Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

1:54 PM, Sunday December 6th 2020

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Dear the owner of Drawabox

I dedicated myself to take on Drawabox progress as I believe that I have much to learn on the foundations of drawing. I decided that I make my drawings through Adobe Photoshop since digital art is not my best skills. I look forward to take on new challenges on Drawabox and I hope there's a room for improvement within my drawings.

Yours faithfully

Tawsif Syed

@Happyhobgoblinart

2 users agree
8:42 PM, Sunday December 6th 2020

Hi,

I couldn't be sure if you were doing pen&paper or digital, given this sentence: "I decided that I make my drawings through Adobe Photoshop since digital art is not my best skills.", so, obligatory warning below.

For the purposes of this course, homework should be done with felt tip pens(or ball-point as a last resort, only on Lesson 1) on A4(or similar size) paper. The reasons are explained here:

https://drawabox.com/article/ink

https://drawabox.com/lesson/0/5/

On the work itself:

2p Superimposed Lines

On both pages, I see some fraying on the starting dots, although this seems to get better on the second page. Placing the pen carefully at the starting dot is important.

On page 1, there are some curvy line endings, which you could get rid of by lifting the pen up(perpendicular to the page) at the end of the line instead of having it leave the page while curving up and down.

Especially with the curvy lines on page 2, I see some wobbly lines. Be careful about not going too slowly, and make sure you use your shoulder to drive the movement. It'll feel awkward, and thinking of a fastish movement while trying to trace a curvy line will make you feel like you'll make big mistakes. However, confidence and shoulder movement are more important than drawing perfectly.

Also, with the longer lines, I see some arching. I still get this with lines longer than I have practiced before, and the suggestion I read on the side is

  1. pay attention to using shoulder while the wrist is frozen and the elbow only compensates. (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/3/)

  2. try to consciously arch in the opposite direction to compensate.

1p Ghosted Lines

  • minor arching on some lines and wobbling on only a few.

  • only major problem I see here is some lines ending in little hooks, as I referred to above.

  • One potential mistake is ghosting too quickly before making the mark, which happens tome especially if I'm listening to high BPM music. Slower motions where you pay attention to how your shoulder feels helps with this.

  • Also, the instructions tell you to do only one page of Ghosted lines. (https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/4)

2p Ghosted Planes

*Although it's counter-intuitive, it's necessary to draw only one line between two points. When you make a mistake, don't try to correct it with other lines drawn over it.

This is similar to letting go of trying to have the last word in an argument, but the line must be abandoned once it is drawn.

*I'm not seeing your dots for the non-corner lines. All lines must have their endpoints marked.

2p Tables of Ellipses

*I'm seeing some wobbly lines here as well. Confidence is more important than accuracy, as mentioned above.

*Take care to draw through each ellipse only 2 or 3 times, despite what your instincts may incline you to.

The ellipses seem to be staying within bounds though, which is great.

2p Ellipses in Planes

  • wobbliness and excess draw-throughs

1p Funnels

looks good and mostly symmetrical around the minor axis, other than some excess draw-throughs and some indication of not-entirely-loose-and-confident-shoulder-drawn-movement

1p Plotted Perspective

looks all good, with just a few lines overshooting their endpoints.

2p Rough Perspective

I saw only one pair of width lines that weren't parallel to the horizon: leftmost middle box on the first page of rough perspective.

1p Rotated Boxes

looks pretty good. but a bunch of lines are missing. (e.g,the superior-posterior side of the box above the center box)

check out this page for superior and posterior.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/ap1x94x1/chapter/anatomical-orientation-and-directions/

all lines of all boxes need to be drawn, including the lines that are behind the box or behind other boxes.

Also, boxes need to be kept close, but their sides cannot overlap.

2p Organic Perspective

looks good, be careful not to repeat lines (unless you were trying to superimpose lines just to add weight to the contour)

Next Steps:

I think, one more page of ellipses in planes, with special attention to using confident and not-so-slow shoulder-driven motions for the ellipses, would be great before moving on. (Also, don't forget not to repeat lines, ever.)

Other than that, the problems I saw earlier improved by a lot further into the exercises, so I think you will be good to move onto the 250 boxes challenge, given you make sure to warm up by

  • choosing a random exercise from above

  • doing it for 15 mins

while keeping some of these details in mind, before each session in the box dungeons. It'll be especially important to draw every line for each box, since the back corner is very important, and hard to get right.

This community member feels the lesson should be marked as complete, and 2 others agree. The student has earned their completion badge for this lesson and should feel confident in moving onto the next lesson.
7:35 PM, Wednesday December 9th 2020

Good Evening WOBBLYSHMOBBLY

Thank you very much for expressing feedback for my Drawabox course. I have been using Photoshop to create my drawings and I should have read the instructions ( that includes drawing on A4 Paper with a Drawing Pen) when I engaged with the exercise. I agree with the the wobbly lines on the majority of the exercises and plan the drawings by marking dots.

I'm wondering if I should reset my Drawabox Exercises with traditional drawing or should I move forward with the second stage on Drawabox. Your suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thank you for the feedback

HappyHobGoblinArt

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