5:12 PM, Sunday August 9th 2020
Congratulations on completing lesson 1!
Starting with your super-imposed lines, you did a pretty good job of making your lines straight and confident looking. You do the same with your ghosted lines too and I see very few signs of hesitation here. With your planes homework you still did a pretty good job, your lines stay fairly straight and you did a good job constructing your planes correctly, though it looks like the paper you were using isn't the best for your pens. If you read this section from lesson 0 you can see that it is generally recommended that you use printer paper or a paper with a similar texture. The more toothy texture of some sketchbook pages can wear down and damage your pens quickly and can also make it more difficult for you to create the rich marks that we strive for while working through Drawabox. In the future, if possible, I would recommend that you get a packet of printer paper. Especially for the 250 Box Challenge.
With your tables of ellipses it appears that you struggled at first with drawing through your ellipses correctly. But you were able to push through and many of your ellipses later on look rounder and more confident overall. Something that I have seen here and in other parts of your homework is that you are not setting up your exercises according to the instructions. For this exercise you were meant to create columns on your page, as shown here and instead you have a series of super-imposed lines spanning the width of your pages. I would recommend that you reread this section of lesson 0 before moving forward. Following the instructions to the letter is incredibly important because it will keep you from getting distracted from the core focus of each individual exercise. The more you try and do things in your own way, the more you risk drifting way from the concepts you're meant to be focusing on. I will suggest again that you pick up a pack of printer paper so that your work will be done on a consistent and more appropriate medium for Drawabox.
Your ellipses in the ellipses in planes section show a good bit of improvement. They look rounder, more confident and fairly evenly shaped. There are still a few ellipses that have wobbling and signs of hesitation so just make sure that you are employing the ghosting method for every mark you make including ellipses. You might also want to read this comment by Uncomfortable where he talks more about hesitation. Lastly for this section we have your funnels. Your ellipses here look really good! You have few signs of hesitation overall and your ellipses are steadily beginning to look more confident overall! I do see that many of your ellipses are tilted along the minor axis. When you notice your ellipses are tilting you should rotate your page until they line up correctly.
With your rough perspective homework you did a good job with your first page. Your boxes are fairly well placed on the page and I can see that you tried to keep your horizontal lines parallel with the horizon and your vertical lines perpendicular. You also did a pretty good job of getting your boxes to converge on or near your plotted vanishing points! The only thing I might recommend is that you try and have your exercise fill more of the page so that you can draw bigger. Drawing bigger helps engage your brain's spatial reasoning skills, whereas drawing smaller impedes them. Using as much of the page as is reasonably possible will help you get the most out of Drawabox. As for your second page, it looks like you didn't finish that one or you submitted the wrong image by mistake.
The rotated boxes exercise is a very challenging assignment. You did a pretty good job for your first attempt! Your boxes are drawn through correctly and you got a good amount of rotation out of your boxes along the major axes. The biggest thing that stands out to me here is your hatching and your line weight. You should always be using the ghosting method to plan and execute every mark you make while doing Drawabox. This includes the small hatching marks we sometimes use for our boxes. You also want to avoid making any sort of "correction" marks and avoid hiding mistakes in general. You should not at any point, scribble or approach your mark making haphazardly. Now, when you go to add weight to a line it is important that you treat the added weight the same way you would a brand new line. That means taking your time to plan and ghost through your mark so that when you go to execute it the mark blends seamlessly with your previous mark. This will allow you to build more subtle and clean looking weight to your lines.
Finally we have your organic perspective boxes. You did a pretty good job of getting you sets of lines to start converging near their shared vanishing points. This is something you will work on in the next steps. Keep in mind as you progress through Drawabox and begin to construct more complex forms that it is important to put in the time and focus required to execute each line correctly and to apply the ghosting method to every step of the process, as explained here. You should also frequently refer back to the instructions to ensure you are doing everything correctly and to the best of your current ability. In the beginning of your homework you showed that when you took more time and were more careful overall your mark making improved a lot. You were able to make smooth, confident looking lines and when you take your time, your construction shows a lot of improvement too! Make sure you read all of the links I have left you and remember to take your time going forward. As much time as you need.
Good luck with the 250 Box Challenge!
Next Steps:
Continue to the 250 Box Challenge!