Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes
6:35 AM, Monday April 4th 2022
Boxes are surprisingly hard.
We’ve got just the thing for that! :P Before we get into that, however, let’s see if everything is looking good here.
Starting with your superimposed lines, these are looking solid. They’re smooth, properly lined up at the start, and of a consistent trajectory. Your ghosted lines/planes look quite confident, also, but I notice that they’ll sometimes arc a little, at their ends. Remember that our lines being smooth, and straight, is more important than them being accurate. Also, recall that one try at a line is all you get – should it come out wrong, the recommendation is to leave it as is. If not a reminder to spend a little longer planning next time, it’ll still be a reminder that failure is a normal thing, and nothing to be afraid of.
Moving on to the ellipse section, the table of ellipses exercise looks mostly good. I say mostly because your ellipses have a habit of starting off a little stiff, and then stabilizing. We want them to be confident from the start, however – to that end, we ghost until we’re ready, then commit, and remind ourselves that, when we do commit, the accuracy of our line is set in stone, and all that we’re able to affect anymore is its confidence. The ellipses in planes exercise has a similar stiffness to it, unfortunately. It’s not a hug issue, however, and nothing that can’t easily be fixed by a slight change in priority: more so than hitting all 4 sides of the plane, or properly filling it up, what matters is that the ellipse itself is smooth, and rounded – that’s all. The funnels are well done. Be careful that you don’t add another ellipse if there’s no more minor axis to align it to, however – an ellipse without a goal isn’t of much use to us.
The plotted perspective exercise is missing its back lines. Not a huge issue, strictly speaking, but worth mentioning, still.
The rough perspective exercise is missing its back lines, too. Now this is a huge issue – they’re a big part of this exercise. Looking at the lines you’ve drawn, your estimations seem to be about right, but it’s good to know for sure, by drawing all of them. (And – and I’ve mentioned this before, so I won’t go at it too hard, but it’s especially bad here, so I’ll mention it a second time – drawing each of them once, and only once.)
The rotated boxes exercise is a little small, but all of it is here, and all of it is looking solid. This is to say, your boxes are snug, and properly rotating. Not all of them have been drawn through in their entirety, it seems, but it’s easy to lose track of what’s what, in this exercise, particularly if you’re drawing small, so, no harm done.
The organic perspective exercise is well done. I’m not 100% sure as to whether you’re plotting start/end points for your lines here (if you’re not, be sure to), but, aside from that, the boxes are well constructed, and they flow well, as per their size and foreshortening.
Next Steps:
I’ll be marking this lesson as complete; onto the box challenge with you!
This is a remarkable little pen. I'm especially fond of this one for sketching and playing around with, and it's what I used for the notorious "Mr. Monkey Business" video from Lesson 0. It's incredibly difficult to draw with (especially at first) due to how much your stroke varies based on how much pressure you apply, and how you use it - but at the same time despite this frustration, it's also incredibly fun.
Moreover, due to the challenge of its use, it teaches you a lot about the nuances of one's stroke. These are the kinds of skills that one can carry over to standard felt tip pens, as well as to digital media. Really great for doodling and just enjoying yourself.
I would not recommend this for Drawabox - we use brush pens for filling in shadow shapes, and you do not need a pen this fancy for that. If you do purchase it, save it for drawing outside of the course.
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