being either completely horizontal or vertical.

Rotated boxes - First, you're missing 3 more boxes on each corner(https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/21/step8), but the ones that are there look good, finish the missing boxes and reply with them.(This also shows how each corner should look(excluding the mistake), you need 3 boxes diagonally from the center for each corner https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/21/notdrawingthrough)

Organic Perspective - some of the boxes have very parallel or diverging lines, but that's okay, you'll get plenty of practice on that with the 250 box challenge, otherwise you did well varying the rotation of the boxes and reducing their size as they get further.

You understood the concepts taught, but need to finish the rotated boxes.

Summary

Did well overall, but had some issues on the ellipses, boxes will be refined through the 250 box challenge.

I'll ask you to do one page of table ellipses with a focus on smooth ellipses, and to finish the rotated boxes, reply with those two.

As for your question, this https://drawabox.com/lesson/0/3/warmups section of lesson one talks about warmups, and how to do them. You weren't really supposd to do warmups during lesson one, but it's okay. To summarize, (do read the linked article, and maybe the video too) each day when you start your drawing sessions, pick 2-3 random exercises from lessons you've completed(lessons, not individual exercises), and do them in total for 10-15 minutes, more than that and it becomes grinding which is discouraged as it will hurt motivation over a long enough time, not to mention wasting your time.

This site can help with picking the exercises(you can change which exercises it shows in settings on the top right) https://mark-gerarts.github.io/draw-a-card/index.html

Next Steps:

1 Page of table ellipses, focus on making smooth ellipses with the tips provided, try rereading the exercise and rewatching its video. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/16/remember

Finish your rotated boxes page, you have 3 boxes missing in each corner.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
5:10 PM, Sunday April 28th 2024

Thank you for your thorough critique Laura,

I do have to say you quite well critiqued the parts where I had some kind of trouble. I think my biggest problem with smooth lines is when I draw from shoulder, the way I have the pen in hand, I always create friction from my bottom part of the pinkie to the table im drawing on. On many occasions this is not a problem because I can rotate the paper and have the underside of the pinkie on the paper (there it wont create friction as much) but when Im nearing a corner and cant rotate the paper in any better angle the lines get really bad even if I do manage to get it going from shoulder because of the friction. Do you have any advice here what I could try to do differently? Should I try to draw so that I dont use my pinkie as an anchor to the table or paper or something else?

Thank you for your thorough and well placed critique, I will reply with the improved homework.

11:05 AM, Monday April 29th 2024

As for the finger friction, this talks about it a bit: https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/2/hoverhand

Having your hand touching the desk/paper should be fine as long as you're aware of it and counteract the drag/friction it creates, without falling back to drawing from lower pivots such as the wrist or elbow.

You can get one of those "drawing gloves" that sometimes come with drawing tablets where it provides a sleek surface to reduce friction on the side of your hand.

I personally hold my pen pen in a way that either has the whole arm and hand hovering, or just a fingernail touching the desk/paper to provide a bit of stability without friction, those are both rather tiring initially, but would help in the long term by training your arm muscles more than dragging.

For more answers to that question you should post a question(same way as submitting your work, but check "question/discussion topic" instead) about it, or ask on the discord.

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