Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

6:07 PM, Friday April 2nd 2021

DrawAbox Empecinado69 Lesson1 - Album on Imgur

Imgur: https://imgur.com/gallery/0Z2MwoH

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Shitty smartphone pictures ahead warning. Done my best, but it is what it is.

Will get a scanner for the next lesson

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12:21 AM, Sunday April 4th 2021

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/1/9/wobbling This is also quite present in some of the later exercises although I am seeing improvement as you worked through these pages but I'm still seeing the problem present pretty consistently.

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. The other possibility is that you aren't ghosting your lines or you are reverting back to drawing from your wrist on occasion. I can't be entirely sure of which specific thing is happening and it even could be combinations of all of them.

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 is 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/1/12/deformed This is likely happening because you 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 having the same issues and you are also tilting your ellipses off the minor axis at times. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/13/notaligned This is something you should always consider when drawing your ellipses. There is a lot 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. I'd like you to do one more page of ellipses in planes to practice a bit more line confidence. Don't worry as much as about accuracy and focus more on getting smooth lines and ellipses.

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. 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.

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. You are running into a pretty common issue of not actually rotating your boxes in some cases but instead simply drawing them moving back in perspective. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/16/notrotating 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 but the problem is still somewhat present. You seem to be getting comfortable using the ghosting method and drawing from your shoulder for confident linework which is great. Your box constructions are solid for the most part and you seem well prepared for the 250 box challenge.

Overall this submission was pretty good and showed a good grasp spatial thinking but the line wobble is still hurting your overall line confidence and ellipse integrity. I'd you to do one more page of ellipses in planes focusing on improving that. I think once you get that under control you'll be more than ready to move on to the 250 box challenge.

Next Steps:

One page Ellipses in Planes - Don't worry as much as about accuracy and focus more on getting smooth lines and ellipses

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
11:12 PM, Thursday May 13th 2021

Thanks for the critique. My lines have slowly improved a lot through the 250 boxes. I get 50% of them simply perfect and the rst mostly ok :p

Here is the ellipses in pages you requested. Did it before the 250 boxes so it does not look that good. :p

https://imgur.com/a/U2qcPae

2:11 PM, Friday May 14th 2021

Okay, these are looking good. My one note is to make sure you are always drawing through every single ellipse you draw for these lessons without exception. Even if you feel like you got it right on the first go make sure you draw through. https://drawabox.com/lesson/1/11/drawingthrough

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete and good luck with the 250 box challenge!

Next Steps:

The 250 Box Challenge

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
7:43 PM, Friday May 14th 2021

Thank u. Will u be my reviewer for all lessons and challenges? Or is it more of a randomized thingy?

250 boxes to be finished tomorrow!

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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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