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6:53 AM, Thursday October 8th 2020

Hello GrumpyOwl, fellow art traveler, I hope you are well.

First off I want to say straight up, your work is really good, congratulations. Now, having said that I do feel you're putting yourself at a bit of a disadvantage by uploading to GoogleDrive.

Just from my own experience. it's good practice to put yourself in the shoes of the person looking at your work and to try to make their life as easy as possible. Uploading to Imgur links a preview thumbnail on Draw-A-Box which makes it far more likely that you'll receive feedback and not get skipped over in the crowd of submissions.

Just for your info, I've been working through Draw-A-Box for about 14 months now, I'm currently on the 250 Cylinder Challenge. I can only speak from my own experience, but I have definitely seen my drawing improve, though it is a very gradual process. Anyway, I'll go through your challenge and see if I can give constructive feedback.

I wouldn't worry about your pen size too much, but if you can stick to 0.5 for the sake of consistency, it definitely makes it easier to give feedback.

Your presentation and your line-work is fantastic overall, but I will say, it is hard to tell if you are drawing these lines exclusively from your shoulder as requested. I've noticed that line-work from the shoulder in general tends to be straighter, less wobbly and initially at least, less accurate. If you are drawing from the shoulder then that's great, ignore me but just remember that all lines, including superimposed lines, should be drawn from your shoulder pivot for these exercises.

Overall I think your convergences look good, you have a nice mixture of extreme and less extreme foreshortening and you played around with different proportions. Try to observe box-like forms around your home to get a sense of how extreme the perspective is in real life, it really does depend on the scale of objects and how close they are to your eye.

Well done overall GrumpyOwl, your convergences certainly improved by the end of the challenge and your presentation throughout was one of the best I've seen. Good luck on your art journey!

Next Steps:

Onwards to Lesson 02, which I see you have already submitted :)

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.
10:49 AM, Sunday November 1st 2020

Thank you so much for your feedback, I really appreciate it. I'm sorry for not replying sooner, but I've been very busy with my studies lately.

Ahhh I know Imgur seems to be a better option for uploading my homework, I had decided to go with Google Drive as I had been more familiar with it. But I will definitely take your advice into consideration, I think I will give Imgur a try.

In terms of my lines looking a bit wobbly - I can assure you that I was trying my best to use my shoulder while drawing those lines, but I'm still learning and my arm's muscles are not quite used to such movements. I am a little hesitant whenever I attempt to draw from my shoulder, and that might be the reason why my lines aren't as straight as they should be. Or maybe I need to pay more attention while drawing, so as to avoid using my elbow and wrist. So thanks for pointing this out to me, I'll try to be more careful next time.

I agree that it is a great idea to look around my surroundings and observe how foreshortening works in real life. After all, the "real world" is the one we can always refer to in our drawings.

Thank you again for critiquing my homework, when I finished the challenge I didn't realise that my convergences had actually improved - I thought I had been making the same mistakes over and over again. And good luck to you too, I hope you're taking care of yourself in these uncertain times we're experiencing now.

6:29 PM, Tuesday November 3rd 2020

Hi GrumpyOwl,

My pleasure and thanks for getting back to me, I appreciate it. No worries at all, I know how it is to juggle the drawing practice with study along with life's problems.

Just about your line-work looking wobbly, mine was very wobbly too and is still far from perfect. It seems unnatural to draw from the shoulder and for a long time it feels that way I think.

You mention about paying more attention awhile drawing and I think you are on to something there. I find that during practice, consciously choosing which pivot you use each time you practice drawing a line you are training yourself so that you will eventually do it unconsciously, automatically. It's really a matter of repetition.

One of the exercises that I find helps is combining the ghosting between 2 points exercise with the super-imposed lines exercise. For example, if you ghost a few lines on a page first and then go back and super-impose them at the end 7 times, if you do this for a few minutes each day, that muscle memory will develop for sure.

Anyway, I wish you luck GrumpyOwl, take care and keep drawing, we'll get there!

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Staedtler Pigment Liners

Staedtler Pigment Liners

These are what I use when doing these exercises. They usually run somewhere in the middle of the price/quality range, and are often sold in sets of different line weights - remember that for the Drawabox lessons, we only really use the 0.5s, so try and find sets that sell only one size.

Alternatively, if at all possible, going to an art supply store and buying the pens in person is often better because they'll generally sell them individually and allow you to test them out before you buy (to weed out any duds).

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