Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes
11:59 AM, Monday November 20th 2023
Thank you for providing critique!
Welcome to drawabox! Let’s take this one exercise at a time, shall we?
Starting off, your superimposed lines are well done. They’re generally smooth, and properly lined up at the start, but you’ll sometimes alter their trajectory, which is not something we like to see. I suspect this is because of how packed your page is. This is great to do (fill your page to the brim, that is), but if it’s so full that you’re cautious of encroaching onto another line’s territory, then you’ll find yourself too concerned with your line’s accuracy, which is not something we encourage. Recall that our #1 concern is with our line’s smoothness, and straightness, so please prioritize accordingly. Your ghosted lines/planes are well done. I appreciate that you’ve not forgotten to plot start/end points for the non-diagonal center lines of your planes (most students do!), and that you’ve gotten so ambitious with your planes, especially. You do seem to have a bit of a curve to your lines, so see if curving consciously in the opposite direction doesn’t fix that.
The table of ellipses exercise looks good. You’ve got a good deal of variety to your ellipses (their degrees and angles), and they’re all smooth, rounded, and generally properly drawn through. Regarding this last bit, be careful that you draw through them a full 2 times, not just 1 and change. The ellipses in planes are able to maintain that same degree of smoothness/roundness, despite how ambitious these new frames of theirs are – nicely done! The funnels, too, are well done. Their ellipses are snug, and properly cut in half by their respective axes.
The plotted perspective exercise looks clean. In the 3rd frame, I notice that you’ve not shaded a near plane, but as it’s the same plane every time, I suspect you know what you’re doing, anyway, so no worries. The rough perspective exercise looks good. I’d definitely recommend spending a little longer on the planning stage, as, even by the end, your lines aren’t quite perfect (this is to say, after you plot a point, you should check it, and alter it as needed, as many times as is needed, before committing to it in the form of a line), but you’re not so far off that it’s a problem, so don’t stress about it too much. Great job on the rotated boxes exercise! It’s big, its boxes are snug, and though they don’t exactly rotate up front, they do a decent job of it in the back. This temptation to keep things inside a nice grid is the sort of thing that we’ll try to challenge in the upcoming box challenge, so for now, you don’t need to worry about it too much – it’s simply valuable that you’ve asked the question, that we may be able to answer it. The organic perspective exercise looks mostly good. The boxes are appropriately sized, and their foreshortening adds to their flow. Their lineweight, however, does not. Or, at the very least, it should’ve been limited to the boxes up front. Adding lineweight to the boxes in the back makes them pop forward (they vie for our attention, though they shouldn’t, because they’re supposed to be ‘in the back’). It would’ve worked if there was more lineweight up front, and less in the back, but at that point, you’re complicating the exercise needlessly.
Next Steps:
I’ll be marking this lesson as complete, and sending you off to the box challenge. Best of luck!
Hi Benj, thank you for the feedback!
I'd like to clarify and ask a few questions;
1) How do I curve consciously in the opposite direction whilst drawing lines? I typically draw my lines quite quickly. To me, that's what it means to be confident, otherwise my pen starts to shake. Do you have any tips on this?
2) What do you mean by the ellipses critique? I'll admit that some I didn't draw through because they were "perfect" already, but what do you mean by "be careful that you draw through them a full 2 times, not just 1 and change"?
3) I had some trouble with the outer corners of the 'Rotating Boxes' homework. I understand using other points as reference, but when I did that, it didn't quite feel right. What I tried to achieve in the end was a spherical formation, hence why 1 box looks completely different from the rest.
That's all I have to ask. Thank you for also delving into composition regarding the 'Organic Boxes' homework. I had given the far-off boxes thicker line weight because my thought process was to highlight anything not behind another box. I think your criticism does make sense too though, and I'll definitely be applying that for warm-ups.
So!
This advice is actually from Uncomfortable. I've never had the issue myself, so I don't have much experience with it, but I imagine that it doesn't interfere with the way you draw lines normally, anyway, since the 'intent' of curving consciously in the other direction is applied during the ghosting motion, only. So, rather than ghosting the line as if it's perfectly straight, you'd ghost it having the littlest arc in the opposite direction, ideally (theoretically) resulting in your drawing a perfectly straight line. It's worth trying, but if it ends up simply curving in the other direction, then I'd keep my lines as they are, lest you develop any weird habits.
We're meant to be drawing around all of our ellipses a full 2 times. That thing Uncomfortable says about how eventually you'll be able to get them right in one go is about a point far, faaar in the future. Right now, you should draw through all of them, because it's extra mileage that you need. Specifically, what I meant is that you need to hit a minimum of 2 rotations, rather than something like this, where you'll go through them one time, and a little more, and call it done.
(I'm not sure if there's a question here?) This exercise is not worth stressing over. It's mostly here to see if you're capable of seeing an exercise through to the end, even if you don't fully understand it, and to introduce some questions in your head, that we then go on to address in the box challenge.
Hope I've cleared things up. Best of luck!
Alright, thank you! I forgot to mention that I wanted help with the 'Rotating Boxes' homework but seems like I've completed the objective of introducing questions into my head through its hardship
A lot of folks have heard about Scott Robertson's "How to Draw" - it's basically a classic at this point, and deservedly so. It's also a book that a lot of people struggle with, for the simple reason that they expect it to be a manual or a lesson plan explaining, well... how to draw. It's a reasonable assumption, but I've found that book to be more of a reference book - like an encyclopedia for perspective problems, more useful to people who already have a good basis in perspective.
Sketching: The Basics is a far better choice for beginners. It's more digestible, and while it introduces a lot of similar concepts, it does so in a manner more suited to those earlier in their studies.
This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.