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11:56 PM, Friday September 16th 2022

Hi there, I'll be handling your box challenge critique.

Going forward if you could provide clearer images definitely do so, these are workable but if the task was more complex I'd ask for new pictures.

Congratulations on completing the box challenge, it's definitely a lot more work than most people expect. Not only does it help deepen your understanding of important concepts but it shows your desire to learn as well. Be proud of what you've accomplished and that desire you've shown. That being said I'll try to keep this critique fairly brief so you can get working on the next steps as soon as possible.

Things you did well:

  • Your construction lines are looking smooth and confidently drawn.

  • It's good to see that you're taking the time to plan and evenly space your hatching lines. This helps keep your boxes tidy and makes them look more solid.

  • Seeing as how line weight is not a requirement of the challenge it's nice to see that you're applying it. It's a useful tool but one that most people need some mileage with before they feel comfortable applying it. Getting an early start like this will help you see better results sooner.

  • You're doing a great job of experimenting with orientations, proportions and rates of foreshortening. Experimenting is an important habit to build when learning any new skill, it helps form a more well rounded understanding. I hope you'll continue to display and nurture this habit in the future.

Things you can work on:

  • You tend to draw fairly small, I'd like you to draw larger in the future. Drawing large will help you become more comfortable working from the shoulder and allow you to see any mistakes you've made more clearly.

  • There are times when your lines converge in pairs or you attempt to keep your lines a bit too parallel which results in them diverging. This is an example of lines converging in pairs, and this shows the relation between each line in a set and their respective vanishing point. The inner pair of lines will be quite similar unless the box gets quite long and the outer pair can vary a lot depending on the location of the vanishing point. Move it further away and the lines become closer to parallel while moving it closer increases the rate of foreshortening.

The key things we want to remember from this exercise are that our lines should always converge as a set not in pairs, never diverge from the vanishing point and due to perspective they won't be completely parallel.

Overall while you did make a few mistakes your boxes are improving so far and with more mileage you'll continue to become more consistent. That being said I'll be marking your submission as complete and move you on to lesson 2.

Keep practicing previous exercises and boxes as warm ups, and good luck.

Next Steps:

Move on to lesson 2.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
3:53 PM, Saturday September 17th 2022

Thank you for critiquing my work, in terms of the lines diverging instead of converging, that is something I noticed that when I try a new box especially the larger in size, I am defiantly going to do a lot more perspective exercises and spend more time thinking about the vanishing points and where my lines need to converge.

Drawing bigger:

I was told each page should have 4-6 box per page, that is what I aimed for and what me decide the size of my boxes. can you show me an example of the average size you want me to draw in? Thank you.

Cheers,

6:16 AM, Sunday September 18th 2022

So 4-6 boxes is indeed the goal, you just want to make sure you're using you're utilizing your page space as well.

Take a look at your submission and look at box 241, I'd say around this size is what you should aim for. Notice how the other 3 boxes on the page are noticeably smaller and there's also tons of empty space left on the page as well. Drawing larger doesn't necessarily mean that you should draw so large that they're all overlapping one another but you could push box 241 down and to the right a bit more and draw the rest of the boxes larger while utilizing the space better overall. You could fit 6 boxes (or 4 if some of them were longer/wider/thinner etc.) the size of 241 on this page.

In contrast to this if we look at the first few pages in the submission, there's often 50%+ of the page not being used. Or you can look at the page with box 65 on it and the top 3 boxes are quite small and the top 2/3 of the page is barely used.

While how you use your page isn't necessarily a sign of the quality of your work, drawing large is beneficial, and using your pages well not only saves you material in the long run but can also help you slow down and be more mindful of the process. Remember that mindful practice often helps people retain what they're practicing better than just going with the flow of things.

Hopefully that helps clarify things a bit.

2:16 PM, Tuesday September 20th 2022

Thank you for the detailed reply, makes sense. Thank you

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