Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes
10:47 AM, Monday February 5th 2024
I hope that little scratch in tne upper part of each picture is not a big problem, it's not a mark on paper but literally a scratch on my camera.
Hello, I'm r0m1 and I'm a complete beginner, but I will try to make a critic :)
Superimposed Lines
You are executing your mark confidently, and maintain a confident, consistent trajectory for your strokes. You place your pen where the mark should start. The lines do not wobble, and there are no fraying at the begining of the lines. It seems correct to me.
Ghosted lines
It also seems correct to me: you are drawing the lines without hesitation. They do not wobble nor arc or bow.
Ghosted planes
Some of the lines look a bit arcs, but I think it is because the paper is arking rather than your strokes. The lines are still drawn confidently, so it's correct.
Tables of ellispes
You definitively draw through your ellipses 2 full times, and they fit snugly against the borders and they are evenly shaped. Correct again :)
Ellipses in planes
You draw through your ellipses two or three times, and they all touch the for edges of your planes. Plus, they all are evenly shaped.
Funnels
You have drawn through your ellipses - one of them has been drawn through more than 3 times I think, but It seems correct otherwise. Other than that, I think everything's ok: the ellipses are touching the edges of the funnel and they are aligned to the central minor axis line.
Plotted perspective
You used a ruler, as stated in the instructions. Note that some of the verticals are not perfectly perpendicular to the horizon. All the edges plot back to the vanishing points.
Rough perspective
You are working with a single vanishing point, in the middle of the frame and both the front and back of the frames are rectangular (there are some imprecision in the stroke but I don't think you misunderstood the exercise). You applied the line extension correctly and your strokes are confidently drawn with the ghosting method.
Rotated boxes
You followed the instructions and the core steps of the exercices: this is referring to laying out the vertical and horizontal axes, as well as adding the squares at the end of each axis (this helps remind the 180 degree rotations). The gap between the boxes are consistent.
I think you used the same vanishing point for all boxes, so they are not really rotating: when rotating the bowes at least one of the boxes' sets of parallel edges will have its vanishing point move - frequently it'll be two.
You draw through your boxes and all the boxes are drawn.
Organic perspective
You used the ghosting method to draw your boxes and the boxes sets of parallel edges do not diverge as they move farther away from the viewer. You did not leaned into particularly dramatic foreshortening.
From my beginner point of view, you did a pretty good job :) There are only a couple of details that could be improved, so you can be proud of yourself for completing this!
Next Steps:
I think the next step the 250 boxes challenge
Hello! Thank you very much for your critique! Honestly, my motivation to draw hundreds of boxes improved so much when I saw it.
As to arked lines: I'm afraid some of them are definitely somewhat curvy. I try to adress it every warm up though.
Dramatic foreshortening is one of my weakest points for some unknown reason... I hope that hours and hours of drawing boxes will improve it. I think I'll focus solely on dramatic foreshortening on some days.
Thank you again, you're doing a very important job giving critique to people!
This recommendation is really just for those of you who've reached lesson 6 and onwards.
I haven't found the actual brand you buy to matter much, so you may want to shop around. This one is a "master" template, which will give you a broad range of ellipse degrees and sizes (this one ranges between 0.25 inches and 1.5 inches), and is a good place to start. You may end up finding that this range limits the kinds of ellipses you draw, forcing you to work within those bounds, but it may still be worth it as full sets of ellipse guides can run you quite a bit more, simply due to the sizes and degrees that need to be covered.
No matter which brand of ellipse guide you decide to pick up, make sure they have little markings for the minor axes.
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