Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

10:56 PM, Thursday February 17th 2022

Draw a Box - Lesson 1 Homework - Album on Imgur

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

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Hello,

First off, thank you for facilitating critiques for these assignments. Some of my images have little liner notes that I included as reflection upon completing exercises. I've covered some parts of these pages up as they either fall into the leisure half of the 50% rule and detract from the intent of the exercise. Thanks in advance!

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9:18 AM, Monday February 21st 2022

Hello ochreandcyan,

I will start with the most obvious thing to note: You are using a notebook and I have the feeling it might be A5? Or at least a somewhat smaller format?

I would recommend you use loose A4 paper. A4 to have the space you need to practice lines of different sizes and loose because you want a flat and even surface for your assignments, so that you give your muscle memory constant input for quicker results. With notebooks you have this varying stack of pages under your current page and your wrist will have to adapt to that. Additionally, there is this curvature, especially close to the binding. I would just try to restrict those unnecessary variables as much as possible.

That being said, I think you did well in constructing ellipses and boxes throughout the lesson. Your ellipses are tightly placed into their space, your vanishing points in the rough perspective exercise end up fairly close, your rotated boxes are already decent (and it's a difficult exercise, so read "decent" as a compliment please :) ) and your organic perspective plays with different orientations and scales nicely.

However, i do not see the funnels exercise? https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/funnels

Your lines however have a slight wobble. The superimposed lines are fine but with your ghosted lines I have the feeling you prioritized accuracy over a consistent trajectory. I got the same impression from the organic perspective: The wobbles are quite obvious here and I wonder if you either drew from your wrist or too slowly and carefully. The notebook is probably also not helping.

Don't forget that ghosting and drawing from the shoulder are techniques that should be applied throughout the lessons!

I hope I was able to help you with my feedback!

Next Steps:

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
12:43 AM, Thursday March 3rd 2022

Hello Jackdraws!

First off, thank you for your critique. You put a lot of effort into it, and it is heavily appreciated and didn't go unnoticed. I have to give some context to missing files - I had a huge issue with imgur the day that I submitted these - I tried multiple times, but every attempt to batch upload resulted in a few files being booted. I uploaded each exercise on their own, and everything looked all good, however that one definiltely slipped through the cracks. It should be included in the imgur album now at the very end of the album (...assuming the same error did not occur) - sorry for the oversight, I'm not very savvy with imgur.

I've repeated the ghosted lines exercise and also included that after going out and getting a ream of paper like you also suggested. It has made a great difference, that binding area is quite a pain, and not having a height difference between page and table has been great. Thank you for that! My lines are slightly less accurate, but have far less wobble which was totally the intent.

(Thank you again for waiting on my response, I decided to tackle the 250 box gauntlet before getting back to you - just finished earlier today. Phew, that was challenging)

Thank you.

OchreandCyan

8:59 AM, Thursday March 3rd 2022

Hi OchreandCyan,

I am very happy to hear that my advice to switch the paper was helpful :)

And I agree, it totally shows!

And do not worry: You accuracy is still fine!

Do I understand you correctly that you already did 250 boxes? Wow!

I guess you should show them to the rest of us in that case!

To me, the organic shapes & arrows and the whole texture thing is quite fun and I hope you also find lesson 2 exciting!

Good luck going forward!

Next Steps:

  • Submit your boxes when you are done with the 250 box challenge
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