Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes
12:30 PM, Friday December 30th 2022
Thanks for your time
For your ghosted lines, you are doing fine as I can see they are more confident and straight. Your curved lines could be a bit tighter toward the center if you want to improve on that; yet, you are following the curves you originally laid down.
Your tables of ellipses are better than my first attempt s they are tight around the center and are well focused. The issues I see are mainly on the ends of your ellipses; however, this being you first attempt you are doing very well so don't beat yourself up on the areas I pointed out that could be improved.
For your funnels, you have acheived being able to keep the ellipses within the boundaries very well. What I recommend here is to focus on tightening your additional passes so they are closer to being over your original 1st pass for each ellipse.
Your ellipses in planes are very well done, again you managed to stay within the edges of the planes. Great job for your first attempt.
The drawing you have of your boxes in perspective have lined up with your vanishing points are very well done and each box looks like you have achieved the goal for that exercise and lined up each box perspective to the vanishing points. Bravo, on being accurate with your VP's.
For your sphere of boxes, you have done very well to keep them all within a clearly defined circle from the shape language I see around the edges of all boxes drawn. This is not an easy exercise by any means for anyone during the first attempt. I don't see any need for improvement here. You crafted it very well.
In the rotated boxes exercise, you could work on ensuring each edge of the boxes are straightened more instead of curved. The good of what I see is your diversity of angles and rotations, while still following the curve of the line you had drawn. Very well done!
Don't forget to spend 5 to 10 minutes using some of the Lesson 1 exercises as warm ups in the future so you can keep improving your perspective and muscle memories. The more you are consistent about using Lesson 1 exercises as warmups before doing your next exercises the more you cumulatively improve. Hope this helps.
Don't worry about being perfect with your Lesson 1 exercises. Overall, you passed what was needed to complete lesson 1.
Next Steps:
Next, you would be tackling the 250 Boxes exercises. I recommend you use a member created "y-generator" tool to help with your first 100 boxes (Link: https://draw-a-box-y-generator.glitch.me/#). For each page, draw 5 to 6 boxes by eye-balling your perspective lines. You won't be using a ruler to draw your black box lines. Don't worry about messing up, we all make mistakes.
Especially for the challenges, spend 50% of the time working on 250 boxes, and the other 50% drawing what you love whatever it may be.
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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