I seem to get worn out when I draw more than 10 boxes in a single sitting. I drew my 9-23 boxes and I never want to look at a box again already. Am I just lazy or is this normal?
It's totally normal. We were actually talking about this in the discord chat server last night. Here's a screenshot of the relevant conversation. The 250 box challenge is really not a sprint - it's going to take time, and it's going to be a thing you chip away at gradually. It's a marathon, something you pace out, with plenty of other drawing (as per the 50% rule) alongside it.
Quick question Uncomfortable. I read the story about how the first 250 box challenge came about. The student with some questions and being directed to "go draw 250 boxes". I'm curious, how long did it take that person?
Honestly that was ages ago - I don't even remember who they were, let alone how long it took them. At the time the challenge was quite different too, and didn't include specifics like the use of the Y method, or the line extensions, both of which make the challenge far more valuable (and time consuming) today.
ah, I see. I was picturing a person walking along thinking to themselves, "Yep, 250 boxes, that was me. Number 1!" : )
I'm going to give a little bit of a different take here. I completely agree that the 250 box challenge can seem really daunting at first, it did to me too (I just finished it). I did a page or two and it was taking about 20 minutes a page at first. But then something strange happened. I incorporated the pages spread throughout the day, one in the morning, one at lunch, one or two after work and pretty soon it was just part of my day. I also stopped thinking about the whole task and started focusing on one line at a time, trying to get each box correct (which only happened occasionally). I started to get a little bit of satisfaction after each page check and before I knew it I was done. I am including drawing a box and error check into a daily warm up to keep the skill up. My advice is to concentrate on what the task is trying to teach rather than completion. I think you will be done before you know it.
I've been spending 40-60 minutes doing one page of 4-6 boxes in one sitting, twice per day, broken up by equivalent periods of recreational drawing to satisfy the 50% rule, so I don't think what you're feeling is unusual at all! I don't think the challenge should take much less than at least a month to complete, and trying to finish it sooner just deprives you of all the valuable learning your brain performs subconsciously while you sleep, in between days of drawing boxes :)
10 boxes a day wore me out too, eventually I started doing just 5 or 6 a day and found that to be better.
This is another one of those things that aren't sold through Amazon, so I don't get a commission on it - but it's just too good to leave out. PureRef is a fantastic piece of software that is both Windows and Mac compatible. It's used for collecting reference and compiling them into a moodboard. You can move them around freely, have them automatically arranged, zoom in/out and even scale/flip/rotate images as you please. If needed, you can also add little text notes.
When starting on a project, I'll often open it up and start dragging reference images off the internet onto the board. When I'm done, I'll save out a '.pur' file, which embeds all the images. They can get pretty big, but are way more convenient than hauling around folders full of separate images.
Did I mention you can get it for free? The developer allows you to pay whatever amount you want for it. They recommend $5, but they'll allow you to take it for nothing. Really though, with software this versatile and polished, you really should throw them a few bucks if you pick it up. It's more than worth it.
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