Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

4:11 PM, Monday December 27th 2021

Lesson 1 - Album on Imgur

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

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Resubmitting my lesson 1 homework, officially this time. My lines were very wobbly when I was going through this lesson which I've been working on by trusting my ghosting and shoulder movements more. I misunderstood the organic perspective lesson's division of boxes on the page when I initially did this lesson but submitting it as is seemed to make more sense to me. I've already finished the 250 boxes challenge, but I'm just going through the official critique path now.

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9:24 AM, Tuesday December 28th 2021

Welcome to drawabox, and congrats on getting past the first hurdle; let’s take this one exercise at a time.

Your superimposed lines are a little inconsistent. Most are alright, but occasionally there’ll be one that is wobbly, or another that hasn’t been superimposed 8 times, it seems. One issue that they all have is that they’re not of a consistent trajectory, so do try to be mindful of that, also. Your ghosted lines/planes look solid; they’re confident, the whole way through, and you’ve not forgotten to plot start/end points for the non-diagonal center lines of your planes (most students do!)

Moving on to the ellipse section, the table of ellipses exercise is a little rough (though it does show considerable improvement throughout!) Mainly, the issue seems to stem from a misunderstanding that accuracy is more important than confidence, or, even, important at all. To put it plainly, a smooth, rounded ellipse is correct no matter what – it can fall way short of its guidelines, or completely overshoot them; a bumpy, pointy, wobbly ellipse is incorrect no matter what – it can be a perfect fit for its frame, but if the confidence is not there, its incorrect. The ellipses in planes show some improvement, but struggle with much of the same thing. It’s clear that hitting all 4 sides of the plane is a priority here, though it shouldn’t be. The funnels are the best of the bunch. There’s some confidence issues, still (particularly at the moment of contact, there’s a little bit of hesitation there), but I’ll attribute that to the size of the ellipses, instead. As for the exercise, your ellipses are snug, and properly cut in half, so it’s looking good.

The plotted perspective exercise looks clean. Small thing: the back line needs to be perpendicular to the horizon. If it’s not, that’s due to an error on your part, so rather than double down, simply estimate its location.

The rough perspective exercise shows some solid improvement throughout the set, both in terms of its linework, and its convergences. Still, there’s the occasional dip in both, so be sure to remind yourself that the process of drawing a line hasn’t changed (this should aid with your confidence), and be sure, also, to properly plan all of your marks, and check said planning, before committing, to help with your convergences.

The rotated boxes exercise looks good, if a little small. Drawing big is something we encourage, as it’s effective in giving your brain some room to breathe, and think. Still, despite that, your boxes here are snug, and properly rotating. The far planes look quite solid, too, if a little thick (thick lines have a way of popping to the front, so we’ll generally apply lineweight (or push harder) to lines that are closer to the viewer, not further), and the depth lines look quite good, also.

The organic perspective exercise looks solid (the page hasn’t been split into framed compositions, but you’ve drawn more than enough boxes to compensate for that). The increase in size is a little too subtle to be reliable, but the foreshortening does a lot to convey the flow we’re after, even by itself.

Next Steps:

There’s enough improvement throughout the ellipse section for me to not feel the need to assign you more work, though, as you’re waiting 2 weeks to be able to submit the box challenge, you may do some, anyway. With the rest of the time, consider drawing for fun. See you soon~

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
8:22 PM, Wednesday December 29th 2021

Hi there! Thank you for taking the time to give me some critique. I'll keep the smaller points in mind for the future. I really appreciate the bit on accuracy and confidence, it was something I struggled with a lot at the time of doing these exercises and has gotten better but I still find myself hesitating and not focusing on confidence at all sometimes. The way you've phrased it was really clear and helpful!

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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.

In terms of line weight, the sizes are pretty weird. 08 corresponds to 0.5mm, which is what I recommend for the drawabox lessons, whereas 05 corresponds to 0.45mm, which is pretty close and can also be used.

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