Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

12:22 PM, Tuesday September 27th 2022

Drawabox Lesson 1 - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/EgmK2vK.jpg

Post with 25 views. Drawabox Lesson 1

Sorry I couldn't crop the earlier assignments well, for whatever reason my phone wouldn't allow me to. I could've retaken the photos but unfortunately, and yes this is silly to admit, but my cat got to the earlier assignments and chewed up the paper a bit! I felt like that wouldn't be proper of me to submit that. I am now storing the assignments better so believe me this won't happen again I feel apologetic for not being careful about it sooner!

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1:35 PM, Tuesday September 27th 2022

No worries! Welcome to drawabox, and let’s take this one exercise at a time.

Starting off, your superimposed lines are looking good. They’re smooth, and properly lined up at the start, but not always of a consistent trajectory, so be mindful of that. Remember that the goal is not for the line to be snug against its guideline, but rather for it to to be smooth, and straight. As such, try not to course-correct mid-line. Your ghosted lines look very wobbly, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. This improves a little by the time you reach your planes, but there, too, there’s signs of insecurity. I notice, however, that they’re mostly focused around the starts and ends of your lines. These have different causes. The former is due to you spending so long lining up your pen, that you lose the built-up rhythm. As for the latter, this is usually because you’re so focused on nailing that end point, that you slow down, to ensure that you do. Same as prior, however, the goal is not accuracy, but rather confidence, so draw with that in mind.

The ellipses look good. There’s a good deal of variety to them, and they’re smooth, rounded, and properly drawn through. The ellipses in planes look good, too, and I’m pleased to see how often you’ll overshoot their frames, here. It’s clear that your priority is not that they’re snug against them, but rather that they’re smooth, and rounded, which is correct! The funnels, too, look good, save for the occasional misalignment. That’s easily solved by taking an extra second during the ghosting stage, by the way, so no need to stress about it.

The plotted perspective exercise looks clean.

The rough perspective exercise starts off a little rough, and, though it’s not perfect, even by the end, it is much improved. Really, the only issue then is its line-work. I’ll quickly remind you that, though the big picture is different, there’s really no difference between these lines, and the ones in the ghosted lines exercise. So, try not to let yourself be overwhelmed by what the lines add up to – instead, think of them as singular lines, that you draw to their own end, and nothing else.

The rotated boxes exercise looks good. Its rotation is a little slight, but its boxes are snug, and, most importantly, big! Drawing big is something we heavily encourage, as it’s really effective in giving your brain some much-needed room to think. So long as it has that, it can solve any problem you through at it.

The organic perspective exercise is mostly good. I’m pleased to see how much time you’ve spent planning each box – if the unused points on your page, and the quality of the boxes themselves are any indication. That said, I’ll caution you against automatic reinforcing. Each line is to be drawn once, and only once, regardless of how it turns out. Resist the temptation to go over a line a second time, even if, especially if, it comes out wrong.

Next Steps:

Solid work on this submission. There was the occasional hiccup, but everything is looking good by the end. As such, I’ll mark this one as complete, and move you on to the 250 Box Challenge. Good luck!

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
8:14 PM, Saturday October 8th 2022

Hello,

Sorry for the late reply , but i had a question on one part of your critique as I'm having a hard time understanding your point. I agree overall with your consensus but I want to fully understand your critique so that I can actually incorporate your pointers for future assignments. Specifically it's this line "The former is due to you spending so long lining up your pen, that you lose the built-up rhythm.". I don't know why but I'm having a hard time understanding what you mean here. If you could expand on that it would be much appreciated. Thank you again for taking the time to give me such a thorough critique ! It's very much appreciated, and you're right I should be focusing more on the confidence aspect. I think I was just watching other people attempt the assignments and saw that they would correct their lines if they didn't hit the point, and i got confused after seeing that and assumed that maybe i should've done that all along. Funny to find out that my original belief was correct! Will keep that in mind going forward :)

7:02 AM, Monday October 10th 2022

So, let's think of how you draw a line, step by step. First, you lower your hand to the page, and start ghosting between your points. Then, when you're ready to commit, you repeat that motion, this time with the pen touching the page - but there's one more difference between this attempt, and the previous one: you double check whether your pen is aligned to the starting point. That's not super important when you ghost, because what you're interested in is the overall motion, but when you ink the line, you want to make sure that you're not starting from god-knows-where, but rather the start point itself. And, the goal, is to find the perfect amount of time, where this gains you the needed accuracy, but doesn't sacrifice any of your confidence. Spend too little time there, and your line won't start anywhere near it. But spend too much - and this is the camp I suspect you fall into - and the muscle memory you've built up through the previous step (the ghosting step) will be lost. A good way to tell if this is happening (it's why I suspected that it was, because I noticed some instances of it), is if your line starts off a little wobbly, but then stabilizes as you draw. I hope this makes sense.

8:52 PM, Monday October 10th 2022

Oh it does ! Thank you so much for clarifying and being very thorough with your explanation tpo. I will definitely keep that in mind going forward :)

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