Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

8:13 PM, Tuesday March 24th 2020

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Hello everyone! Hello Master!

My own reddit-post brought me here, as I switched from digital to ink for this course. Feel free to read it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtFundamentals/comments/ffjxgj/switch_from_digital_to_ink_atonement_for_my/

I already did Lession 1-4 digitally, plus the 250 Box Challenge. The results were kinda ok. I decided to do these exercises in ink again (unless instructed otherwise) because I don´t want to work in a bubble when learning the fundamentals. Patreon it is :)

Some thoughts from myself for Lession 1:

  • I overshoot most of the ghosted lines, need to work on that (maybe I am too quick when making the mark)

  • Pen (PITT 0,5 Artist pen) feels like a dud, no consistent line quality. I ordered new ones.

  • From now on use proper printer paper, sorry for the see-through lines&logo.

Fact: I do draw a lot quicker with ink. I just realized how often I used the “undo” function digitally. So re-doing Lession 1-4 might not take as long as I feared (have been working on them since October2019, I seem to draw slowly digitally).

Stay healthy!

Regards

alturass

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11:44 PM, Wednesday March 25th 2020

Hi alturass, welcome to the inky side. We have cookies...which you must fork over for your critiques...thank you.

Let's get started.

Your line work is definitely confident. You are showing a clear understanding of executing your lines with the shoulder and not being worried with trying to mindfully steer your lines, so this is great. Your ghosted lines are confident, but sparse. Empty space = missed opportunity for growth, remember that! The instructions call for a filled page of ghosted lines and I certainly wouldn't consider that filled, but I won't be asking any additional work because of it.

Your ellipses are likewise very confident, but get a little loose in some places in your drawing through like in some of the planes, but I can't complain. They are shaped nicely, no flat portions or points, and you are definitely using the ghosting method and your shoulder. Your ellipses in planes are hitting the mark usually but sometimes you are missing the edge of the plane so your ellipse ends up floating arbitrarily in space. The concept of securing each mark in its bounds you previously set is a hallmark of constructional techniques and it starts with these basic concepts. With your ellipses in tables you're doing a lot better in getting those ellipses to be packed tightly and leave no room for ambiguity. Your ellipses in funnels are also great and for the most part the minor axes are all aligned to the funnel axes, good job.

Moving on to your rough perspective boxes you're doing great in keeping vertical lines perpendicular to the horizon and horizontals parallel resulting in properly oriented 1 point perspective boxes. Your lines are crisp, confident, and planned indicating a good use of the ghosting method, and your converging lines are on the right track. In time your lines aimed at far off points will get more accurate as long as you keep practicing. I do see a couple times where you re-draw your lines and you should not be doing that as "fixing" "mistakes" usually only leads the viewers eye places where it normally wouldn't have noticed so you're almost always better off living with your first result.

Now looking at your rotated boxes you did a nice job here. You drew it really large which is great for giving your brain room to think through this stuff, and it also helps keep your lines neat and clean. Your hatching is mindful and not rushed and you continue to be using your shoulder and ghosting really well. In terms of packing your boxes you could have gone tighter to better leverage adjacent lines as perspective guides, but this isn't the worst case of it. You are rotating your boxes some, but you could push the rotation way more. Watch this gif a few more times and watch how you can push the rotation more by moving the vanishing points further along the horizon line. Other than that you've done a great job here.

Finally, let's take a look at your organic perspective. First of all if you look here in the example homework there are three framed compositions. You were instructed to draw frames around your compositions here. Now you have mentioned you've done these lesson previously but please do not feel that that is a reason to cut any corners. Drawing is a mental game of discipline just as much as a physical act. Regarding the actual exercise, your second page is much more successful than the first: you have overlapping forms, large foreground elements, small background elements, all of which combine to sell the illusion of three dimensional space on the page. Your boxes are off to a good start, with a mind for convergence and overall pretty good job.

Next Steps:

I will now be marking your lesson as complete. As you move on to the 250 box challenge please read all of the instructions carefully and make sure you are following them. We will see you after you complete them.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
7:57 PM, Wednesday April 8th 2020

Hello Svendogee,

thank you for your detailed critique!

It´s good to hear I am moving in the right direction with line quality, ghosting and ellipses. I will keep working on that.

I apologize for not reading the instruction carefully. I did not realize it the pages were meant to be framed in thirds. I really am not trying to cut any corners just because I did some lessionspreviously, you just have to believe me that for now. Otherwise I wouldn´t even have signed up as a patreon for this course.

But I will read instructions more carefully from now, I think I was just a little bit too eager ^^

Stay healthy!

Regards

Alturass

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