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Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

11:55 AM, Sunday May 31st 2020

Jon Saunders Drawabox Lesson 1 - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/Cwbel3V.jpg

Post with 14 views. Jon Saunders Drawabox Lesson 1

Really grateful for this resource, I've found it challenging but over the years I have tried to start to learn to draw and my perfectionism gets in the way where I end up trying to learn how to draw perfect straights and just grind that and never progress. This has forced me to move forward and I'm grateful for that.

Must admit I got anxious during the later pieces and my linework which was feeling good in the warm ups would suffer in the main pieces during the perspectives as a consequence. I imagine that goes away with time. Still a little concerned with my ability to draw vertical and horizontal perfectly affecting the perspective challenges but I'm really proud to have just finished.

I took a picture of the planes before drawing the ellipses on as I thought that might make it easier to review.

Bring on the 250 boxes!

Thanks again,

Jon

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11:21 PM, Tuesday June 2nd 2020

Hey there, Jon. Welcome to Drawabox! Yeah, perfectionism is one of those really sneaky hurdles, but I'm proud of you for pushing through and finishing as well! You didn't specify in your comment, so I feel compelled to ask: are you rotating your page with each horizontal and vertical? That may help you apply those straight lines at any angle. Anyway, let's get on to the submission!

Lines

Really decent start here! Your lines appear to maintain a consistent trajectory, staying pretty straight and there is really only fraying on the far end, which means you're taking the time to line up your pen at the start. There is a little bit of wobbling in your curved super imposed lines - it helps to know that most wobbles are caused by your brain getting in the way of your muscle memory. You can overcome this with deliberate use of the ghosting method - this technique allows you to build the muscle memory, but remember to commit once you put your pen to the paper.

Your ghosted lines look great Straight, confident, and fairly accurate. From here, I would recommend that you start working on your accuracy. You can use the ghosting technique to do that as well. The aim is to consistently hit the end point without over- or under-shooting.

Ellipses

So these are a little rougher than your lines, but by the time you get to the ellipses in planes, you show significant improvement, which is great to see. Continued practice and use of the ghosting technique will help you get these ellipses even and confident. You also display a good deal of control, making sure the ellipses are sitting snugly inside their alloted space.

Really decent work with your funnels. You keep them pretty well aligned and bisected by the minor axis.

Rough Perspective

This is pretty strong work here! So for this particular exercise, you want to keep your eye on the horizon line: make sure your verticals are perpendicular while your horizontals are parallel. This ensures that your boxes are firmly in one point perspective and helps eliminte unnecessary guesswork. As for the rest, your line work looks very strong - straight, clean lines. Very nice work here!

Rotated Boxes

So, this is a pretty strong attempt at this challenge. Your line work continues to impress, although I can see that you struggled a little bit with getting a proper rotation around the major axes. That's fine, as your sense of 3D continues to develop, this sort of thing will click. Another good thing to keep in mind for this part is to keep the gaps between each box consistently sized. That way you can also eliminate unnecessary guesswork at this part. Other than that, good start!

Organic Perspective

This is also a good start! Good line work, although there is room for improvement with getting sets of parallel lines to converge more consistently towards shared vanishing points. That's nothing the 250 box challenge won't help with! Overall, strong work!

Next Steps:

I'm happy to mark this as complete and send you on to the 250 box challenge. Nice work, Jon!!

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
9:17 AM, Wednesday June 3rd 2020
edited at 9:54 AM, Jun 3rd 2020

Awesome thank you! Really appreciate the thorough feedback.

To answer your question, yeah I always rotate my paper no matter the line I'm doing. However I am extremely skilled in the art of over thinking and when it came to getting a perfect horizontal/Vertical line I was overthinking feeling like my dotting was off slightly here and there.

I found myself probably over complicating especially the square dotting knowing that one line being off would ruin the perspective. I tried rotating the paper for the dotting and also doing the dots before rotating but I get the feeling it might be one of those mental hurdles I just need to work through unless you have any advice on that particular thing.

Thanks for your advice specifically on the ghosting also, I have felt myself improving on the straight lines ghosting though some days are better than others for accuracy, though I find with ellipses I'm still a little uncertain with my ghosting and I still have less control with the ghosting and I'm possibly going too fast with them.

I was going to ask one more thing, when I do my lines and rotate my paper, if I sit perfect straight, I can't see where my line is going to the dot, I know uncomfortable mentioned this in his lesson but I must admit I do rotate my neck/head in order to get a better view, is that a bad habit and should I be trying to force myself to trust my ghosting to the point I can start without seeing the dot or is it normal practice to move your body in a way to see?

Anyway thank you again for your feedback. The positive feedback makes me feel excited to take on the 250 boxes!

Jon

edited at 9:54 AM, Jun 3rd 2020
11:07 AM, Wednesday June 3rd 2020
edited at 11:08 AM, Jun 3rd 2020

I can certainly answer 'yes' to trusting your ghosting as you continue to hone your ghosting technique, but I'm not sure about ways to hold your pose! You want to make sure your shoulder is free to use as a pivot, and for the rest, just make sure you're comfortable. One of the big things that gets people in this community is carpal tunnel or something else related because of bad posture, so just take care of yourself while performing the techniques as best you can.

... Okay, I then went back and reread your question, but I'm keeping the previous part because it's important! No, I don't think it's a bad habit. If you get a view that's fine, I think that's natural, so long as you're not holding an uncomfortable pose for extended periods.

Cheers!

edited at 11:08 AM, Jun 3rd 2020
3:45 PM, Friday June 5th 2020

Awesome thank you for all your help, really appreciated!

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