View Full Submission View Parent Comment
3:39 PM, Saturday December 19th 2020

Hi Liska.

First things first: if you haven't done alreay, I strongly suggest you join the Discord server. You'll find dedicated channels for every lesson (and much more) and many amazing people that can help you. That is also the right please to ask advice about partial exercises before submission.

Firstly, I am already a member of the offical discord server. I come here merely seeking addtional help to compliment the amount I'm already getting. Besides, I'm far more partial to tradtional froums like this. I can write as much as I like and no-one will bat an eye-lid and conversations I have here are traditionally more intelectual.

The problem with wobbly lines that I can see could be fixed by a great degree applying all the steps of the ghosting method. Read again all the pages of the Lesson 1 about markmaking, multiple times If you need to.

Secondly, I'm pretty sure I'm following the steps for ghosting correctly. When going through an exicise I first listen to Victor's reading of the aticle (I find that multi-sensory learning works the best) and then watch uncomfortable's accompanying video. But even then I go through the exicise and get this feeling in the back of my mind that I'm doing it wrong. It might help if there was a live demonstration of the technique that I could watch to be certain...

If you slow down too much, you give time to your brain to interfere during the execution, correcting the trajectory.

But if I speed up, then my mark will go straight through the intended point and keep going off the end of the page. Hmm... what a conumdrum...

always drawing from the shoulder with the canvas rotated in the most comfortable position for you shoulder joint.

Well that's the million pound question; where is this mystical "most comfortable position for my shoulder joint"? My page is going round and round like a spindashing sonic character and I still can't find it.

4:21 PM, Saturday December 19th 2020
edited at 4:23 PM, Dec 19th 2020

Sometimes I can't communicate with the right tone, I didn't mean to be rude or harsh by any means, therefore I apologize.

Now back to the topic. You can watch ShyllaStew videos, she went through Lesson 1, 2 and the 250 Box Challenge so far. It's a great way to check the practice live.

It's okay if your lines overshoot the end point at this stage, as long as those are confident smooth lines. You can try picking up the pen as it reaches the end point. A TA gave me the same advice because I was leaving a little tail in my ellipses and it worked after some practice.

Try to move your arm over the desk, blocking the wrist and the elbow. Can you find an angle that feels more natural than the others? That should be the most comfortable position for your shoulder.

edited at 4:23 PM, Dec 19th 2020
6:00 PM, Saturday December 19th 2020

What gave the impression that I though you were being rude? You've been rather polite to me so far.

Addtionally, I keep finding a fair amount of places where it feels right to draw from the elbow, but the shoulder (which I'm faily certain I should be using in this cicumstance) seems to move my arm in such a way that I'm not as sure as to how to angle the page and make my mark to use it.

6:09 PM, Saturday December 19th 2020
edited at 6:14 PM, Dec 19th 2020

Moving the shoulder will probably feel akward for a good while.

Assuming you are right handed, moving the pen diagonally away from you to the right is usually a comfortable angle to start with.

Besides that, plan you marks carefully with the ghosting method and when you are ready, commit to the page with confidence. Don't worry about the end point for now.

Would you mind sharing a page of those lines that you consider confident yet inaccurate?

edited at 6:14 PM, Dec 19th 2020
View more comments in this thread
The recommendation below is an advertisement. Most of the links here are part of Amazon's affiliate program (unless otherwise stated), which helps support this website. It's also more than that - it's a hand-picked recommendation of something I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Drawabox-Tested Fineliners (Pack of 10, $17.50 USD)

Drawabox-Tested Fineliners (Pack of 10, $17.50 USD)

Let's be real here for a second: fineliners can get pricey. It varies from brand to brand, store to store, and country to country, but good fineliners like the Staedtler Pigment Liner (my personal brand favourite) can cost an arm and a leg. I remember finding them being sold individually at a Michael's for $4-$5 each. That's highway robbery right there.

Now, we're not a big company ourselves or anything, but we have been in a position to periodically import large batches of pens that we've sourced ourselves - using the wholesale route to keep costs down, and then to split the savings between getting pens to you for cheaper, and setting some aside to one day produce our own.

These pens are each hand-tested (on a little card we include in the package) to avoid sending out any duds (another problem with pens sold in stores). We also checked out a handful of different options before settling on this supplier - mainly looking for pens that were as close to the Staedtler Pigment Liner. If I'm being honest, I think these might even perform a little better, at least for our use case in this course.

We've also tested their longevity. We've found that if we're reasonably gentle with them, we can get through all of Lesson 1, and halfway through the box challenge. We actually had ScyllaStew test them while recording realtime videos of her working through the lesson work, which you can check out here, along with a variety of reviews of other brands.

Now, I will say this - we're only really in a position to make this an attractive offer for those in the continental United States (where we can offer shipping for free). We do ship internationally, but between the shipping prices and shipping times, it's probably not the best offer you can find - though this may depend. We also straight up can't ship to the UK, thanks to some fairly new restrictions they've put into place relating to their Brexit transition. I know that's a bummer - I'm Canadian myself - but hopefully one day we can expand things more meaningfully to the rest of the world.

This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.