Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes
9:05 PM, Friday June 17th 2022
Here is lesson 1, please critique my work ;-)
This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.
0 users agree
10:01 AM, Friday July 15th 2022
Hi Gegesava65,
I'll be doing your critique today.
First of all, I'm not sure what kind of pen you are using but it looks like you aren't using a fineliner pen which is what is recommended. Try to stick with the kind of pens suggested by the course as this is basically the main tool you need and is what will force you to think about and draw the course material. If you can't find the same brand, stick with a local brand but with the exact type of fineliner tip as the suggested pens and stick with black ink. As this is the first lesson what you've done is fine, but with future lessons please keep that in mind. Now on to the exercises!
Lines
-
Starting by the superimposed lines exercise,I can see that your lines are drawn with confidence. You've been consistent with always starting off at the same point. There's not much fraying towards the end so nicely done there.
-
With your ghosted lines, you've done well and once again you've shown confidence in your strokes.
-
The ghosted planes are no different from the ghosted lines, and you have plotted your initial and final points which is important to use the ghosting method correctly. Great job so far!
Ellipses
-
Your table of ellipses look good and you have stayed within the bounds of the page. There is no overlapping between the ellipses and you've stuck to the 2-3 line rule for each ellipse so well done here.
-
On the ellipse in planes I like to see that you are not too overly concerned with having your ellipses touching the four sides of the plane, this is correct as we should always strive to draw symmetrical and well rounded ellipses regardless of where they are. Most ellipses are within the plane so well done here. Although some ellipses did end up a little distorted, this issue will disappear with more practise. However some ellipses can be seen with more than 3 lines to them. This is incorrect. To draw more lines means you're losing confidence in how you're marking your ellipse on the paper. To avoid this, take your time ghosting the ellipse before you mark the paper and in time you will improve. You've shown good confidence in the table of ellipses so do the same here as well when you practise these exercises as warm-ups.
-
With your funnels, you did a good job fitting them snugly without spilling out too much and they are also being cut by the minor axis in equal halves which is correct. Once again we see the same issue of going over an ellipse more than 3 times but like I said before, this will improve. So far, you're doing well.
Boxes
-
Your plotted perspective looks fine and theres no issues here.
-
For your rough perspective, you did fairly well for maintaining the vertical lines perpendicular to the horizon while horizontal lines parallel to it. You've also extended the lines correctly to the horizon and not to the VP but note they must end at the horizon and not go over it. Also there are some subtle s/c-curved lines which shows that you're slightly hesitating when marking or that you are focusing too much on accuracy thus sacrificing confidence in return. For the subtle c-curved lines, one thing that you can do is to consciously arch the opposite way to maintain a straight line when ghosting, this can help lessen the arching problem. For the subtle s-curved line, try to ghost a lot of times before actually commiting to it, you can also increase the speed of ghosting. Also remember we are trying to train our stroke to be confident. You have shown you can do this when it came to the Lines exercises above so remember what you did there and apply it here. Ghost your lines as much as you want before your pen marks the paper. This will help. Your estimation of the VP will become more accurate as you practice more boxes so dont worry about it.
-
You are moving in the right direction when it comes to the rotated boxes, and I can see that you have tried to keep the gaps between boxes narrow though it is a bit inconsistent at times. To be consistent remember to use the ghosting method to think about each mark’s purpose and how you are going to achieve it best, and also keep in mind that each line is no less important for being part of a larger group, give each one of them as much time and attention as it requires. Take your time with ghosting so that you mark each stroke confidenctly. Try to keep the boxes tight together, and use the sides of adjacent boxes as hints to draw your next box, this way you will not rely on guesswork or eyeballing to figure out where your lines should be. You've ensured each box rotates so well done here.
-
Finishing with the organic perspective you are already moving in the right direction and there is a good sense of flow of you boxes moving from one direction to the other.]. Your sense of perspective is not too bad and this will improve as you do the box challenge later.
All in all, well done. I'd say confidence in your stroke is what you need to work on the most. I think with more practise of these exercises you will improve and that confidence will come to you.
Next Steps:
Before I mark this as complete I'd like you to work on a few things.
-
1 page of Funnels
-
1 page of Rough Pespective
The recommendation below is an advertisement. Most of the links here are part of Amazon's affiliate program (unless otherwise stated), which helps support this website. It's also more than that - it's a hand-picked recommendation of something I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Drawabox-Tested Fineliners (Pack of 10, $17.50 USD)
Let's be real here for a second: fineliners can get pricey. It varies from brand to brand, store to store, and country to country, but good fineliners like the Staedtler Pigment Liner (my personal brand favourite) can cost an arm and a leg. I remember finding them being sold individually at a Michael's for $4-$5 each. That's highway robbery right there.
Now, we're not a big company ourselves or anything, but we have been in a position to periodically import large batches of pens that we've sourced ourselves - using the wholesale route to keep costs down, and then to split the savings between getting pens to you for cheaper, and setting some aside to one day produce our own.
These pens are each hand-tested (on a little card we include in the package) to avoid sending out any duds (another problem with pens sold in stores). We also checked out a handful of different options before settling on this supplier - mainly looking for pens that were as close to the Staedtler Pigment Liner. If I'm being honest, I think these might even perform a little better, at least for our use case in this course.
We've also tested their longevity. We've found that if we're reasonably gentle with them, we can get through all of Lesson 1, and halfway through the box challenge. We actually had ScyllaStew test them while recording realtime videos of her working through the lesson work, which you can check out here, along with a variety of reviews of other brands.
Now, I will say this - we're only really in a position to make this an attractive offer for those in the continental United States (where we can offer shipping for free). We do ship internationally, but between the shipping prices and shipping times, it's probably not the best offer you can find - though this may depend. We also straight up can't ship to the UK, thanks to some fairly new restrictions they've put into place relating to their Brexit transition. I know that's a bummer - I'm Canadian myself - but hopefully one day we can expand things more meaningfully to the rest of the world.