Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

4:35 AM, Wednesday December 13th 2023

Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes - MemoriesOfBlue - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/iHP9GYX.jpg

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You'll notice I completed Tables of Ellipses (on the 28th of September) before I completed the 3 Lines homework and exercises (on the 29th of September). This is because I originally misinterpreted the directions and thought I was supposed to begin the homework at the VERY END of the entire lesson (Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes), and I had finished Tables of Ellipses after I realized you're supposed to complete the exercises as they come along.

TL;DR: I'm a dumbass who can't read.

Let me know how I did (and excuse my fuckups).

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10:44 PM, Wednesday December 13th 2023

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 quite a bit of wobble in your ghosted lines and planes. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/13/wobbling This is also quite present in some of the later exercises although I am seeing improvement as you work through these exercises 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. That hesitation because of your concern for accuracy while making your mark is what is reintroducing the wobble into your lines. Try and rely a bit more on the muscle memory you build up while ghosting your mark and almost make your mark without thinking. This will be less accurate at first but will give you consistently smooth and confident linework which is our first priority. Accuracy will come with mileage and can't really be forced.

Your ellipses are largely suffering from the exact same issue which really just goes to show that once you fix this problem it will improve every aspect of your drawing and that improvement is very evident with your organic perspective boxes and the line confidence I see there. Your tables of ellipses are coming along okay. You are doing a good job drawing through your ellipses and while you seem to be focused on consistent ellipse shape you are getting quite a bit of line wobble trying to be accurate. This is carried over into your ellipses in planes and you are still deforming your ellipses at times. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/17/deformed This is likely happening because you are too worried about accuracy and are probably slowing down your stroke to compensate. Try and rely a bit more on the muscle memory of the motion you build up while ghosting and almost make your mark without thinking. This will be less accurate at first. Although accuracy is our end goal it can't really be forced and tends to come through mileage and consistent practice more than anything. Your ellipses in funnels are showing improvement when it comes to wobbly linework but it's still happening here and there. There is plenty of room for improvement when it comes to your ellipses both in terms of overall consistency of shape and accuracy so make sure you keep practicing these in your warmups as they can take a while to get used to.

The plotted perspective looks great, nothing to mention here. Your rough perspective exercises turned out pretty good. There is a pretty big improvement here in terms of line confidence although I am still seeing a bit of wobble in some of your lines. Once again 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. That being said if you see the lines where you aren't as concerned with hitting the an accurate stopping point so exactly but are drawn with one swift motion ended up coming out much more smooth and confident and that is what we are looking for on every line we put down. Remember accuracy will come with mileage and you don't want to force it. 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. One thing that can help you a bit when doing a one point perspective exercise like this is to realize that all of your horizontal lines should be parallel to the horizon line and all of your verticals should be perpendicular(straight up and down in this case) to the horizon line. This will help you avoid some of the slanting lines you have in your constructions.

Your rotated box exercise turned out pretty well. 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 and keeping your gaps narrow and consistent. I'm still seeing line wobble so the other possibility is that you have reverted back to drawing from your wrist for some of these lines. Just something to keep an eye on. You should be drawing from your shoulder for basically every line you draw, even shorter ones. The wrist should be reserved for detail work only. While the rotations here aren't perfect this was a good effort overall. The more you draw and develop your spatial thinking ability the easier these rotations are to handle. 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 where I'm seeing the biggest improvement in terms of line confidence. That being said there are definitely still lines where you are too concerned with accuracy and are slowing down midstroke which is causing wobble throughout this entire exercise. I'm not going to assign any revisions for this as you will get a lot of practice with during the 250 box challenge but keep in mind all of this advice going forward. Remember that once you go to make your mark all of your thinking about accuracy should be done and you need to fully commit. Your box constructions are fairly solid for the most part and I can see you are developing a sense for how box lines converge to vps. There are still some wonky convergences here and there so the 250 box challenge will be a great next step for you.

Overall this was a really good submission that showed quite a lot of growth when it comes to line confidence and quality. I think you still need to get there with your ellipses but the organic perspective exercise was showing improvement. Keep practicing those ellipses during your warmups. I'm going to mark this as complete and good luck with the 250 box challenge!

Next Steps:

The 250 Box Challenge

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
5:58 PM, Friday December 15th 2023

Thank you so much!

I suppose I put too much thought into the habit of thinking before I draw my lines. I'll make sure my lines are smooth and as straight as possible, without any wobbling. My ellipses, too.

Thanks again for being so patient with me!

(Sorry for the late reply, I wasn't feeling well yesterday.)

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