Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

10:58 PM, Monday December 7th 2020

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Hello!

I'm a total novice with art. I never drew before and I wanted to be a self taught. Then I realised if someone pulls a gun on my head I can't connect 8 dots to make a box. So I started googling about how to draw and found a reddit site called r/artfundamentals. And started lesson 0 and here I am.

Homework progress:

I think I understand the concept of perspective but it's hard to use.

I need help with boxes. ( I did watch the both box tutorials) In the past few days I drew so many boxes I started to see dreams about them. Little by little my mind shifted from 2D to 3D. Now when I look at an object like a shelf I can almost see through it.

I struggled a lot with 2 assignments Page of rotated boxes and 2 Pages of rough perspective.

Organic perspective was hard but I think it was more frustrating because I had a hard time drawing boxes. So I started to become lazy and do lines without The Ghosting method.

I finished lesson 1 in a week. And it's crazy how much I have improved already. Right now I think I find more joy in improving than drawing. So I am only following lessons at the moment instead of drawing anything else because it looks like ass. I think the 50% rule applies here.

2 users agree
1:29 AM, Tuesday December 8th 2020

Hello and congrats on completing lesson one. I'll be taking a look at your submission today. I also started learning to draw with drawabox about two years ago and it has been an excellent foundation that has really allowed me to learn other more advanced fundamentals of art more easily. Starting with your superimposed lines these are off to an okay start. You are keeping a clearly defined starting point for the most part but you are definitely still running into some wobbling issues as you are still getting accustomed to drawing with your shoulder and are still probably too concerned with accuracy. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/8/wobbling Your ghosted lines and planes are having the same issues for the most part. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/9/wobbling Even your second page of ghosted planes is showing significant improvement though which is good to see.

Your table of ellipses actually turned out quite well. Normally ellipses are a big struggle for people new to drawing but you seem to be handling them pretty well for the most part. You are doing a good job drawing through all of your ellipses and you seem to be focusing on getting a smooth ellipse shape instead of getting hung up on accuracy like some your lines. This is carried over nicely into your ellipses in planes. Your ellipses in funnels also seem to be an improvement as well although one thing you could have considered doing with this exercise is starting with a narrower degree ellipse in the center and then widening the degrees of the ellipses as they move outwards in the funnel. Check the example here. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/13/step3 Your ellipses are off to a fine start though and I don't see any really bad habits forming. There's still plenty of work to be done here in terms of accuracy but that tends to come with mileage and consistent practice so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

The plotted perspective looks fine nothing to mention here. Your rough perspective are definitely having some issues and I'm really hoping you have the order on these pages reversed as the first page looks like a significant improvement over the second page. Once again I think you are getting wobbly linework here because you are still too concerned about accuracy while making your stroke and you are slowing down your stroke to compensate. Please make sure you look at those sections I linked on wobbling again. You did do a good job extending the lines back on your boxes to check your work. As you can see some of your boxes are pretty wildly off but I do think you are showing improvement as you worked through these exercises. I'm still going to have you do one more page of rough perspective boxes as I'd like to see a bit more improvement here. I would recommend going through the lesson and video for this section again as well. One thing you should consider when doing a one point perspective exercise like this is that all of your horizontal lines should be parallel to the horizon line while all verticals should be straight up and down. This would help with avoid a lot of the slanting lines you are getting in your constructions. The only angled lines should be the ones receding back to the vanishing point. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/15/guessing

The rotated box exercise was clearly a bit of a struggle and since you are brand new to drawing I completely understand where you are coming from as this is a challenging exercise for someone who knows what they are doing. That said I have some advice for you should you decide to try this exercise again on your own at some point. Draw bigger. Drawing bigger helps with thinking through complex spatial problems like you are facing with this exercise. Your linework here does feel more confident which is a plus. That said you are running into a pretty common beginner problem of not actually rotating your boxes but instead simply drawing them moving back in perspective. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/16/notrotating This would be a good exercise to try again after the 250 box challenge to see how much your spatial thinking ability has improved. Your organic perspective exercise was a bit of a mixed bag. I do think your line quality and confidence is improving although you are still getting occasional wobbly linework. You are still struggling quite a bit with understanding freely rotating boxes without a horizon line so the 250 box challenge will be a good next step for you. At this point you just need to develop your spatial thinking ability more with consistent practice and the 250 box challenge is great for that.

Overall this was a pretty good submission. Your ellipses turned out quite well and are on the right track! I'd still like you to do one more page of rough perspective boxes as I think you should probably review that section of the lesson again before moving forward. Once you get that submitted I'll take a look and then you can move on to the 250 box challenge.

Next Steps:

One more page Rough Perspective Boxes

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
6:51 PM, Tuesday December 8th 2020
8:48 PM, Tuesday December 8th 2020

You are still getting some occasional wobbly linework here. Make sure you aren't reverting back to drawing from your wrist on some of these shorter lines. That said you did extend the lines back correctly to check your work and I think you get the general gist of what is going on. I'm going to mark this as complete and good luck with the 250 box challenge.

Next Steps:

The 250 Box Challenge

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
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