Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes
6:22 AM, Tuesday May 19th 2020
I am sorry, I've lost my "Rotated boxes" somewhere at home and can't find it.
Hi!
Unfortunately we need the Rotated Boxes exercise to review and complete your submission. If you can't find it I'm afraid you'll have to redo it. I suggest you to draw it big since many students tend to make it very small.
Reply to this post with the new page and I will review your lesson.
Cheers!
Next Steps:
1 page of Rotated Boxes
Hi, here's the new page of Rotated boxes https://imgur.com/11K5BEp
Thanks!
So, let's see what we have here:
-Lines
Your superimposed lines look fine. Ghosted lines are a bit off, but the important thing here is focusing on confidence instead of precision, and you did it well. Just one thing: don't redraw lines. If you miss the mark that's ok, you keep that line and go along with it. This suggestion will be the same for all of your Drawabox lessons, even when you are building a box, cylinder, etc. It will look weird but no worries, don't correct and keep going.
-Ellipses
Your ellipses tend to be a bit wobbly, which means that you probably are not ghosting them enough. Remember to use your shoulder and to focus on making confident, even shapes. Tables and funnels look ok, ellipses in planes are a bit scratchy, so remember that.
-Boxes
I like your boxes here. They're not perfect, but you're not supposed to execute them perfectly in these exercises. In fact, many students tend to build their boxes with very uncertain, wobbly lines while yours seem to maintain a satisfying degree of confidence. With practice you can clean up your lines and make them a bit more straight.
Your rotated boxes page shows some problems, but no worries. That's another very difficult exercise that many students struggle with. The superior gaps between boxes are pretty consistent, while the inferior ones are a bit distorted. This is probably because you struggled to make them parallel (in perspective) while drawing the bottom planes. As a result, some of them look taller or more squished than they should be.
As I said this is perfectly fine, the important points of the exercise are well understood. I suggest you drawing often 1-2 quadrants of this exercise when doing warmups in the future.
Now, onwards to the 250 box challenge. Nice job and good luck!
Next Steps:
250 box challenge
Ok, thank you so much! Really appreciate it!
Michael Hampton is one of my favourite figure drawing teachers, specifically because of how he approaches things from a basis of structure, which as you have probably noted from Drawabox, is a big priority for me. Gesture however is the opposite of structure however - they both exist at opposite ends of a spectrum, where structure promotes solidity and structure (and can on its own result in stiffness and rigidity), gesture focuses on motion and fluidity, which can result in things that are ephemeral, not quite feeling solid and stable.
With structure and spatial reasoning in his very bones, he still provides an excellent exploration of gesture, but in a visual language in something that we here appreciate greatly, and that's not something you can find everywhere.
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