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Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

4:37 PM, Tuesday July 28th 2020

Drawabox - Lesson 1 - The horror begins - Album on Imgur

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Post with 16 views. Drawabox - Lesson 1 - The horror begins

Greetings.

This is (the beginning of) my humble attempt to tackle the drawing fundamentals after the years of stalemate and utter laziness, neglecting the craft I once adored and cherished.

I'm not a beginner, but many flaws (lack of confidence and a general confusion on how to put things on paper, for starters) in drawing almost made me one and I intend to correct those. This site seemed like a good place to start.

My overview of the tasks in this lesson:

  • I was unfamiliar of the ghosting technique, as with this 'drawing-from-the-shoulder' thing, so I ended up being very uncomfortable at the very beginning

  • the unforgiving ink was not my tool of choice but I can see its benefits

  • while superimposing the lines I intentionally tried to draw from the 'bad' angles from time to time, pulling the lines vertically - this is the main reason (while not the only one) why some of those look worse than others

  • I didn't think I'll have THAT much of a problem with boxes, but the result of every task was unsatisfying at best, especially the Rough Perspective exercise, which made me sunk deeper into discomfort with every red line I drew

  • the Rotated Boxes exercise, so-called The Dark Souls of Drawing™, confused me to the point I ended up bolding the lines like my life depends on it, just to regain the awareness of where I'm currently standing with the box rotation and the results is as it is

All exercises are done at the first attempt and I put my best effort in them (which is kinda sad). I didn't intentionally mean to submit any of this, but I changed my mind in the meantime, so if any of you have a wish to put a word or two, I would be most grateful. Being a cheap bastard, I went for the 'free' option and I am not expecting any reply soon, but thanks in advance.

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2 users agree
10:33 PM, Tuesday July 28th 2020

Congratulations on finishing lesson 1!

Lines:

I like a lot your ghosted lines and planes, they are very confident and have little to no arcing. Your superimposed lines look wobblier overall, but that's not an issue I see you repeating much after this, what you do seem to be repeating is not takin the time to carefully position your pen over the starting dot (as evidenced by the fraying on the starting side).

Elipses:

Your elipses are noticeably wobblier. I'm guessing you did this because you were trying to make them fit their container. In the future try to aim for fluidity over accuracy, accuracy will come with time

Boxes:

You have some perspective issues, such as in your rotating boxes exercise some boxes are not actually rotating, but aside from that there's just one big issue I see. Some of your boxes are either chicken scratched or redrawn to cover up mistakes. Regardless, you should avoid doing both, chicken scratching would be a bigger issue since that would mean you're not applying what you learnt in the Lines sublesson to these exercises. Redrawing is also an issue, but not as major. When you try to redraw over your mistakes you end up drawing more attention towards them as well as not allowing yourself to review what mistakes you made. As you move on to the 250 box challenge avoid doing that as much as you can, reviewing past mistakes is a big part of that challenge.

Aside from that, I just wanted to tell you a few words on the subject of failure. After reading more of the material from Uncomfortable I've come to understand just how important failure is. Success may feel good, but you never learn anything from it. If you want to get good, the fastest way is making a lot of mistakes and learning from them, which I think is what Unconfortable is going for with the 50/50 rule (Which I hope you've been following) and the exercises where you're expected to fail. Don't get discouraged, just keep going and appreciate your failures.

Next Steps:

Wait for 2 Agrees and then procced to the 250 box challenge

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.
3:28 PM, Wednesday July 29th 2020

Thanks for the critique, much appreciated. As I said, I didn't expect one so soon. Whadayaknow, guess the system works.

As for your remarks, you are right. For years I applied chicken-scratching (quite fitting with my current profile pic) as a greatest part of my drawing/sketching technique and only recently I acknowledged this as a big no-no. I'll try to keep your 'fluidity over accuracy' suggestion in mind. Seems just right.

You also hit the nail on the head with my perspective issue. I often find myself in the blazing confusioness when the demand for perspective awareness comes up.

Mind not my rattling, I'm not getting discouraged just yet. As the course proposes, or rather demands, I do plan to tackle all this exercise again and incorporate them into the daily drawing routine as warm-ups. This will perhaps require lessons re-reading from time to time.

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