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6:15 PM, Monday March 22nd 2021
Hello! Welcome to drawabox, and congrats on completing lesson 1. I’ll be taking a look at it.
Starting with your superimposed lines, these look solid, though they’ll at times fray a little on the left – perhaps take an extra half a second to line up your pen? Outside of that, however, things are looking good – your marks are confident, and of a consistent trajectory. The ghosted lines/planes look great, also, and what hesitation I spotted in them is no longer there by the end; good work keeping on top of things.
The table of ellipses exercise looks fantastic; a lot of confidence on display, here. In fact, for someone as confident as you, I’ll recommend sticking to 2 rotations, not 3. See, also, if you can lift your pen off the page at the end of them, rather than flicking it off. The ellipses in planes look really good – they maintain their previous smoothness/roundness, despite these more complicated frames. Aim for a minimum of 2 rotations, though, if you can; 1 and change isn’t quite enough. Save for the smaller funnel, which, understandably, was a struggle, the last exercise looks good, too. The only issue is a slight lack of ghosting, that has manifested itself in the form of some spacing issues.
The plotted perspective exercise is missing all of its back lines, and the hatching has been drawn free-hand (should’ve used a ruler).
The rough perspective exercise is a little lacking, unfortunately. First, let’s discuss linework. Though confident still, the automatic reinforcing (you correcting an incorrect line) here makes your lines come across as really scratchy. As for the convergences, it’s common for your boxes to make no effort to converge, though there’s some evidence of the opposite, too. Still, this is indicative of a lack of planning, so I’ll quickly remind you that what you’re meant to do here is plot a point, check it, alter it, check it again, and alter it again, as many times as is needed for it to appear correct. Then, you repeat this process 3 more times, using the remaining points, and even take some time at the end to look at the box in its entirety, before you commit to those points. Basically: don’t assume you got it right on the first go.
The rotated boxes exercise seems to have overwhelmed you a little – this is not unexpected. What I will say for now, is that a lot of the issues that you’re having with this are ones that will make not only intuitive, but even logical sense later down the line. In regards to things you can fix right now, however, try to think of the lines as lines, and remember to use your shoulder for all of your marks.
Similar to the rough perspective exercise, the organic perspective exercise seems to show a general lack of planning, too. I say this, because their lines seem to have been extended arbitrarily, and met from the other side, rather than having been planned in any way. I’ll remind you that the ghosting method (plot start/end points, ghost between them, then execute), is to be used on every single mark you make. Other than that, however, things look good, what with your boxes’ proper increase in size, and consistent foreshortening.
Next Steps:
There’s a couple of things I’d still like you to work on, but in your own time. Move on to the box challenge.
Sakura Pigma Microns
A lot of my students use these. The last time I used them was when I was in high school, and at the time I felt that they dried out pretty quickly, though I may have simply been mishandling them. As with all pens, make sure you're capping them when they're not in use, and try not to apply too much pressure. You really only need to be touching the page, not mashing your pen into it.
In terms of line weight, the sizes are pretty weird. 08 corresponds to 0.5mm, which is what I recommend for the drawabox lessons, whereas 05 corresponds to 0.45mm, which is pretty close and can also be used.