Hi! A few things, very quickly. First off, the age you’ve started at is good, as is the course you’ve selected! In other words, you’ve already put yourself in a good position to succeed, so there’s no need to feel like you need to rush. Secondly, and, to add to that, that’s especially important for this course, as it is specifically designed to nurture patience, and forethought. So be sure to not rush through things! As for the critiques, the paid ones are really in-depth, so you don’t need to worry – quite the contrary, sometimes we might insist on a few things that you think you already know, but we do so because those become the foundation upon which the rest of the course is built on. But, enough of these general descriptions, let’s look at the submission itself.

Starting off, your superimposed lines are mostly good. They’re smooth, and properly lined up at the start, but not always of a consistent trajectory. Remember that it’s more important for your lines to be smooth, and straight, than it is for them to be accurate, so try not to course-correct mid-line. Also, with regards to the 3rd page, such ambitious shapes are bad for 2 reasons. First, because, in forcing yourself to, even partially, match the guidelines, you’re putting yourself in a position where confidence is not your main concern. Secondly, a lot of these lines wouldn’t be drawn in a single stroke, anyway. Where there’s a sharp angle, we would stop, lift our pen, and start anew, instead of awkwardly halting the entire motion, and changing trajectory – that’s not the kind of movement that the shoulder excels at. The ghosted lines/planes look fairly confident. I’m especially pleased to be that what insecurity there was at the ends of your lines, disappears by the time you reach the planes. That said, I’ll caution you against something that’s present even there: automatic reinforcing. Recall that each line is to be drawn once, and only once, regardless of how it turns out. Adding more ink to a mistake doesn’t fix it, anyway – it just makes it stand out more. So, if you notice that you’ve made one, that’s good! Take note of it, and think of ways to not do it again, but don’t try to hide it, or fix it.

Moving on to the ellipse section, the table of ellipses exercise looks good, if at times a little rushed. Be sure to take your time on each and every ellipse, and, especially, be mindful of the pivot you use for them. A lot of these ellipses have ended up looking a little pointy, which is more often than not an indication that a lesser pivot is working its way in, where it shouldn’t. Other than that, however, they look good – they’re properly spaced, and drawn through. The ellipses in planes have definitely been a bit of a struggle, if how much harder you’re pressing is any indication. But, even here, you’ve drawn enough of them that, by the end, you’ve landed in a good enough place. It’s good that you’re looking critically at things, and seeing how you can improve, rather than mindlessly completing the assigned pages, so that you can move on – keep that up. Save for what I’ve already pointed out in prior exercises (ellipses being pointy, etc.), the funnels look good. Your ellipses here are snug, and properly cut in half by their respective axes – good work.

The organic perspective exercise looks good, if at times a little too ambitious. I say ambitious, but what I really mean is dismissive of the instructions. It’s good that you’re experimenting – we encourage it, actually – but do try to keep our pointers in mind, when you do. Here, for instance, you’ve got a box that overlaps another, and in so doing, hides its lines. But one thing we always insist on is that our students always draw through their boxes. Still, the majority of these are well done.

Save for the automatic reinforcing issue, which we’ve addressed, the rough perspective exercise looks good. Its convergences start off strong, and show some improvement throughout the set, and its line-work, beyond the obvious, is fairly confident.

The rotated boxes exercise is well done. It’s big (huge positive!), its boxes are snug, and they do a good job of rotating. This is the case around the back, too, and I notice that a lot of your depth lines, as well, are correct (not something we expect to see, this early on). I suppose your planning is to credit here – I notice a lot of unused points on your page. Keep up the good work!

Finally, the organic perspective exercise looks good, too. I wasn’t going to mention automatic reinforcing anymore, since I figured that if I mentioned it once, you’d know that it applied to all exercises with it, but I will here, to say that it’s not only bad for the aforementioned reasons, but also because it makes boxes that are meant to be further in the back stand out (thicker lines demand our attention!), thus completely destroying the delicate hierarchy you’ve tried to create, and maintain here. Still, looking at your compositions as if that was not there, they do flow quite well, as per the size, and foreshortening of your boxes, so once that issue is fixed, everything will be well.