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7:51 PM, Wednesday April 21st 2021
It appears that you are missing some pages of boxes from your submission. As far as I can tell (because your album is out of order) your boxes stop at around 209 but we are going to set that issue aside for now.
Looking at your work as a whole I can see that you still struggle with employing the ghosting method and executing your lines with confidence. Just remember that the confidence of the stroke is far and away your top priority. Once your pen touches the page, any opportunity to avoid mistakes has passed, so all you can really do is push through. Hesitation serves no purpose. Mistakes happen, but a smooth, confident mark is still useful even if it's a little off. If the line is wrong, we leave it and move onto the next step. Accuracy is something that you will improve on as you continue working through Drawabox and practice ghosting.
Now, while it is important that you use the ghosting method of each mark you make while doing Drawabox one thing you can try to help with ending your marks closer to where you want them is lifting the pen off of the page rather than stopping the motion of your arm. You can do this with extra line weight as well. I would also recommend that you read this comment by Uncomfortable, where he talks more about hesitation. You can also reread this section from lesson 1 about arcing.
I can see that for some of your boxes you went back and tried to fix some mistakes. Remember that when you are working through Drawabox, you should not attempt to fix any mistakes you make. You are meant to do each assignment to the best of your current ability. If the line is wrong, we leave it and move onto the next.
There are many areas where you still struggle a bit with applying your extra line weight. When you go to add weight to a line it is important that you treat the added weight the same way you would a brand new line. That means taking your time to plan and ghost through your mark so that when you go to execute your extra line weight, it is done confidently and so that it blends seamlessly with your original mark. This will allow you to create more subtle and clean looking weight to your lines that reinforces the illusion of solidity in your boxes/forms. Extra line weight should be applied to the silhouette of your boxes, as shown here. I recommend that you try adding your extra line weight inno more than 1-2 pases so that you can easily identify mistakes in your work. This diagram should help also you better understand how to properly apply your extra line weight. Something to keep in mind as well, when you are working through Drawabox you should be employing the ghosting method for every mark you make. This includes the hatching that we sometimes use for our boxes.
I see that for a few pages of boxes, you did not abide by the 5-6 boxes per page limit. and this forced you to draw many of your boxes quite small. Part of the reason for the 5-6 boxes per page rule is so that students have enough room to draw their boxes larger while having room to check their convergences. By drawing your boxes very small you limit your own ability to execute your lines from the shoulder confidently, which affects the quality of your mark making. Drawing bigger also helps engage your brain's spatial reasoning skills, whereas drawing smaller impedes them. It isn't a problem if your line extensions end up touching other boxes on the page so long as the boxes themselves do not touch or overlap. This should give you enough room to draw your boxes at a larger, more useful size.This, along with varying the foreshortening and orientations of your boxes, will help you get the most out of the exercise.
I did see that you were checking your convergences incorrectly. The main problem here is that you have consistently extended your lines in the wrong direction when analyzing your boxes. This has made it impossible for you to learn from your mistakes because identifying them as explained in this video.
Your line extensions should extend away from the viewer and towards their implied vanishing point. You should do this for all three sets of lines that make up your box. They should extend from the center of the Y (from step one of your construction), out along the Y's arms. Be sure to visit the link for more information and for examples that you can use as reference. You can refer to the diagrams in this link if you are ever confused or uncertain.
Keep in mind as you progress through Drawabox and begin to construct more complex forms that it is important to put in the time and focus required to execute each step correctly and to apply the ghosting method to every step of the process, as explained here. If you ever have any questions or are uncertain about what your next step is or how you should be doing something, you should first reread the instructions and if you are still uncertain you can always ask questions here.
Before moving onto lesson 2, I am going to have you draw 80 additional boxes.
For these boxes you will do the following:
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Use the ghosting method for every mark you make, including hatching and extra line weight
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Draw all of your boxes in 3pt Perspective
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5 boxes per page maximum
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Check all of your convergences as per the instructions
I will mainly be looking at the quality of your mark making to see if you are employing the ghosting method correctly for all of your mark making, including extra line weight and hatching. I will also be looking at your boxes to make sure your are checking your convergences correctly.
Make sure you visit every link I have left for you and reread the challenge instructions in their entirety before beginning your revisions.
Next Steps:
80 additional boxes as described in the critique.
3:14 PM, Monday April 26th 2021
I think this time around was better. i still have to check myself on drawing from the shoulder, I fall back to the wrist often.
5:06 PM, Thursday April 29th 2021
I have some bad news. In my original critique, I explained to you the mechanics of how, specifically, to extend your lines in the correct direction when checking your convergences. It appears that you still had a ton of trouble with this, and the majority of your boxes were still checked incorrectly.
Here's the explanation I provided before:
Your line extensions should extend away from the viewer and towards their implied vanishing point. You should do this for all three sets of lines that make up your box. They should extend from the center of the Y (from step one of your construction), out along the Y's arms.
If we look at number 80 on this page, and look only at the original Y you'd started with. From there, let's specifically look at the line extended in red.
If we track how that line was extended, it appears that you started at the end of that line (not the center of the Y as instructed) and extended towards and beyond that center. This is the opposite of the instructions you were given.
If something is unclear or confusing, you are welcome to ask for further explanation - but since you didn't ask, I can only assume that you understood the explanation that was provided, but didn't apply it consistently across your boxes.
In some cases - like 78 - you did it correctly. But there are far more that are incorrectly extended, and this is a very significant issue. Without extending your lines in the correct direction, you wouldn't be able to actually work towards the direction of improving your convergences and making them more consistent. Without correct analysis, any actual improvement would be something of a fluke.
In the interest of first resolving this particular issue, I am going to assign an additional 10 boxes. If the extensions are done correctly, then I'm going to mark the challenge as complete and leave you to continue practicing this on your own.
If however there are any incorrect extensions, you will be asked to redo the 250 box challenge in full, and resubmit it anew (costing you another credit).
As a side note, in regards to the line confidence, it's honestly kind of difficult to judge your linework in a lot of these, because they original lines are pretty much covered up by the line extensions. For those where I can see the linework however, like box 22 on this page, it looks like you're going back over the same line repeatedly, and I'm not seeing any clear use of the ghosting method.
I genuinely don't mean to be rude, but I'm having trouble seeing signs where you're actually applying the feedback you received. If at all possible, I think it would be particularly useful if you were able to provide a recording of you drawing at least one box, just to see exactly what process you're applying, and whether there is something underlying that is incorrect or misunderstood.
Recording yourself drawing a box is obviously difficult - if you've got a phone and someone else to record it, that's best. Ultimately I understand if getting a recording like that is too much to ask, but if it is possible it would help considerably.
Next Steps:
Please submit another 10 boxes, as explained at the end of my feedback. Also, if I can get a recording of how you draw your boxes (from the shoulder down), that would be very helpful in diagnosing any underlying issues that may be impacting your execution here.
2:15 PM, Tuesday May 4th 2021
Out of curiosity, do I also use Imgur to send a recording?
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