Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

2:20 AM, Sunday June 7th 2020

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Tear it apart, teach. And stay safe.

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8:56 AM, Monday June 8th 2020

Hi! I’ll be looking through this~

Starting off, the lines section looks really nice. Your superimposed lines are smooth, properly lined up at the start, and, for the most part, maintain a consistent trajectory. The ghosted lines/planes look quite confident, too, though they’ll occasionally arc, so be mindful of that. In those cases, the recommendation is to consciously arc in the opposite direction- see if that fixes it. I’ll also remind you that you shouldn’t correct an incorrect line, if you can help it.

The ellipses section looks quite confident, too- a little too much so, perhaps. Remember that drawing confidently doesn’t necessarily mean drawing fast. If you find the time, see if you can test a number of different speeds- the one you’re looking for is the slowest one, that still gives you confident ellipses (be careful not to go so far in that direction that your ellipses end up wobbly, though!) I’ll also recommend spending a little longer on the ghosting stage, if you can. It might help tighten them up a little further. If not, don’t worry- mileage will. Finally, see if you can lift your pen off the page at the end of your rotations, rather than flick it off- to get rid of that little tail at the end of them. Okay, let’s talk specifics! The table of ellipses exercise looks nice, though some of the thinner ones look a little pointy- be especially mindful of your pivot, for those. The ellipses in planes exercise looks great. I’m especially pleased to see that, despite the added difficulty of trying to hit all 4 sides of the plane, the ellipses are still circular. Finally, the funnels look really great, too. There’s the occasional misaligned ellipse, but this isn’t exactly uncommon. To remove it entirely, though, see if you can spend a little longer on the ghosting stage, rotating the page as necessary.

Finally, let’s talk about your boxes. The rough perspective exercise improves considerably throughout the set- the convergences, in particular. To take them further, I’ll remind you that, because of the rules of perspective, their back faces are of a similar shape to their front faces, only smaller. So, if your points suggest a different shape, then they’re incorrect, so ignore them in favor of others. Solid attempt at the rotated boxes exercise. The rotation itself is at times a little slight, but it’s still more than satisfactory. Other than that, the boxes are big, and snug- nicely done. Finally, there’s the organic perspective exercise. Real quick, I’d like to confirm that you’re placing points, and extending your lines to them, rather than extending them arbitrarily. If you’re not, you absolutely should- you’ll remember that the ghosting method (place points, find comfortable angle of approach, ghost, execute) is to be applied to all of our lines. Outside of that, the boxes look quite nice, and I particularly liked the extreme scale of some of the closer ones. There’s a slight issue in regards to the further off ones, as their foreshortening is a little dramatic (implying either a box of a large scale, or one that’s close to us), but this is not uncommon.

Nicely done, all around. Feel free to move on to the box challenge. (Stay safe!)

Next Steps:

250 Box Challenge

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
10:48 PM, Monday June 8th 2020
edited at 10:48 PM, Jun 8th 2020

Thanks for all the feedback. I'll definitely keep your critiques in mind during warm up exercises. One thing though, I started the 250 Box Challenge before you gave me the go ahead. I'm already 60 boxes in so should I start from scratch with you suggestions in mind or should I continue?

edited at 10:48 PM, Jun 8th 2020
11:08 PM, Monday June 8th 2020
edited at 11:57 AM, Jun 9th 2020

Continue. If at all possible, though, see if you can wait for the feedback, next time- it doesn’t generally take that long. Anyway, good luck!

edited at 11:57 AM, Jun 9th 2020
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