Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

6:36 PM, Thursday May 28th 2020

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I understand that I haven't presented all the assignments, but I can assure you that I done many many pages of all exercises. I'm just hoping we can get some insight from these studies!

Many thanks! :)

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12:05 AM, Tuesday June 2nd 2020

Hey there! Could you please upload the superimposed lines? That's the only one that's missing here. Once we get that into the album, I'll be able to go over everything ASAP! :)

Next Steps:

Please upload super imposed lines exercise.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
5:18 PM, Thursday June 4th 2020

I have now uploaded the super imposed lines exercise, excited to receive your critique!

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1:11 AM, Saturday June 6th 2020

Hey Arthur! Thanks for being so understanding and sending over that last homework submission! One small note before we get started: with lesson 2 and on, definitely try to make sure you get your assignments up in order! I know imgur can be a bit tricky about that, but it definitely helps us get you your critique faster! Alright, let's get into it.

Lines

So, it's pretty clear to me that you're coming in with a good deal of experience. Your lines here are clean and thought out with very little wobble at all. Likewise, you're displaying a lot of patience and control in lining up your pen. I noticed you circled the frayed ends of your super-imposed lines - we don't worry about this. The more important part is that they're not frayed at the start - yours aren't, so I know you're taking your time with it. Nice work!

The same goes for your ghosted lines - they're looking confident, clean, and accurate. The next step from here will be for you to focus on honing that accuracy to the point where you're able to hit the end point without over or under shooting. Really strong work here, though.

Ellipses

Equally strong work here. Your ellipses are confident, evenly shaped, and well-controlled, sitting snugly in their alloted spaces. You're also keeping them light, not drawing through too many times. I would continue to work on tightening them up from here.

Nice work on your funnels as well. You do a decent job keeping them aligned with the minor axis but look out for that spacing. You want them to sit snugly against one another just like they're snugly sitting within their allotted space.

Rough Perspective

So your linework here remains quite nice, maintaining the quality you displayed in your ghosted and superimposed lines. However, you appear to be guessing when it comes to your perspective. When it comes to one point perspective, the key thing is to have your horizontals parallel to the horizon and your verticals perpendicular. This allows you to eliminate unnecessary guesswork and focus on your depth lines. At the moment, your boxes are slanting quite a lot pulling them out of perspective - this is just a rule of thumb to keep in mind when working with this perspective.

Rotated Boxes

So I do need to tag you on this one pretty hard, haha. Under drawings are not permitted in the directions here nor in the box challenge, so keep that in mind as you're going forward. Likewise, I want to encourage you to complete exercises to the best of your current ability - you have two incomplete attempts here and both have promise! I think it's important to ask why you felt the need to submit them incomplete; for a lot of students it is a perfectionist streak which is completely understandable, as we all have it to some degree. However, a core value of Drawabox is to work to overcome that kind of fear and allow yourself to toss things at the wall until they stick. Failing forward is very important here.

In this case, had you continued, I believed you would have achieved a pretty decent rotation across both examples of this exercise. One good rule of thumb is to keep the gaps between each box consistently sized, again to avoid unnecessary guesswork. Similarly, you're encouraged to draw through your boxes. You did so in the underdrawing for one attempt, but didn't seem to follow through with your second pass.

Anyhow, consider tackling this challenge again at a later date! It is a good milestone in terms of progress when it comes to understanding of 3D form on a 2D plane and patience.

Organic Perspective

Really strong work here - your line work remains consistent, although this is a good example of where accuracy can help maintain the illusion of 3D form. When you overshoot your end points, this does tend to weaken the illusion. Your converging sets of parallel lines are looking pretty solid, which is great! There are a few that could use improvement here and there but that's nothing the 250 box challenge can't help with!

Next Steps:

Really beautiful mark-making here with both lines and ellipses! Keep up the good work, you're clearly moving in the right direction. I'm happy to mark this as complete and send you on to the 250 box challenge. Good luck!

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
3:15 PM, Sunday June 7th 2020

Thank you for your advice and encouragement! :)

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Ellipse Master Template

Ellipse Master Template

This recommendation is really just for those of you who've reached lesson 6 and onwards.

I haven't found the actual brand you buy to matter much, so you may want to shop around. This one is a "master" template, which will give you a broad range of ellipse degrees and sizes (this one ranges between 0.25 inches and 1.5 inches), and is a good place to start. You may end up finding that this range limits the kinds of ellipses you draw, forcing you to work within those bounds, but it may still be worth it as full sets of ellipse guides can run you quite a bit more, simply due to the sizes and degrees that need to be covered.

No matter which brand of ellipse guide you decide to pick up, make sure they have little markings for the minor axes.

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