Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

4:50 PM, Thursday August 5th 2021

Drawabox Lesson 1 Official Critiques - Album on Imgur

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Hello! Here is my Lesson 1 submission.

To explain my story, I already submitted this elsewhere for community review and got some advice (which was good and helpful, I do not want to offend the person who gave it to me). However, after having moved onto the 250 boxes challenge and the 2nd lesson, I was unable to get any critiques and when starting Lesson 3 I noticed that I was having a lot of difficulty with some of the skills taught in the earlier lessons. Thus, I'm now deciding to switch to the official critique route as I want to make sure that I am not moving from lesson to lesson without really mastering what is there and without correcting my mistakes. I really do apologize to whoever is grading this - I'm submitting my work on Lesson 1 from a few months ago and I know that it is not ideal to do that and that one should only move from lesson to lesson having gotten it reviewed. However, I decided not to redo this lesson (and instead submitted what I submitted initially a few months ago, except I replaced a few of the images with the ones that I redid as a request of the community member who asked me to do it) because I was worried that it might violate Uncomfortable's rule of no grinding. I'm not sure where to go after this lesson - if you tell me that I need to redo some things before moving on, I'd be happy to do that, but I'm not sure whether I should redo the 250 boxes one and Lesson 2 or only redo Lesson 2 or just resubmit what I did earlier for official critique. I was hoping whoever grades this could give me some advice on that topic.

Since when I did this lesson, I think I've gotten a bit better at the mechanics of drawing with your shoulder and with the idea of drawing confidently. However, I still struggle a lot with ghosting lines. I forget to do it sometimes, and even when I do ghost, it feels sometimes like I'm not actually focusing on practicing drawing the line in advance so much as I am just moving my hand back and forth as a force of habit. Also, while the concept made sense to me in the earlier exercises when you were drawing just a straight line from one dot to another or drawing an ellipse, when you get to the later lessons or even some of the later homeworks here like the rotated boxes, it confuses me how you're supposed to plan your lines out as they get a lot more complicated and abstract. Another issue I was having was with drawing with my shoulder- I understand how you're supposed to do that with bigger lines, but when I' m drawing smaller lines in exercises like organic perspective or in the texture exercises, how do I use my shoulder to draw? Additionally, I was struggling with ellipses a lot in this lesson and I still do. Somehow, ghosting them doesn't seem to help very much as when I actually draw the ellipse, my arm doesn't seem to have much control as I'd like and my ellipses end up being too big or too small.

Thank you in advance for reviewing my work! I really do apologize for what I mentioned earlier.

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8:33 PM, Friday August 6th 2021

Hello and congrats on completing lesson one. I'll be taking a look at your submission today. Starting with your superimposed lines these are off to a fine start. You are keeping a clearly defined starting point with all of your wavering at the opposite end. I'm noticing that you are getting some line wobble in your ghosted lines and planes. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/9/wobbling This is also quite present in some of the later exercises although I am seeing improvement with your final exercise but I still want to mention this advice here so you can understand what the problem likely is.

This is the important part we need to be focusing on and the real problem I'm seeing:

You're hesitating as you execute the line, rather than drawing with a confident motion. Finally committing to a mark can definitely be quite daunting, but it's integral that you get used to accepting that mistakes do happen. Things go wrong - you can prepare as much as possible (and you should) but the moment your pen touches the page, any opportunity to avoid a mistake has already passed. Now you must commit yourself, push through with confidence, and execute your line. It's also worth remembering: we can still work with a line that is smooth and even, but there's not much that can be done with a wobbly one.

What's most likely happening is that you are worrying about accuracy too much while making your mark and it's causing you to slow down your stroke to compensate which is giving you quite a bit of wobble in your lines. The other possibility is that you aren't ghosting your lines or you are reverting back to drawing from your wrist on occasion. I can't be entirely sure of which specific thing is happening and it even could be combinations of all of them.

Your tables of ellipses are coming along pretty good. You are doing a good job drawing through your ellipses and focusing on consistent smooth ellipse shapes. This is carried over nicely into your ellipses in planes. It's great that you aren't overly concerned with accuracy and are instead focused on getting smooth ellipse shapes. Although accuracy is our end goal it can't really be forced and tends to come with mileage and consistent practice more than anything else. Your ellipses in funnels are having some issues with tilting off the minor axis. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/13/notaligned This is something you should always start considering when drawing your ellipses. One thing you could have done with these is start with a narrower degree ellipse in the center and then widen the degrees of the ellipses as they move outwards in the funnel. Please check the example here. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/13/step3 Your ellipses are off to a great start but there's still room for improvement when it comes to accuracy so keep practicing them during your warmups.

The plotted perspective looks great although this was supposed to be laid out with three exercises on one page. Please check the example homework here. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/15/example Your rough perspective exercises turned out pretty good but once again this was supposed to be laid out with three exercises per page. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/16/example You are getting a mix of confident linework here along with some wobble creeping back into some of your lines. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/9/wobbling This is probably happening because you are more concerned with accuracy now that you are constructing boxes and you are slowing down your stroke to compensate. I'm also seeing a lot of line wobble because you are probably reverting back to your wrist when you go to add line weight. Adding line weight is fine but treat it the same as every other line you do. Ghost it multiple times and then draw from your shoulder with confidence. You are doing a good job extending the lines back on your boxes to check your work. As you can see some of your perspective estimations were quite off but that will become more intuitive with practice. So as a revision I'd like you to do one more page of these with the correct layout of three exercises on one page. Also try and focus on confident linework and no redrawing lines or adding line weight.

Your rotated box exercise turned out decently. I like that you drew this nice and big as that really helps when dealing with complex spatial problems. You also did a good job drawing through your boxes but you probably could have done a bit better with keeping the gaps between your boxes more narrow and consistent. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/17/guessing The biggest problem I'm seeing here though is a lot of wobbly linework. It looks like this is happening because you've reverted back you using your wrist but I can't be sure so make sure you keep an eye on that. You should always be ghosting your lines multiple times and then drawing from your shoulder with confidence. Even on shorter lines. Your wrist should be reserved for detail work only. This is a great exercise to come back to after a few lessons to see how much your spatial thinking ability has improved. Your organic perspective exercises are looking pretty good although once again these were supposed to be laid out with three exercises per page. Please check the example homework. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/18/example You seem to be getting more comfortable using the ghosting method and drawing from your shoulder for confident linework which is great but I'm still see some wobbly line work. Your box constructions could definitely use some improvement so the 250 box challenge will be a great next step for you. That said I'd like you to get a bit more consistent with confident linework so I'd like you to do one more page of this and make sure you do it with the correct layout of three exercises per page and focus on confident linework.

Overall this was a pretty good submission that showed a decent deal of growth. Your ellipses are coming along quite well. They need work in terms of accuracy but that will come with practice and they aren't having the same wobbly linework problem that is present with your boxes. So since I'd like you to get a bit more consistent with confident linework while constructing boxes I'd like you to do those two pages I mentioned as a revision. Make sure these are laid out correctly this time with three exercises per page and make sure you are ghosting all of your lines and drawing from your shoulder with confidence. No redrawing lines or adding line weight either. Once you get those revisions submitted I'll take a look and you can most likely move on to the 250 box challenge. In terms of remembering to ghost your lines it's something you just need to keep conciously practice doing and it will become second nature. Same with drawing from your shoulder.

Next Steps:

One page rough perspective boxes - Make sure it is laid out correctly with three exercises per page and focus on confident line work and no redrawing lines.

One page organic perspective boxes - Make sure it is laid out correctly with three exercises per page and focus on confident line work and no redrawing lines.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
1:52 AM, Tuesday August 17th 2021

https://imgur.com/a/I7n3f77

Thank you for the critiques. Here are revisions.

If these get approved, what are my next steps? Do I go redo the 250 Box Challenge or do I just get approval for the critique I just got there in order to move onto Lesson 2, or do I wait for an official critique of that challenge as well? If I'm allowed to move onto Lesson 2, should I redo that one, or just submit what I have there?

2:55 PM, Tuesday August 17th 2021

Okay, so your line confidence is showing good improvement for the most part. You're still getting some slight hesitation on longer lines which is leading to the occasional wobble so keep practicing the ghosting method and drawibng from your shoulder with confidence. I'm going to mark this as complete. You need to wait two weeks now before you can submit your 250 boxes for the next critique. If you did those boxes recently(within the past few months) you can just submit those and you don't need to redo any. The person handling that critique will let you know if you need to do revisions for that challenge. Good luck!

Next Steps:

The 250 Box Challenge

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
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