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2:20 PM, Friday September 17th 2021

Hey there! Congrats on finishing lesson 1! It's truly a big deal! I'm Ennui, and I'm here to give you your feedback today!

Let's take it section by section!

Lines:

Alright, so here is where I am actually seeing a lot of common mistakes written in the lesson plan. In your Superimposed Lines exercise, I see a lot of wobbly and curved lines. I'm not too bothered by the fraying since its alright for a beginner, but what I would like to draw your attention to is the wobble and curves. These suggest unconfident strokes. Are you using your shoulder pivot? he exercises recommend you to use your whole arm for every mark you make, as well as draw with a steady trajectory to produce a smooth line. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/2

Your Ghosted Lines face the same issue of wobbliness and curves. I also believe you have made your planning dots a bit too large, and thus I am unable to get a truly accurate assessment of your accuracy in the exercise.

Ghosted Planes face the same issue, however I do like that you varied the sizes of the planes well.

Ellipses:

I am seeing similar issues with unconfident markmaking pop up here too. A good thing about your Tables of Ellipses exercise is that you were able to fill in all the gaps well, and you drew through each ellipse twice. However, your ellipses are wobbly, which continue to suggest that either you are not drawing fast enough, you aren't using your shoulder, or you're prizing accuracy over smoothness. This is also true of your Ellipses in Planes exercise.

Regarding your Funnels exercise, I have the same concerns, but what I appreciate is the effort to vary the degree of the ellipses. That is good and needs some practice!

Boxes:

Now this is where I'm surprised, because your boxes exercises aren't too bad at all! Your Plotted Perspective and Rough Perspective show good attempts and understanding of perspective! The lines are still a bit wobbly with the Rough Perspective, but your depth lines do converge at roughly the vanishing point and that is the crux of the exercise!

Your Rotated Boxes exercise is also well done! Congrats!

Your Organic Perspective was also well done. You did a good job varying the size of the boxes, and I can clearly see an improvement and understanding of perspective between your pages. Keep up the good work!

Final Critique:

While I'm impressed with your boxes, unfortunately, your basics are still weak from your lines and ellipses exercises. Your lines are wobbly and show a lot of arching and curving. It would not be helpful to move onto the 250 box challenge before these basics are down, at least in concept. I recommend you to re-watch the lesson 1 videos on drawing from your shoulder and keeping a steady trajectory.

Hopefully this was helpful!

Next Steps:

Please re-do the Lines and Ellipses sections of Lesson 1, but only 1 page for each exercise. Once you're done, please reply with your revisions!

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
4:24 PM, Friday September 17th 2021
edited at 4:24 PM, Sep 17th 2021

Thank you for your response ennui! I am drawing with my shoulder, and have been since the first lesson. I feel like if I try the super imposed lines practice, ghosted lines, and ghosted planes again, it will be much better than my first attempts at doing them, however I completely agree with your sentiment of lack of confidence. I always end up "prizing accuracy over smoothness", though I am typically spending 1-2 seconds per circle. If I am to be completely honest, those circles were the product of ghosting and ctrl+z -ing attempts for minutes per circle. Other than that, my lines are much more confident then my ellipses. What exercises would you recommend I try in order to practice my ellipses for smooth, and symmetry? I feel like if I go back to the plane of ellipses exercise, I will not fair much better, as the last image is an attempt as of the night of the submission. Thank you for the insightful feedback!

edited at 4:24 PM, Sep 17th 2021
5:05 PM, Friday September 17th 2021

Glad you found it helpful! Honestly, don't focus on symmetry with the ellipses. Symmetry and accuracy should come after steadiness. So for now, I'd say just focus on that. Even if the ellipses are a bit off, you should try to aim for steady lines as much as possible. So even if the ellipses don't always adhere to the boundaries, they're better if they are smooth. Also, how long are you spending ghosting? All you need is to ghost 3-5 times before executing your mark. There is a possibility that spending so long ghosting and planning your ellipse could actually be making them more wobbly like that. 3-5 times, then even if it's "wrong", execute.

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A lot of my students use these. The last time I used them was when I was in high school, and at the time I felt that they dried out pretty quickly, though I may have simply been mishandling them. As with all pens, make sure you're capping them when they're not in use, and try not to apply too much pressure. You really only need to be touching the page, not mashing your pen into it.

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