Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2018-12-06 00:55

Alright! So you show a good deal of progress over the set, especially towards the end, but there are a number of things that we need to address. There were a few of these though that I really liked - for example, the ass on this page, and towards the end you definitely did rein in your overal.. scratchiness. I know that I addressed this on the chat, but you have to remember that this is drawabox - we're applying specific principles and encouraging certain habits. That means that you've got to keep applying the ghosting method, drawing through your ellipses, etc. Every single mark you put down needs to be planned and thought out. No wastage. You've clearly demonstrated yourself capable of that by the end, so earlier on it was simply a matter of not trying in that regard.

When we addressed that issue on discord, I did mention that you should try to follow along with the wolf demo at least once. You didn't include it here, though I won't assume you didn't do it at all - but there are a few important things that the demo would have touched on that you seem to have missed here.

• Your ribcages are all too small. As shown here, they're usually about half the length of the torso, as they are on humans.

• You do play around with a lot of different approaches for drawing legs - the sausage technique is generally the best approach (at least that I've seen), for a few reasons. Firstly, sausages flow really nicely - where stretched oval segments tend to be very stiff, a sausage (two balls connected by a tube of consistent width) is free to flex in any direction. Secondly, they maintain solidity without getting stiff - contour lines are great but they can really easily add a sense of stiffness depending on where and how they're added. The sausage techniques places them at the joints, leaving the lengths of the segments free and unhindered, while still being reinforced. We can achieve this pretty nicely because of the balls on either end, something we can't do with regular cylinders.

• You're still kind of willy-nilly with your head construction, skipping steps as you see fit. Here, I show how the head is a sort of puzzle with a bunch of pieces that fit together. Also, your eyesockets are often kind of a mess because you're drawing so small that they end up being so cramped you have virtually no control over those lines. I mentioned this when we talked, you need to draw bigger to give yourself more room to think through spatial problems. There's no need to cram numerous animals into one page.

• When you do draw your eyes, draw a ball and then construct the eyelids around it. This again comes down in a big way to the scale of your drawings, though from what I could see there wasn't much going into this.

Now, I want from you three more animal drawings. One of them should be a 1-to-1 follow-along with the wolf demo. Don't try and interpret things yourself, just follow the instructions and draw big. Give yourself enough room to implement everything demonstrated there, including the head construction and the eyelids. Don't sketch, don't be scratchy, ghost and plan every single mark you put down.

The other two can be drawings of whatever kind of animal you want, but I want to see you using the techniques and concepts covered in the wolf demo.

While you are certainly showing progress, you're capable of much better. It's just a matter of following these demos better.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2018-12-05 20:07

Oh right, I forgot that you were already on lesson 7. Sometimes it's a bit tricky to keep track of all my students.

As for ellipses in boxes, it's vastly easier to place a box in a scene relative to other objects than it is to place a cylinder on its own - so learning to use a box as a starting point for a cylinder is extremely valuable.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 6: Drawing Everyday Objects"

2018-12-05 14:47

1. I'm actually not sure what you mean by the right edge places. Specifically what are you struggling with placing on your construction? If it's the ellipses themselves, then the two videos in the "video demos" section of lesson 7 address this (I'll be moving those videos up to lesson 6 as that obviously makes more sense). If that's not what you're uncertain about, could you clarify?

2. This lesson's ellipses were meant to be freehand so students could get a sense of using them as a major component of their constructions. It comes down to predetermining the size, orientation and degree (at least as best you can) before executing your ellipse. That's something you need to get used to, and freehanding them first through this lesson should prepare you a little better for actually using ellipse templates in the next one. If you were just guessing however, you did a pretty good job of it, but do need to be more intentional with the lines you put down.

3. Details really aren't the focus here, my eyes will mostly just tune them out so I can focus on a student's construction.

As for the rebuild, I've basically built the whole website over from the ground up. There were some problems deep in its bones that I wanted to fix, but I wanted to lay the foundation for a community platform to replace the subreddit in the future, but also took the opportunity to present the lesson content in a much more digestible manner. While doing so, I kind of realized that since I have progressed as an instructor since I wrote them, there's a lot I'd do differently now. I'm trying to assess what I actually have time to revise right now, and most of it will be focused on lessons 1 and 2 (with those lessons broken into different pages, each page is going to have an overview video), but I'm going to try and update lessons 3-7 as much as I can (reworked lesson sections, updated demos) in the time that I have til Christmas.

Assuming it doesn't kill me, then I'm gonna take a nice, healthy break where I do nothing. Except critiques I guess, since there's no escaping those.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes"

2018-12-05 04:40

1. A lot of people find it easier to engage the shoulder when drawing while standing up, but I think there's a lot of value in learning to do it when sitting down. Keep employing the exercise covered in the intro video (pivoting from each joint one by one, locking the others, to familiarize yourself with what it feels like) so you can better identify when you're drawing from your elbow vs. your shoulder, and correct yourself whenever you catch yourself drawing from the elbow.

2. I answer this one in this point on the FAQ

These questions should definitely be asked directly on the subreddit rather than here, so others can answer them for you.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2018-12-04 22:47

Your general understanding of the spatial challenges involving cylinders certainly improves over the whole set. I do have to say though, the first page was... questionable. The complete lack of foreshortening doesn't actually make any sense in that particular configuration. It'd only have a chance of working if the ends of the cylinder were of very small degrees, with us only looking at their edges and a tiny bit of their faces and the cylinder running directly up and down in front of us.

For your ellipses here, were you using an ellipse guide? I was going to call out the issue with you not drawing through them as you ought to be (and technically speaking ellipse guides aren't allowed for this lesson, though given that you're heading into lesson 7 I can understand why you may have chosen to use one). ... That, or you just got really, really good at ellipses.

I did notice a distinct lack of ellipses drawn inside of boxes, so that's definitely something you'll want to get some mileage with. Admittedly the challenge page doesn't mention it, though the video does demonstrate it as something to explore.

I'm currently working through a full rebuild of the website along with a revision of all the lesson material, and that's one of the things I'm making clearer. This will all be released for Christmas.

On that note, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Given the release in under 3 weeks, you may want to take a bit of a break and wait for the new content. If not, you're welcome to move onto lesson 7.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 6: Drawing Everyday Objects"

2018-12-04 22:40

There's a lot of good here - specifically the confidence of your linework, and the consistency of your constructions. While there are mistakes with underlying things, you didn't confuse matters and weaken your construction further by attempting to fix them (and thus muddying the waters with several visual answers to the same questions). You stuck to your previous answers and forged forwards, and frankly that is the best way to handle that situation.

Now, there are a number of issues that I'm noticing:

• Your boxes in general (aside from the last two pages where things are a step up from the rest) you have a pretty consistent tendency to draw boxes that are not properly rectilinear. Generally you've got some skewing towards the far end, and issues where the far side is larger than the closer end. By and large this means you do have a fair bit of room to work on your basic boxes, especially with applying the line extension method described in the 250 box challenge to help identify where your mistakes are so you know what to focus on specifically.

• I noticed on the mouse that when drawing the base, you didn't push the far end all the way to the end of the box. There's a little gap there, leaving some definite room for guesswork and general inconsistency. From the looks of it, there are other issues here that cause the back to generally get somewhat skewed, which suggests that on top of this you may not have followed the constructional process as closely as you could have. I mean, the mouse may be lopsided in this fashion, but I don't see anything in your proportional studies to suggest this.

• You mention that you struggled especially with round edges on things. This makes a lot of sense, and is quite normal. The thing to keep in mind is that round edges should be left straight and chisel-sharp for as long as possible. Try to capture them as a chain of straight lines, and only round them out towards the end. The reason for this is that a curve drawn on its own is very vague and doesn't give a clear, precise answer to one of those "constructional questions". By starting with straight lines to summarize the nature of a curve in more specific terms, the curve we draw thereafter ends up feeling a great deal more solid and clear. This also helps in terms of proportions and general construction because sharp corners and straight lines are much easier to deal with.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. You're doing well, but do need to keep an eye on the points I raised. Feel free to move onto the next lesson, but make sure you complete the 250 cylinder challenge first, as there is going to be a lot of that in the next lesson.

Also worth mentioning, for Christmas I'm currently working on a full rebuild of the website as a whole, and with it I plan to deliver a full restructuring of the lesson material, with better demos, and generally better and more pertinent explanations. Given that's about three weeks out, I figured I'd let you know in case you wanted to wait for it or continue onwards.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes"

2018-12-03 21:55

Gripping the pen too tightly is a pretty common problem, as is pressing too hard (which usually comes along with it). It is definitely something that goes away with practice, but by and large it is definitely a harmful practice and a bad habit on both counts (the former to your hand and wrist, the latter to your pen's tip). When it comes to lesson 1 of course, detail is a non-issue, and these kinds of exercises ultimately should help you to develop better general control of your hand and arm.

As for your work, it's coming along quite well. Your linework is looking very confident and smooth, which is helping you maintain consistent trajectories with your strokes and avoid any sort of hesitation or wobbling. This carries over into your ellipses as well, where you're clearly achieving a fairly smooth, even shape. There is perhaps a touch of hesitation here which creates a slightly stiff appearance, so keep pushing yourself to execute your marks with confidence, but by and large you're heading in the right direction.

I think your attempts at being looser in your funnels backfired. They are definitely more difficult, but you seem to have been losing your overall shapes here a bit more than elsewhere. Overall they're still not bad, but rather than just drawing quickly, remember to employ the ghosting method to maintain control.

Your boxes section as a whole is very well done. The plotted and rough perspective boxes are spot on, and you've clearly taken your time to apply the ghosting method to all your freehand lines, and have generally followed the instructions to the letter. Your rotated boxes - both attempts - are looking really quite good, though you're covering your rotations better on the horizontal axis than the vertical axis. There's definite rotation on both which is great, but it just needs to be pushed and exaggerated a little further to cover the full 180 degree arcs. This is, all things considered, very good - I don't expect students to nail either this exercise or the organic perspective boxes, they're instead more about exposing them to a different kind of spatial problem that they may not have otherwise considered.

Lastly, your organic perspective boxes are also coming along very well. You've still got some inconsistencies here and there with the convergences of your sets of parallel lines towards their shared vanishing points, but that is again - completely expected. We'll continue to work on this next.

Also worth mentioning is that I noticed your use of line weight in varying capacities in this exercise. As such, I figured I'd point out that you have a tendency to leave some of your outer lines (those defining the silhouette of each form) a little lighter than some of the internal ones. In general, you should try and keep the inside a touch lighter than those external lines, in order to create the sense of a single cohesive grouped unit (enclosed by slightly heavier lines). When the internal ones are heavier, it breaks apart this illusion of a solid group and makes it feel more like loosely associated lines. Great work pushing into line weight though, that's definitely great to see.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video there before starting on the work, as they go over a couple techniques that'll help you make the most of the exercise.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-12-02 22:18

You made some good calls there in terms of skipping ghosted lines in favour of ghosted planes (I'm working on rebuilding the website and restructuring the lessons for christmas and have actually written in that exercise's new description to do just that), and skipping the plotted perspective as well. That said, sticking to 5 minutes per exercise is still best even if it means you're only going to get a taste of a given exercise.

So with the rotated boxes, I MIGHT spend up to 10 minutes, but really I'm only going to fuss over building up one quadrant rather than the whole thing.

As for doing a few freely rotated boxes, I'd just slot it in as another exercise to add to the pool, as you'll be doing for the exercises in lesson 2 as well. It's all to make sure that you continually get a chance to employ the skills involved in each of these exercises every now and then, rather than letting them get rusty. So even if you only end up doing freely rotated boxes once a week, or even less, it's not such a bad thing.

Lastly, if there's some area of weakness you specifically feel needs more attention, you are welcome to slot those in more frequently, just make you're not letting any of the others get completely ignored.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-12-02 21:06

Thanks for posting them in two locations! I usually prefer imgur because it's much easier to navigate through, but in the case of the challenge being able to see them in order as well was definitely an advantage. Just wanted to let you know that I really do appreciate the extra effort.

You are definitely showing growth in terms of both the confidence of your lines and the overall solidity of your forms, but I am noticing one thing that may have held you back somewhat - you seem to have focused pretty strictly on boxes with very dramatic foreshortening.

This generally suggests one of two things about an object - that it is either very, very large (like when you look at a tall building from the ground, its top is generally much smaller visually than its base) or that it is extremely close to your eye.

What you're missing here are boxes with shallower foreshortening, where the far end is not significantly smaller than the closer end and where the vanishing points are positioned much further from the box itself (often far off the page). This suggests a more relatable, human scale, which is something that will be used frequently.

Now both of these present their own difficulties. With dramatic foreshortening, mistakes become considerably more obvious because you can see the convergence right there on the page. With shallower foreshortening, it becomes easier to accidentally have your edges diverge where they should be converging (albeit subtly).

So, long story short, while you're making solid progress with these more dramatic boxes (and are definitely getting quite consistent with your convergences), you will want to continue to focus on shallower ones as you continue to move forwards. I will be marking this challenge as complete, so you can move onto lesson 2, but be sure to incorporate these into your regular warmup routine as they'll come into play a great deal.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-12-02 20:42

A couple things before we get into the critique. First, I actually fished this post out of the spam filter - my guess is because of the mega.nz link. I'd recommend using some other host (I generally recommend imgur - some people shy aware from it because it fucks up a post's ordering, but I don't mind if images are submitted out of sequence).

The other thing was that it seems you've disabled your flair on this subreddit (on the sidebar of the desktop website you should see a checkbox for "Show my flair on this subreddit"). I use the flair to keep track of who is and isn't eligible for critiques as well as which lessons a student has completed. I'd appreciate it if you could reenable it.

I can definitely see a good deal of improvement in the confidence of your linework and your overall construction. You've definitely put the challenge to good use and by the end your forms feel considerable more solid, and I think the subtle touch of line weight here and there definitely goes a long way towards helping in that area.

There are still some mistakes I'm noticing though, mostly in terms of the convergences of your lines that you'll want to keep an eye on as you continue to move forwards.

Mainly it's one sort of issue that I see in boxes like 246 (green lines), 253 (green lines), 245 (blue lines), 251 (green lines). Basically, these lines tend to converge together in pairs rather than all meeting together at the same point. This usually happens when a student is more focused on the planes to which each edge belongs - you'll find that the pairs that converge early are usually belonging to the same plane.

Instead, try and think about all four lines in a given set - including those that have not yet been drawn - and how they should be converging together. This isn't by any means an uncommon sort of problem, and it's one you'll definitely be able to solve by keeping this in mind as you move forwards.

Also worth mentioning - though you worked while being tired, and it may play a role in these kinds of convergence issues, it doesn't show in your actual linework. That said, if at all possible (I know people have scheduling problems and it's simply not doable otherwise) try and sit down to do this work when you're in a better position to focus, so as to make the best of the time spent.

Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids"

2018-12-02 00:35

You're demonstrating a really strong grasp of form and 3D space here, and as far as the core of drawabox goes, you're barreling down the right path at considerable speed. There are still some minor issues here and there that I'm going to point out, but by and large you're really conveying solid constructions that are in most cases quite believable as well as tangible.

I did most of my critiquing through redlining, which you'll find here. Here are a list of the main issues I noticed:

• Center lines. One of the spatial problems I noticed is that in many of your constructions, your center lines seem somewhat misaligned at times, resulting in forms that don't quite fit together properly. Sometimes the abdomen or head will seem off-center due to the center line of the thorax being misplaced. Also, a pretty common issue of having center lines that are sometimes flatter than they ought to be is present sometimes. Always err on the side of being more voluminous and thinking about how this center line, like any other contour line, would run along the surface of the relevant form. In such matters, thinking about how objects can be separated into distinct planes can help, especially with figuring out where your contour line should be making a considerable change in its trajectory (as though jumping from one plane to another).

• Proportion. We're definitely way more interested in construction, and proportion is something that improves with continued practice, studies, observation, etc. That said it is worth pointing out that you have a tendency to draw very, very large thoraxes. They're usually quite a bit smaller than the abdomens, though this will vary depending on the subject matter.

• Legs. You're using a lot of different techniques here for constructing legs, in regards to how you choose to represent the various sections, from stretched ellipses/balls to cylindrical pipes to sausages. I want you to try and stick to the sausages, as the other two are going to lead to a sense of general stiffness that you'll want to avoid. Even if the legs are complex with a larger mass on one end of a segment than the other, start off with the same kind of simple sausage form and then build up around it as needed. Here's an example of what I mean when I say sausages, though you've done it well in a bunch of places yourself.

So! Keep up the great work, and consider this lesson complete. You may move on and draw da fuzzyfwiends, though I know you've been drawing plenty of them already.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-11-30 21:53

You've got a great deal of improvement here compared to your last set. Your lines are looking much more confident, and as a result are generally much smoother, and your forms are more solid. The general range of mistakes is definitely getting smaller (meaning you're getting more accurate in your estimation) as well.

Marking in the correct line is totally fine, but if at all possible I would recommend doing it in a colour other than the one you used to draw the box initially, just so you can have a visible and logical separation. While at this point there's little risk of this, I generally don't like people correcting things with the same colour lest it develop into a habit of correcting mistakes in their regular drawings.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes"

2018-11-30 21:33

Your work here is really phenomenal. You've followed all of the instructions to the letter, and haven't really stumbled on much of anything. Your linework is confident and persistent without any sign of hesitation. You're applying the ghosting method faithfully, giving the planning and preparation phases the time they need to improve the likelihood of accuracy in your strokes.

This carries over into the other sections as well. Your ellipses are taking advantage of the same confidence to achieve even shapes, even when you're placing them in the awkward confines of the planes where most students struggle against the urge to deform them in order to better occupy the space they're given.

Honestly if I was being super picky, I'd point out that there's maybe just a slight issue with your ellipse funnels, where your alignment is off just a bit. It's barely worth mentioning, but you've left me with very little advice to offer - so that's an area that you may want to focus on as you move forwards. The deviation is minimal though.

I'm very pleased with the patience you exhibit in your boxes section. You're not rushing through them and are clearly devoting the same amount of time for each line as you did in the previous sections. Some students get caught up in the fact that this is the 'boxes' section and end up spending as much time as they would have previously on a single line on a whole box. I'm also glad to see that you applied the double checking method to your rough perspective boxes which actually demonstrated a REALLY high accuracy overall. Most students - and even I myself (though to be fair I'm out of practice with this exercise) - will end up with a bunch that are quite a bit further off the mark when estimating the convergence of lines far from the vanishing point.

The last two exercises are where we get into the territory of things that are really intended to be very challenging for students, and I don't expect them to be successful. I don't even expect this exercises to be particularly tidy, as many students get a bit messy when they're overwhelmed. It's more about exposing students to a different kind of spatial problem, one they may not have otherwise considered.

To start with, you did a great job in keeping the rotated boxes well structured, with narrow, consistent gaps between them. One issue I am seeing however is, as demonstrated here, you've got boxes that ought to be rotated relative to one another, but where their respective edges are converging towards the same vanishing point. That demo image is actually from the rebuild/restructuring of the drawabox lessons that I'm working on at the moment (which will release on christmas with clear do's/don't's for ever exercise). Long story short, it's a pretty common mistake.

Keep in mind how this diagram from the lesson shows how the vanishing points slide along the horizon as a box is rotated.

Lastly, your organic perspective exercise is coming along pretty well. There is room for improvement in terms of keeping the sets of parallel lines converging towards their shared vanishing points, but all things considered you're making great progress. This is also something that is expected, and we'll work on that next.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes and watch the video there (as I'm sure you will), as they go over a number of techniques that'll help you make the most of the exercise.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections"

2018-11-29 22:08

Very nice work on the arrows, especially the first and last pages of that exercise. The middle page there is alright, but it does appear to be considerably sketchier than the others, and a lot less confident.

For the most part, your organic forms with contour ellipses and contour curves are looking okay. They're not great, mostly on account of the fact that you didn't really stick to simple sausage forms like those used in my demo. The simpler ones you did were rather stiff (more like stretched ellipses), and others were complex in a way that did take away from the exercise (stay away from forms that swell or taper arbitrarily through their lengths). You did still apply the technique decently, and I can see clear shifts in your ellipses'/curves' degrees through the length of a form, and you're mostly keeping them snug between the edges rather than spilling out or floating inside in a way that would ruin the illusion.

Do work on drawing your ellipses more confidently though - right now they're a little bit hesitant, which keeps them from being as evenly shaped as they could be.

Your dissections are very well done. A great range of textures, a lot of clear, careful observation, and well thought out approaches to each. My only critique here is that where you have textures that get very hairy or otherwise end up with a lot of black/white packed densely together, fill the whole thing in with black so as to avoid an unintentional focal point. High contrast zones like that are going to draw the eye like a moth to a flame - very useful if done intentionally, but otherwise a liability.

While your form intersections are again, okay, there are a number of things you missed in the instructions that had a negative impact on your result:

• You didn't stick to equilateral forms (forms that are roughly the same size in each dimension), and ended up with a lot of unnecessary foreshortening that overcomplicated the exercise

• Especially with your spheres, you roughed them in and then went over them with a clean-up pass, something I strongly recommended against in the video. Line weight should only be applied to specific local areas, not the entirety of strokes, as to avoid situations where you draw with a slow, more belabored and hesitant stroke, replacing all the underlying confident linework with more wobbly lines.

• I may not actually have instructions against this in this exercise specifically, but try to avoid drawing forms as being very, very small if you can help it. Especially this early on, we need a lot more room to think through spatial problems and drawing things as being cramped is going to make things considerably more difficult for you. For this exercise, it'd be much better to keep everything roughly the same size, as I did in my demo.

Your organic intersections are pretty well done. A bit much in terms of the number of contour ellipses (keep in mind that you should only use as many as you need, overdoing it is not going to make anything better), but your forms are solid and the interactions between them where they sag and slump to support their weight is clearly well understood. So good job there.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but you do have room to improve on some of these. There's no need to go back and redo exercises as far as homework goes, but the exercises from lessons 1 and 2 should be incorporated into a regular warm up routine, picking two or three at the beginning of each sitting to do for 10-15 minutes so as to keep sharpening those skills and to ultimately keep them sharp.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-11-29 21:54

Whew, that's a long time! I'm very pleased that you stuck through it though. There are definite points where I can see your confidence and general awareness of space and form improving - the biggest appears to be around 140, where your boxes start to feel less like a general collection of lines and more like individual, cohesive forms. This generally holds pretty well through the rest of the set, as you continue to improve with the convergences of your lines, though in less overt and obvious ways.

I think the trick to figuring out the back corner is to actually stop thinking about the corners altogether. Your approach doesn't sound wrong or anything, and it's certainly not a bad habit to do things that way, but I generally find that the most success comes from focusing purely on the sets of lines. That is, when you're drawing a line, focus on all the others that share its vanishing point - including those that have not yet been drawn.

By thinking about it this way, you're going to be more aware of their convergences and are going to go to greater lengths to keep them consistent. That's ultimately what throws the back corner off - as we build up our box, the little inconsistencies in the convergences of sets of lines accumulate, and eventually we end up with a back corner (really, a set of 3 back edges that meet at that corner) that simply doesn't work as well as the rest, because it must bear the weight of all the built-up mistakes. It's a symptom, not really the problem.

These notes may help as you continue to move forwards.

Anyway, you've done quite well here, so I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2018-11-29 21:46

Nice job pushing through this challenge. I think you were doing an okay job through the first hundred and fifty or so, but did show some points of sloppiness. Issues with the alignment of your ellipses to your minor axis, generally perhaps being a touch too loose. Things that may have benefited from taking just a little extra time.

By the time you hit around 170 though, you do start to hit your stride, and the overall quality increases. There are still some alignment issues here and there, and some places where your lines wobble, but by and large there's definite improvement.

I'm also pleased to see you playing with constructing your cylinders in boxes, as that's something that will come in very handy in the future (specifically with lessons 6 and 7). Getting acquainted with it now is definitely a good call.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. I do think that you'll want to continue keeping an eye on the alignment of your ellipses to the minor axis, but generally everything looks to be moving in the right direction. Keep up the good work.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2018-11-29 21:41

I can definitely see that this lesson was a challenge for you, and I think a great deal of it was psychological. Drawing animals can be a very daunting task, and sometimes when we embark on something overwhelming, we can find ourselves forgetting things we've learned or simply failing to apply them correctly out of panic - even though we've demonstrated our ability to do so previously. I think that's what's happened here.

Looking back on your insect work, you ended up demonstrating a well developing grasp of construction and form (especially with the first page of your redo), but here there's a lot that falls short. While there are a lot of specific issues that I could point out, I've decided to do that through redlining a few pages. Ultimately you can take a look at them, but don't worry too much about those specifics.

The problem is more likely a matter of some panic (as mentioned above), as well as a matter of forgetting the lesson material before having the chance to apply it and not rereading it or rewatching the demos. As a result, you worked with what little you remembered and guessed the rest.

So instead of tackling each mistake I see directly, we're going to start with a bit of a clean slate and a few extra demos:

• Wolf demo. This is one of the most detailed demos I've got, and generally tends to be the most helpful. I'm going to be incorporating it into the lesson itself once I'm done with the website rebuild I'm currently working through.

• Tiger head demo. A detailed demo on head construction.

• Antelope head demo. Another one, though less detailed.

I want you to do 6 more pages of animal drawings. All of these should include no detail or texture (you generally didn't bother with that before which is fine, but I did see a bit of fur here and there, don't worry about that this time around).

The first page should be you drawing along with the wolf demo. Follow it to the letter, each step, but skip step 9.

Based on your previous work, I really do think you're capable of much better than this, and that you just let things get a little ahead of you.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids"

2018-11-28 22:19

These are looking pretty good! I have a couple additional things to call out, but overall you're doing fairly well so I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.

I think you start to hit a point of confidence and comfort when you hit your potato bugs - before that your linework is still somewhat clunky. Overall though, I do want to stress the importance of drawing your ellipses and ellipse-like forms with confidence. Drawing through them like we did in lesson 1 and 2 is still critical to keep up that confidence and maintain even shapes, and at times (especially early on) you did suffer from ellipses that were drawn too slowly and too carefully.

On your grasshoppers and your praying mantis, there is a tendency I saw in how you approached the segmentation along their abdomens. I remember pointing this issue out to another studio, and still have the notes I put together. Basically the segmentation doesn't really feel like it's wrapping around the form convincingly. This is especially the case with the praying mantis because you covered most of it up, rather than drawing that segmentation and then drawing on top of it. Drawing through your forms helps a great deal in cases like this, because you still have to be able to grasp how these layers are wrapping around the form underneath.

There is some improvement on that front, but I do generally feel like the contour lines from your segmentation tends to be kind of shallow.

Your scorpions are looking really good - very solid in their construction, despite having a lot going on.

Lastly, one thing I didn't see a whole lot of was constructing legs using sausages for each segment. You still seem to have approached your legs with more complex forms as a basis rather than relying on this fairly simple approach. Simple is always going to lead to a more solid result, even if the legs themselves have a lot going on. You can always build up forms steadily on top of that foundation.

Anyway, like I said. Definitely improving in a lot of areas. Feel free to move onto lesson 5.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-11-27 21:13

Very nice work! The fact that this is your second time around the box challenge definitely shows, as you start from a position of experience. That said, I can see some more subtle improvements with your linework as well as the construction of your boxes, and I believe the line extensions are definitely helping a fair bit.

Looking at your later work, there are still some places where you tend to have one line out of your sets that doesn't quite run consistent with the others, so that is something you'll want to continue to work on. Out of the four of a given set, it's generally one of the middle two - this is a common problem I see, and you can help resolve it by thinking about the angle at which these lines leave the vanishing point. Usually the middle two of a given set will have a fairly small angle between them where they originate, and this angle becomes negligible by the time they reach the box. At that point it's usually fair to just draw them as being parallel to one another. These notes explain this concept further.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge complete, so keep up the good work. I do want you to move onto lesson 2 next - ultimately while the previous work you've done has certainly set you up in a better position to tackle this work, it's effectively out of date, and the results themselves aren't going to be of much value to me. I need to see a current attempt at the material so I can continue to identify areas of weakness that are currently relevant.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-11-26 21:06

Overall you're showing a good deal of progress. That said, even if you weren't, I'd backhand you for presenting your boxes as "shitty". On one hand, a lot of this is about confidence and mindset, but more than that, among a lot of people it tends to be a strategy (whether intentional or not) to preempt criticism. If you come up front declaring your work to be of poor quality, then any negatives raised in the review become somewhat moot and loose their sting. When sharing this stuff with others, put forward your most confident face and have some pride - even if it's not entirely real yet.

So by and large you've done a pretty good job with this set, and show progress with your linework and the solidity of your constructions. There's still room for growth of course, both in the confidence of those lines (to keep them smooth) as well as in getting your lines to converge consistently towards their shared vanishing points, but you've definitely come a long way.

When it comes to the latter, I am noticing that you have a tendency to have one of those lines veer off on its own path, while the other three remain fairly consistent. Usually it's one of the middle two of any given set, which also tends to be the that has a close neighbour, since the middle two are usually going to be following a very similar trajectory.

For this reason, it's important to think about all the lines that belong to a given set when drawing one of its members - including those that haven't yet been drawn. Think about the angle at which they all leave their vanishing point, and the angle between it and its neighbours. When you find a pair that actually leaves at a fairly similar trajectory, the angle between them is going to become quite negligible by the time it reaches the box, meaning you can generally just draw them as being perfectly parallel to one another rather than guessing their relationship.

I explain this further in these notes.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2018-11-25 16:42

So about the shapes, a good example of that is with the hippo, especially its legs. There's not a whole lot that's gone into conveying how those forms are solid and three dimensional, so right now it feels like each element added is more like a flat sticker pasted on top. The sausage method should definitely help in that area. The hippo's torso is definitely better.

I mainly pointed it out because it was something you were moving away from, but still did have some struggles with.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2018-11-25 03:20

Aaaaand we have a breakthrough! Fantastic work. You've clearly followed the wolf demo much more carefully and patiently, and then applied the same principles to your other drawings to great effect. While there's still room for growth and improvement, at this point it's just a matter of practicing these same approaches and getting more comfortable with them.

As such, I'll be marking this lesson as complete, so you're free to move onto the next one.

I did mention that I'd get into texture a little bit once your construction was well on its way, so I'll do that now. In your first submission, you had attempted to apply details in a variety of ways - some were more successful, some less so, but there were clear techniques that worked, and others that didn't.

One that didn't work out was when you were attempting to draw fur, like on these wolf. You drew the fur in a repeating zigzagging pattern along the silhouette - it was effectively on autopilot, drawing simple rigid spikes over and over. It was an approach you used to draw many of these spikes very quickly.

Now, compare that to the feathers on the bottom pigeon's wings on this page. Notice how you drew each layered feather separately? It came out quite well, because you thought through each individual component that was being added. You didn't add a whole lot of them, but each one you did was designed intentionally.

So that's the trick - you don't necessarily have to cover something in spiky fur, but the fur you do add needs to be designed carefully. You can't go on auto-pilot, you have to draw each tuft individually. Here's one demonstration of this technique with a raccoon. Here I do draw a fair bit of fur, but each tuft is separate. I also purposely lift my pen from the page whenever the trajectory changes at a hard corner so I don't risk muddying my lines. It's actually kind of similar to how we handle edge detail on leaves.

Anyway, as I mentioned - you're free to move onto lesson 6.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2018-11-25 02:59

This is definitely looking much better, and much more in line with the concepts and techniques we're exploring with drawabox. There are a few hiccups here and there however, but by and large you're doing much better.

There are definitely still some places where you're jumping in with more complexity than you should, too early - for example, the cow's head, specifically its muzzle. As shown here, try to use a simpler box form with straighter, smoother lines (you may actually have a box under there, but the lines are rather wobbly so the result doesn't convey much solidity). I'm also noticing, on that same construction, a lot of scratchy lines. Try and pull back a little and think through each mark you're putting down, whether or not it's actually going to contribute to the overall drawing. It's definitely a lot less messy than before, but that's something you're going to need to continue to work on.

When you're adding additional masses to your constructions - for example, the camel - you need to treat it more like the organic intersections from lesson 2. The way you're doing it right now, due to the way it meets the torso in a straighter, flatter line, feels a bit too flimsy. Instead you need to think of it more like putty or a blob of firm clay that has been placed on top, and that is sagging over it as shown here.

The hippo's open mouth drawing did go too well, though it seems more of an experimental thing off to the side where not much construction was employed, so I'll leave that alone. Nothing wrong with experimentation.

The last thing I wanted to mention was that your leg constructions. Some of them are coming out well (like your camel's), though many others don't quite fair so well. It would be a good idea for you to look at the wolf demo again, specifically how I tackle legs with intersecting sausage forms which are reinforced with a single contour curve at each joint and none through their lengths. This gives them a sense of flow and rhythm while maintaining solidity. Your camel's legs definitely feel solid, though at times a bit stiff, and others like the hippo's end up feeling quite flat.

I am going to mark this lesson as complete, as you've made considerable progress and are moving in the right direction. You do however need to continue pushing against your own instincts to sketch roughly, overuse contour lines where they don't necessarily serve much purpose, and generally work more in shape rather than form. I think that the speed at which you've pushed through these lessons is definitely a factor, as it does take a great deal of time for all of this to coalesce and sink in, and so while your earlier work was fantastic, you're hitting that ceiling where you need to process the material more.

I actually do think the next lesson will do you some good - organic constructions like insects and animals are pretty forgiving in ways hard surface, geometric constructions are not. I believe it'll force you to deal more in form and solidity in a way that will benefit your drawing skills as a whole.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections"

2018-11-22 21:47

You've done quite well! By and large you're showing a pretty good grasp of space and the interaction between forms, and the general concepts covered in this lesson.

In your arrows, in the first page I noticed that while they all flowed quite nicely, they were definitely visibly limited to the space defined by the flat page you were drawing on. In the second page, you pushed more into playing with all three dimensions, so keep pushing yourself in that direction, thinking about how one end is farther away from the viewer, and the other is closer.

Your organic forms with contour lines - both curves and ellipses are very well done. You're capturing a strong illusion of volume, are shifting your degrees nicely over the length of the forms, and are also doing a good job of capturing the right curvature near the edges to emphasize the illusion that they're wrapping around the forms and continuing along the other side.

Your dissections are a great start, and it's clear that you're observing your references closely to identify the visual elements that are present and how they are spread out over the surfaces. There are two things that I did notice however. One, specifically on the leaf, you got a bit too caught up in the leaf itself and didn't quite capture the curvature of the form itself - the surface itself flattened out. Remember that the textures ultimately must still convey the warping of the surface underneath, and that the textures must always be submissive to the dominant form.

The other thing I noticed was that you do still have trouble transitioning from dense detail to sparser areas. This is entirely normal and I by no means expect you to have a handle of this just yet. What I do want to suggest however is that you try and think of the marks you put down for these textures as being representative of the shadows cast by the smaller forms that are present along the surface. By thinking of them as cast shadows rather than actual lines that enclose the forms, we are given a lot more flexibility. Cast shadows can be grouped with their neighbours to create larger shadow shapes. They can also be blasted away by direct light to create a sort of lost-and-found effect, which can be very useful in transitioning from dense to sparse detail. And lastly, they are almost never fully enclosing the forms that cast them. You can check out the exercises on the 25 texture challenge for more information on this.

I can definitely see your confidence increasing with your form intersections with each page. From the start you are doing a good job of nailing the main element I'm looking for - your ability to draw these forms within the same scene as being consistent and cohesive, rather than contradicting each other or becoming spatially inconsistent. The intersections themselves are really just something I want you to try, and you'll continue to improve with them as you move through the lessons and further develop your understanding of space. That said, you definitely do make considerable strides from the first page to the last, and end up doing a pretty good job.

As for line weight, I generally use it to make places where my lines overlap one another much clearer, and to give a sense of organization and hierarchy. Where two forms overlap, by giving just a little more weight to the overlapping section of the form in front, I can show the viewer that the line with the heavier weight is ahead. Also, doing so when it is unclear which lines belong to which forms (as sometimes this can get confusing) can help clarify such things, by separating the lines into one set that has a lighter weight, and another that has a heavier weight, within that area of confusion.

Lastly, your organic intersections are very well done, and you're doing a great job of conveying how these forms sag and slump against one another in a very convincing way.

Keep up the good work. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2018-11-20 21:12

Very nice work! You've definitely improved with the confidence of your constructions, as well as the evenness of your elliptical shapes. Overall your control is coming along great, and the alignment to those minor axes looks solid. One thing on that last point though - try and get the minor axis to extend all the way through the cylinder (or rather, draw the ellipses such that they're completely sitting on the minor axis rather than roughly centered on its end points), as it's a good habit that'll continually remind you of the necessary alignment for the ellipses.

Also, I'm glad you threw in some cylinders in boxes - it's definitely something I'm going to mention more explicitly as part of the challenge (I'll be updating the video for it at christmas). It's pretty helpful especially as you get into lesson 7, so I'd recommend adding some of those box-cylinders into your warmups.

Anyway I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections"

2018-11-20 20:51

Ahh! I was a bit worried with the speed at which you'd returned - it's good to see that it doesn't mean you rushed. Your work is overall quite well done! You're implementing the concepts covered in the lesson well, and are demonstrating a good grasp of them.

Your arrows flow very nicely through space, exploring all three dimensions of space rather than being limited to the two dimensions defined by the page you're drawing on. Your organic forms, both with contour ellipses and contour lines convey strong volumes and a good sense of form, and both align well to the forms' minor axes and wrap convincingly around their surfaces.

Your dissections definitely demonstrate the time and patience spent outside of this exercise, with the studies you mentioned. You're clearly aware of all the elements and features of each texture, and do a great job of applying them to the basic organic form in a way that communicates their surface qualities to the viewer without demanding too much of their attention and becoming distracting. The details balance quite well, and your use of line weight and cast shadows is effective in ensuring that things don't get too overwhelming.

Your form intersections demonstrate both a solid grasp of the main spatial awareness I'm looking for - that is, being able to draw these forms in a manner that is consistent across the set within the same space - as well as with the more advanced intersections between them. I don't by any means expect students to be able to nail those intersections, and ask just that they give it a shot to get those wheels turning for the future. That said, you've shown here that you're already well on your way, and already understand how these forms interact in space to a pretty solid degree.

I did notice that your spheres are a little on the weaker side - it's normal, as perfect circles are difficult to achieve, but that's an area you're going to want to continue working on, to keep them evenly shaped. Also, when you add line weight to clarify overlaps, I noticed that you were doing so only to local areas, which is great and exactly what I want to see. Just be sure to push yourself to draw those sections more confidently, and try and work in a bit of tapering towards the beginning and end of the line to blend it back into the original stroke. It's a bit of an ask and certainly isn't an easy task, but keep working on it and you'll find it gets easier with time.

Lastly, your organic intersections demonstrate a good understanding of how those forms interact with one another, how they slump and sag where their weight is not supported, and so on. Don't be afraid with those cast shadows though - right now they're clinging pretty closely to the form casting them. Remember that those shadows are projected onto the surface below them, even if that surface is farther away. Think about how those shadows might end up getting extended a great deal, and don't be afraid to stretch them across a surface as needed.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next lesson, and keep up the great work.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-11-19 21:43

This is getting better, and your line quality has improved as well. You should be good to move onto lesson 2, but there are a few things that you need to continue to keep an eye on:

• You still tend to have one line in your sets that goes awry - it's almost always one of the middle two (rather than the two outer lines). When drawing your sets of parallel lines, try and think about the angle between the line you're drawing and the others in its set as they leave the vanishing point. If you have a very small angle between two lines, then by the time they reach the box the difference in trajectory will be negligible. This means you'll be able to draw those lines as being virtually parallel to one another. I explain this further in these notes.

• Put some more variance in the orientations of your boxes - yours here are pretty much all oriented roughly the same way.

As you continue to move forwards, be sure to include some freely rotated boxes into your regular warmup routine, as this is an area that is definitely going to continue to require training.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-11-18 21:24

Nice work! I can definitely see a considerable improvement in your awareness of how these forms sit in space, and the relationships between the various members of a given set of parallel lines. Eventually you hit your stride and really start to nail them more consistently.

I have two suggestions to make, as you continue to move forwards:

• Firstly, when drawing a line, think about the angle at which it's going to leave its vanishing point, and how that relates to the angle of the other lines in its same set. Reason being, if you have two lines that depart from the VP with a pretty small angle between them, then that difference becomes even more negligible by the time they reach the box, and they run effectively parallel to one another. Being aware of this can help you to avoid issues where those lines accidentally converge too quickly. I explain this further in these notes.

• Also, I noticed that you definitely took to your line weight with gusto. As you move forwards, try to be a little less heavy handed with it. The thing to keep in mind with line weight is that it's all about the relationships between the lines - when one line is a little heavier than another, the subconscious picks up on it, and interprets that information in a meaningful way. When you go overboard and make things WAY thicker, then it's kind of akin to screaming at the viewer rather than gently whispering in their ear. The latter is really what you want to go for. That said, this is generally the first step, before learning to achieve those subtle shifts, so keep up the good work.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2. Oh, and since you drew 252, you're going to have to pick two of these and take them out behind the shed. We only brought enough food for two-fifty.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-11-18 21:15

Very nice work! I think you're doing great, and I can see clear trends of improvement, and a shift in how you think about the lines you're drawing in relation to the different elements of the construction. There are still a few places here and there where lines that are particularly close in orientation end up going off at weird angles here and there, but they become considerably less common throughout, and by the end appear to be more like outliers.

That said, it does help to think about the angles at which a line leaves its vanishing point, and how that relates to those of other lines within the same set. I explain this further in these notes, but the short of it is that if two lines leave the vanishing point with a minimal angle between them, then by the time they reach the box they're basically running nearly parallel to one another, and can be drawn as such.

Anyway, keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2018-11-18 20:47

This is definitely better. There are still some issues, and I'll address them in a second, but by and large your constructions are much more solid and complete than they were previously.

On your attempts on following the wolf demo, you definitely didn't follow it as closely as you could have, and there were a number of things you missed:

• You're not drawing through your ellipses, which results in ellipses that aren't as evenly shaped as they could be, since you're drawing more slowly and carefully. Remember, everything should be drawn with the same confident, persistent pace, and you must be drawing through each ellipse at least two full times before lifting your pen.

• I can see that in the cranial ball, you did make some attempt to reinforce it with contour curves/ellipses to make it feel more solid, though you definitely need work with your basic ball constructions. For the ribcage mass, you really only drew an uneven ellipse and didn't go far enough to make it feel solid. Our constructions rely heavily on our own belief that we're working with solid, concrete forms, so it's extremely important that at every stage we've done as much as we can to convince ourselves that these things are 3D forms in a three dimensional world, not just flat lines on a flat page.

• In step 3, I talk about constructing the legs with sausage forms and reinforcing their joints with a single contour line. You're generally not doing this - sometimes you utilize stretched ellipses, which aren't the same thing. A sausage is basically two balls connected by a tube of consistent width. I explain this further in these notes.

• You generally leave out the whole shoulder muscle mass. Look closer at my demo, you'll see that I'm blocking in a pretty large mass right at the shoulder, and that the whole of the foreleg is built out from it.

• The additional mass we add to the rump is pretty different between my demo and your attempts. In yours, it feels like a flat shape that has been added without much consideration for how it's going to wrap around the underlying form. In mine, it curves along that surface.

• Don't colour in areas you feel should be black - the local colour of things is entirely irrelevant to our constructions, and it makes it a lot harder for you to think through how those things exist as 3D forms. So in this case, I'm referring to the eyes and noses.

• Watch how you construct the paws - you're often just leaving them with simple blobs without any real thought as to what you're actually trying to capture. If you look at mine, they are indeed simple, but there's an understanding of how they're touching the ground, and how they exist in three dimensions.

The biggest thing that's holding you back is fundamentally at the core of construction as a whole. I mentioned it above, but it's the idea that we are telling the viewer a lie. We're drawing lines on a flat page, but we want them to believe that we are presenting them with a solid, three dimensional object that exists in 3D space.

When we start out drawing, we focus very much on the idea that we are in fact selling an illusion. That we are in fact just drawing lines on a flat page, that we're in on the secret and are fooling others. The singular most important thing that is to change as we continue to practice construction and build up our skills is that we stop existing as the mastermind, the person fooling others. We learn to believe in the illusion, to buy into the lie. We stop seeing what we draw as lines on a page, and start to understand each and every part as a solid form. The page itself becomes just a window into a larger 3D space that is not bound by the edges of the piece of paper.

That is why we employ these techniques. Construction, drawing through forms, contour lines, etc. They're not about fooling the viewer, they're about tricking ourselves. Once you truly believe that the forms you draw are three dimensional, the way you interact with them changes. If you draw a circle on a page, believing that it is a sphere, and you go to draw a line across it, it will be fundamentally impossible for you to draw a straight line. Your line will curve along its three dimensional surface.

This doesn't come immediately, and there's no trick to make it happen immediately - but understanding that this is the goal, and that this is the purpose behind all of these techniques will help. Your main target is to learn to understand what you draw as being 3D - not just lines on a page.

Now, this visibly improves over the set. I picked on the wolf constructions at the beginning because it did show places where you weren't following along as closely as you could have, but you did learn a great deal from it regardless. Even into the top of this page the way you're dealing with the orientation of that wolf, with its front visible, and the way it's sitting in space shows an increased grasp of space.

There are however still a lot of places where you're skipping steps, or misusing techniques.

• On the tiger here your construction lines are faint at best, and you're very clearly more focused on drawing unimportant details like the stripes.

• On the cat above, the contour curves along its torso are running in the wrong direction - they ought to be curving in the opposite direction considering the way the cat is oriented. You've also either neglected to draw the ribcage mass, or drawn it way too small (remember that the ribcage occupies about half the torso's length). That said, the back legs do feel quite solid.

There's a lot of room for improvement, but you are making good headway. I did mention before that I'd get into texture/fur this time, but I still feel we need to make more gains in terms of your use of construction before we add that on top. So, here's what I want:

• Follow along with the wolf demo again, but more carefully, taking into consideration what I mentioned above. Give it several attempts again if you feel it's necessary.

• Another four other animal drawings, employing what you've learned so far. Your focus is construction - don't try to hide it. Draw through your ellipses, use sausage forms for the segments of your legs, and draw bigger on the page. Right now you're fitting two onto each page. Turn the page 90 degrees and use the whole thing for a single drawing. More space will help you work through these spatial problems. Lastly, don't fill areas like the eyes or noses with black. Imagine that what you're drawing is all fully solid white.

You can remind me again in your next submission about the fur/texture stuff, and if I feel you're ready I'll get into it then.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2018-11-18 20:10

By and large you're doing a pretty good job, though there are a few areas where you're straying from the core principles of construction - that is, never add complexity that cannot be supported by the scaffolding that already exists.

This comes up in a few places. First off, in your leaves - notice how you've got all those wavy edges? At the core of it, construction focuses on keeping us from making too many critical decisions all at once. So we'll draw the simplest leaf shape first, with basic arcing edges, to make the decision of how this leaf overall is going to flow through space, then we'll build the wavier edge detail on top of that underlying structure. That way we can focus on our edges without having to worry about how the whole shape is meant to flow through space. You can see this demonstrated in this demo.

Also, don't draw waves by zigzagging a stroke back and forth without lifting your pen. Always rise off the line from the previous stage of construction, then come back down to it and lift your pen. Wherever the trajectory breaks, lift your pen. If the edges are particularly spiky rather than wavy, lift your pen off at the end of the spike, then draw the stroke coming back down separately.

I can also see that you had a lot of experimentation on the second page wit how exactly to build on top of that simpler form, working both additively and subtractively. Wherever possible, I recommend that you avoid cutting back into a form you've constructed. It's generally better to work in a manner that allows you to continually build up onto forms - to treat what you've drawn as being solidly present within the world.

Now, remember that this means additive construction in 3D space. If you look at the demo I linked previously, you'll see that along the bottom edge, I've got waves that cut back into the silhouette of the form - but in 3D space, these are not actually cutting away, they're edges that have been raised up.

Throughout your work you do use construction pretty well in a lot of other places, but there are a few key points where the concept of "simple -> complex" can be employed more effectively. For instance, on this page, the big bulbous thing towards the upper right. Personally, I'd have constructed a ball, ensured that it felt solid and three dimensional, then built up around it, like this.

Same goes for the peas - you should be making sure those aren't just loose circles, but rather solid, concrete ball forms.

The last thing I wanted to mention was that you'll want to continue paying attention to your branches exercises - right now they're pretty shaky:

• Make sure they're not getting pinched, keep their widths consistent even if this means putting a couple more ellipses along the way

• Draw through your ellipses

• Extend your line segments more past a given ellipse, but continue practicing getting them to aim towards the next ellipse. Remember that the goal is to get your next segment to flow directly on top of the previous one so they merge seamlessly together. Aiming them correctly tends to be difficult when they're too short, and what you don't want to see is a bunch of little stray ends of these segments sticking out.

And here are some extra demos for the road:

• Noticed you did a morel mushroom, I had a demo for that tucked away.

• I didn't see any leaves that required this technique in your set, but it's good to know anyway: https://i.imgur.com/xAvcrkT.png

• Some general pitfalls I see from students around this stage.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so you may move onto the next one - but be sure to continue working on the points I've raised here.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 6: Drawing Everyday Objects"

2018-11-18 19:17

Despite your hiatus, I see no signs of you getting rusty. Your work here is fantastic, and your general awareness of space and thorough use of construction is extremely impressive. On top of that, you're still exhibiting the same sort of confident, consistent linework throughout.

There are a few places where I think - if I'm going to be picky - where you could probably control yourself just a little bit more. Places where you've reinforced lines with additional strokes, like on the initial box for the pressure gauge. To be completely honest I'm not overly concerned with that, but that sort of thing does usually suggest that the student hasn't necessarily put enough time into planning and preparing than they could have (given that their initial mark left them wanting enough to make a second). Still, it's something you'd see me doing as well, and I'm largely grasping for ways to keep myself relevant as an instructor here.

Your strategy for your ellipses are pretty much correct from where I'm standing - starting with a plane/box, constructing within them, etc. Your main areas of practicing this are going to be the ellipses in planes exercises and the cylinder challenge work, while incorporating the principles covered in this video (which is introduced in lesson 7, though also in the cylinder challenge), which sets out criteria for determining whether or not an ellipse meets the requirements for representing a circle in 3D space and allows us to check for errors similarly to how we employ line extensions in the box challenge. The next version of the 'how to draw a cylinder' video, which will be coming out for christmas, will outline this in more explicit terms.

The short of it is that it's just a matter of practice. Ellipses are extremely difficult to control, and while they're an incredibly important tool for ideation, sketching, and rougher work, you'll find most people using them in finished work using tools like ellipse guides to nail them properly.

That said, your ellipses are considerably better in most other drawings, aside from maybe the end of the spout on your kettle.

Throughout the lesson, all of your constructions feel remarkably solid, and your use of line weight helps bring each object out of its scaffolding without giving any impression of "replacing" linework or stiffening the results. So, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 7 - I'm sure you'll knock that one out of the park as well.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections"

2018-11-18 00:09

You're generally doing a pretty decent, though there are a few things I want to point out. Before I get to the drawings though, I do want to mention that the photo quality is pretty poor and does make it harder to critique. Also, I strongly recommend that you use a different sketchbook moving forwards. The size and the way this one doesn't lay flat are both going to give you trouble. Working on smaller pages really restricts your ability to think through spatial problems, and obviously having a sketchbook that doesn't lay flat can be distracting.

So for the drawings, you're doing a pretty good job with the arrows - they flow nicely through space and explore all three dimensions, rather than just those defined by the flat page.

It seems like you didn't include a picture of your organic forms with contour ellipses - I can see a bit of them on the side of the arrows though. A couple things on that front. Firstly, you're not drawing through your ellipses - this is something you should be doing for each and every ellipse you draw for my lessons. Instead of being confident and even, yours are a little stiff, where you've slowed your pace down to keep things accurate, and this has definitely impacted the flow of that linework. Secondly, you're generally sticking to simpler sausage forms as far as I can see, which is great - there's a couple there that are very fat to one end and tapered on the other. Stick to the ones that maintain a consistent width throughout their length.

Also, this could just be the lighting, but it does seem like you've gone over your organic forms with a white coloured pencil, or something to create a bit of a sheen effect. Don't add additional components to the exercises, just stick to the instructions as they're written. Especially with these kinds of exercises, I don't want students getting caught up in trying to apply lighting/shading to their forms, because they'll end up relying on them as crutches for making things appear 3D. I don't cover shading at all because I want students to learn to convey the illusion of form with these constructional techniques alone.

Your organic forms with contour curves are looking pretty good, but definitely work larger. Getting that cramped is definitely going to make things more difficult for you, in a way that'll slow down your progress. Also watch your alignment to the minor axis line - you're close, but there are a few places here and there where your contour curves slant a little. We want to aim to have them running perpendicular to the flow of the form.

A few pages here do look like they've been drawn in pencil - like some of your dissected organic forms, and some of your form intersections. All the homework you submit needs to be done in ink only.

Your work with your dissections is pretty great. At times it's hard to make things out, but you're very clearly paying careful attention to your reference images, and are doing a great job of carrying that detail over in a purposeful, intentional manner. You're also organizing those details nicely, and are picking up on the fact that most of the lines we put down here represent the shadows cast by the little forms along the surfaces. This allows you to control just how dense or sparse the texture's going to be in any particular location, which is great to see. The only area that I want to draw your attention to is actually getting the textures to wrap around the forms convincingly. Here you seem to be a little hit and miss. The.. wood louse? on this page definitely ended up flattening out, as did the cobblestone. Always try and compress the texture along the edges, where the surface turns away from the viewer.

Your form intersections are coming along, though again - more space definitely would have helped. Also, in the instructions I mentioned that you should stay away from overly stretched/elongated forms like long tubes, long cones, etc. and stick to those that are more equilateral. This helps keep the focus on how these forms are all interacting with one another, without bringing overly complex foreshortening and perspective into the mix. That said, your understanding of how these forms intersect and relate to each other is definitely coming along - there's plenty of room for growth, but you're on the right track.

Finally, your organic intersections are looking quite good, and convey a good sense of how these forms sag and slump against one another where their weight is no longer supported by the masses beneath them. They all feel quite solid and convey a strong sense of mass. The one issue I noticed however was that your shadows felt like they were attached more to the forms casting them. Always remember that a shadow is projected onto another surface, and is going to wrap around that surface regardless of how far away it is from the object casting it. I think you're on the verge of grasping that properly, but need to work at it a little before it'll fully click.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto lesson 2. I strongly recommend that you work on something like A4 printer paper, as that'll give you a lot more room to work and will be much easier to take pictures of - but I imagine that you may be making some concessions considering that you live in a house that is regularly invaded by tiny humans.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 6: Drawing Everyday Objects"

2018-11-17 02:50

Yup, of course.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2018-11-17 00:14

These are excellent! Very solid construction, and you've clearly taken your time with every aspect of it. Keep up the fantastic work and consider this lesson complete. You're welcome to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 6: Drawing Everyday Objects"

2018-11-17 00:08

It's really great to hear that you've been able to push your focus to over an hour. That is among some of the lesser goals I have for students, and it's why I stress the importance of taking breaks early on when one starts to get sloppy or bored - the idea that patience and focus is something that develops over time, and that one needs to be patient with themselves. I'm glad you were able to find a solution that worked for you.

You've done some pretty good work here. There are a couple points I'm going to raise, but by and large you're demonstrating a good grasp of the constructional concepts covered here, and you're clearly focusing on the important aspects. You're mindful of how your forms relate to one another, and you're never really leaning too hard or too early on curving, organic forms. These can often feel easier to work with, but when dealing with geometric constructions such as these, it's important to keep everything well controlled using straight lines, only rounding things off at the end.

So here are the two points where we can see some improvement:

• First off, since you've been going through drawabox for a long while, you likely didn't see one of the techniques I've been pushing as part of the 250 box challenge for the last year or so. In this exercise, after a student is done with a page of boxes, they go back over the page, extending all of the lines they've drawn towards their implied vanishing point. This allows them to see where their convergences have issues, and highlights problems they may not have otherwise noticed, and allows them to identify what they need to be thinking about for their next page of boxes. I've applied the technique to one of your weaker boxes in this lesson. Here we can see where some of your edges veered off too much and ended up intersecting with other lines far too early, well before their intended VP. You definitely had other boxes/constructions that were much stronger, but I still think it'd be useful for you to work a few freely rotated boxes into your warmup routine, and apply this technique to help continue sharpening those skills.

• The other issue has to do with your linework. Your lines are confident and smooth, which is great. The only issue is that you have a tendency to have strokes disappear, especially where they're meant to meet others at the corner of a form. While internal lines can actually benefit from this sort of lost-and-found tapering, and the tapering itself helps give a lot of life to your linework, it is important that the silhouettes of your forms be solid and complete, otherwise it'll undermine the believability of your constructions. If you end up missing the end point that way, you can go over it with another stroke - just be sure to ghost through it and apply all the preparation techniques before executing the mark, rather than drawing it immediately (which can often look quite sloppy).

Anyway! Keep up the great work and consider this lesson complete. Feel free to move onto the next one - though you MAY want to take a look at the cylinder challenge, or at least get some practice with cylinders before tackling lesson 7. I noticed your objects here were a bit light on the cylinders, so you may not yet have enough experience with them to tackle vehicles.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2018-11-16 23:49

The good:

• You're demonstrating a well developing grasp of 3D space. You clearly have a sense of how the objects you're constructing sit in space, and this definitely improves over the course of the set. You're able to manipulate forms and masses quite well.

• You're showing reasonably strong observational skills - you're not getting stuck drawing symbols or working from memory - the marks you put down do reflect believable features and elements to each construction.

The bad:

• You're getting a little ahead of yourself, and are forgetting that this is a drawabox lesson. The short of it is: you're rushing, your drawings are sketchy and messy, and you're not employing any restraint. There's no line economy here, and many of your drawings end up being quite messy. That's not inherently bad, but it isn't the approach we're using here. You need to be applying the ghosting method to each and every mark you put down. You have to think, before you move to place a mark on the page, whether or not this mark is going to contribute to what you're trying to communicate to the viewer, or if it's going to help you understand your construction better. If it does, then you go through the ghosting process to put the mark down. If it doesn't, or if what you want your mark to accomplish is already being done by another mark - or if there's another mark that could do it better - you simply don't draw it.

• Connected to the previous point, your use of construction is generally pretty loose. One of the core aspects of the construction we're covering here is that every form we add to our construction exists as a solid mass in a 3D world. We then build onto them - we don't use them as loose suggestions, elements that float around in relation to one another. We fit everything together snugly, so every form or mass is grounded on something else, and we can gradually build up complexity without losing the illusion of solidity. Though it's the first page, this one demonstrates this problem very well. See how the ribcage is floating arbitrarily inside of the body?

Ultimately every mark, shape or form we put down on the page is an answer to a question. Once that question is answered, we must adhere to it - even if that answer is wrong. For example, how big is the ribcage mass on an animal? Once you've drawn in that solid form, you can't go back to change your answer by simply drawing a larger torso around it, encompassing the original one. The reason is that now you'll have multiple visual elements on the page that now point to different, contradictory answers. These contradictions undermine the overall cohesiveness of the construction, and make it all less believable. Think of it as though your construction is like a group of people who are all trying to tell the same lie. If their lies don't match up, then they're not going to be very convincing.

Now, if you need to make the ribcage bigger, there are ways of doing that - by simply finding new questions to answer. We can add masses (similar to how we pile organic forms on top of each other in the lesson 2 organic intersections exercise) to the existing form to further build it out - the difference here is that this process requires us to treat both the original form and the addition as being solid forms that exist in 3D space. At no point are we trying to ignore the original form - we're working with it and building on top of it.

• Lastly, your rushed, sloppy, sketchy approach results in a lot of texture and details that have little to no effort behind them. Every mark you put down should be designed and considered carefully - fur isn't just a mess of random lines, it's a purposeful arrangement of tufts, each designed individually and laid out to communicate an idea without becoming distracting as demonstrated here. If you're not going to put thought and planning into something, simply don't draw it. It's not a required part of each drawing, focusing entirely on construction is entirely fine too.

So, before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to do at least 6 more pages of animal drawings. Take your time, don't rush. Also worth mentioning, you've effectively torn through lessons 1-4 and the box/cylinder challenges pretty quickly, and have submitted quite a few times relative to the pledges you've maintained. As such, I want you to hold off on your resubmission until December.

Edit: I forgot to mention, take a look at these two demos in regards to how I apply the constructional methodology:

• Wolf Demo. Notice how each line is executed with intent and care. If I'm drawing a ball form, then I'm focusing only on drawing that - I'll figure out where I want it, ghost through it, and make sure that it feels solid and three dimensional before moving onto a different task.

• Tiger Head Demo. Look specifically at how I'm tackling eye sockets. They're not just ellipses I've drawn on the cranium - I carve them in with separate lines for each edge, cutting along the surface of the form.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-11-16 23:28

Overall you've done a pretty great job. Your constructions improved a fair bit over the set once you got the hang of things, and your use of line weight helped add solidity and cohesiveness to the forms. It is worth mentioning that your use of the line extensions was a bit inconsistent - sometimes you didn't do it at all, sometimes you only did it for certain sets of lines, and so on.

As an error-checking technique, it gets to be particularly useful for people in your situation, whose boxes are visibly coming along really well, because they can highlight the kinds of mistakes we can't identify with the naked eye. So it's going to be particularly important for you to continue applying this technique for all three sets of parallel lines, so you can avoid plateauing. You want to make sure that all the time you put into improving your skills yields results, rather than just practicing the same thing without any awareness of where you have room to grow.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-11-16 23:23

Alright, that's getting better. There's still room for improvement, especially in working on keeping those convergences consistent, but you're doing better. When you draw a line, think about all the lines that are going to be parallel to it - those that have been drawn, and those that have yet to be drawn. Think about how they're all going to converge towards the same vanishing point, and try and figure out where that vanishing point is going to be so you can aim the line you're about to draw towards it.

Also, as covered in these notes, think about the angles at which these lines leave the vanishing point. Some of them - usually the middle two of a given set - will have a very small angle between them. Once these lines reach the box, that angle will be so unnoticeable that you can effectively draw them as being parallel to one another. This will help avoid issues where your middle two lines converge too quickly together.

Anyway, as the challenge was marked as complete before, you can go ahead and move onto lesson 2. Be sure to work some of these freely rotated boxes into your warmups as well however.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-11-16 22:47

Yup, you got it. Go ahead and do the extra 50.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-11-16 20:07

So far so good - but tell me what the line extensions tell you about the mistakes you're making when constructing this box.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2018-11-16 14:29

Old thread got locked, those eligible for private critiques can submit their work here (and all others are welcome to submit their work to the main subreddit for a community critique).

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 6: Drawing Everyday Objects"

2018-11-16 14:26

Last thread got locked, those eligible for private critiques can submit their work here (and all others are welcome to submit their work to the main subreddit for a community critique).

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-11-15 19:46

Nice work! You start off from a definite position of strength, and do show some significant - though more subtle - improvement over the set. One recommendation that I have is to think about a given set of parallel lines not only where it reaches the box youre drawing, but also the angles at which these lines leave their shared vanishing point. If two lines have a relatively small angle between them where they leave the VP, then the difference in their orientation at the box is actually going to be so minimal that you can get away with drawing them as being more or less parallel. This helps avoid issues where those lines converge much sooner than the actual VP. I demonstrate this concept further in these notes.

Aside from that, keep up the great work. Ill go ahead and mark this challenge as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-11-15 19:42

Great work! Youve shown a great deal of progress over the set - by about 180, you really solidify that grasp of 3D space. You demonstrate a lot of patience and care with your work through the set, and it really pays off. You take the time to apply the line extension method to each and every line, and youre very analyzing what they bring to light and incorporating them into your next page.

I really have no complaints whatsoever - youve done a fantastic job. Keep up the great work, consider this challenge complete, and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-11-15 19:34

Congratulations on pushing through all 250 boxes. I do have to say though, there are definite signs here that you may not really be thinking through what youre doing, or why youre doing certain things - and as a result, the growth seen here is not as extensive as it could have been.

There are three things I want to point out:

• You generally only applied the extension method to one of the three sets of parallel lines that makes up each box. This alone tells you a little bit about the behaviour of some of your lines, but as a whole its really falling far short of what analyzing the extensions of all three sets of parallel lines would have been able to tell you. Even if youd have picked up more on what those extensions were telling you, there would be a greater likelihood that you might get better at keeping the convergences of one set consistent, while messing up the other two further to compensate. Its necessary to deal with all three sets simultaneously.

• At first, I thought because your line extensions were frequently diverging as they went further from the box, you simply may have been continually making the same mistake over and over. Its still very likely that youre not really analyzing what the line extensions are telling you, but in this particular case, I realized that you were simply extending them in the wrong direction. You were colouring in a face that points towards the viewer, but you were also extending the lines towards the viewer in boxes like 212, 213, 247, and many others. That serves no purpose here - we need to look at how those lines are converging as they move further away from the viewer.

• Your overall linework is improving, but its slow. Always remember that when applying the ghosting method, the actual execution of the stroke must be confident - no hesitation, no fear of making a mistakes. Mistakes may occur, but at this point theres nothing you can do to avoid it (once youve moved past the planning and preparation phases). There is still a lot we can with a line that is smooth and consistent even if it misses the mark - but a line that wavers isnt going to be terribly useful. Also, of course, make sure youre drawing from the shoulder.

So by and large, youve drawn a fuck ton of boxes, but it looks like you didnt really do a great job of actually applying the concepts covered on the challenge page notes and the video. Id recommend rewatching the video, rereading the notes, and at the very least doing another 50 boxes. Show me that youve absorbed the instructions, that you can apply them as theyre laid out, and that you can analyze and learn from the mistakes that are brought to light (in terms of where your sets of parallel lines fail to converge consistently towards their shared vanishing point).

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2018-11-15 19:16

Nice work! Youve demonstrated some definite development in your understanding of 3D space, as well as your ability to manipulate and construct cylinders. I do have one issue with your linework however - I can see that you basically put your construction down, and then went back over it with a darker line to commit to certain lines. My assumption is that this is how you are using line weight, but I dont want you to use this methodology in the future - at least not as part of the drawabox work.

I mention this once you get into lesson 2 (specifically in the video for form intersections), but basically you need to see the construction lines you put down as being final. Every mark we put down, we weigh in terms of whether or not its going to contribute to our final result, or if its going to help us better grasp how our construction sits in space, and if it does either of these things, we draw that line confidently - with no attempt at hiding marks, making them extra faint, etc. Then, once all your lines are drawn, you generally apply line weight to emphasize certain local areas of existing lines (NOT whole lines all at the same time), usually to clarify where two forms overlap and establish which is in front.

As for your question, there is a way and Im going to be introducing it to the lesson/challenge page along with a fresh how to draw a cylinder video as part of the overall website rebuild that Im hoping to release for Christmas.

The short of it is, however, you enclose a cylinder in a box (if it wasnt already constructed inside of one) and apply the criteria described in this video. This criteria allows you to determine where all three vanishing points ought to be (one from following the minor axis of each ellipse, one from the planes enclosing each ellipse, and the last from the vertical contact points of each ellipse to its enclosing plane. You can do these checks for each ellipse separately, and then see how closely they match up.

I know its a bit to take in there, but Ill explain this in greater detail once Im able to release a video on this.

Anyway, Ill go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-11-13 20:21

I can definitely see what you mean in terms of the last 50 boxes being considerably more difficult for you, and showing a significant dip in the quality of the results. That said, overall I do feel that youre getting ahead of yourself - Theres still some visible (though pretty minor) hesitation and wobbling in the pre-200 boxes, and this issue just gets exacerbated when tackling the larger ones near the end. It doesnt make a lot of sense to fuss over line weight until those initial marks are drawn as confidently as you can possibly manage - and I am definitely still seeing evidence that when you execute your marks, youre still too preoccupied with accuracy, rather than committing to them and driving forward, accepting the inevitability of mistakes at this stage.

Remember - we can still work with a mark that has been drawn smoothly and confidently, with a singular, consistent trajectory even if it misses the mark. A wavering, wobbly line however is not going to do us much good, and will result in a a construction that simply wont feel solid. Before you have that down completely, worrying about line weight is going to be a misuse of your focus - largely because we also need to be adding that line weight with the same kind of confidence. Right now Im seeing you slowing down a great deal for the line weight in order to track the underlying stroke accurately, and it wobbles a fair bit as a result.

Also worth mentioning, from 0-200, youre showing a great deal of improvement in your estimation of these lines convergences, and it all feels like its coming together fairly well (though its worth noting that many of these have their vanishing points much closer to the box, resulting in more dramatic, rapid foreshortening). The last 50 however totally abandon any of that - it doesnt seem like youre paying much attention to those convergences, and are instead focusing only on the challenge of ghosting these considerably longer lines. Its not an effective use of your time, and youre drawing your attention away from whats really important. It is also worth mentioning that more of these last 50 boxes have much shallower foreshortening, which presents a different kind of challenge than the more dramatic ones did.

All in all, I think you should not be striving for such massive forms. The sizes you were working at previously were pretty good (they werent so small as to get cramped and mess with your spatial reasoning), and they allowed you to focus more on the core challenges youre facing with the ghosting method.

Instead of jumping into much bigger boxes, try to work more with both dramatic and shallow boxes at that smaller scale, and focus on nailing that confident stroke and erradicating all hesitation.

Im going to mark this challenge as complete, but Id recommend that you do another 100 before moving onto lesson 2. You may, if you wish, submit those here when youre done.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2018-11-13 20:09

Youve demonstrated some really impressive growth here, along with a great deal of patience and care in how youve been approaching the exercise. You clearly took your time planning and preparing each and every stroke, and arent displaying any signs of rushing or getting ahead of yourself. Im also very pleased to see that youve been applying the line extension method throughout, and I can see how it has impacted your overall approach - causing you to be more mindful of how those sets of lines are meant to converge towards their shared vanishing points.

I have just one suggestion as you continue to move forwards. When considering these sets of parallel lines, think about not only how theyre going to behave once they reach the box itself, but also how those lines leave the vanishing point. Consider the angles between different lines leaving the same vanishing point - where those angles are small, then those differences are going to be even smaller all the way out at the box. So, you can effectively draw these pairings of lines as being parallel to one another. This comes into play a great deal when drawing the middle two lines of a given set (where we tend to have the outer two lines quite a ways away from each other, but another two towards the center tend to be quite similar in their trajectory.

I demonstrate this concept further in these notes.

Anyway, Ill go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Feel free to move onto lesson 2.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2018-11-11 22:28

This is a pretty healthy mixed bag of successes and areas where we can definitely adjust things to see some improvement. Before I get into my critique, I want you to take a look at these common pitfalls. Theyre things I see somewhat frequently from students moving into lesson 3.

Overall, I think the biggest issue that Im seeing is that your linework is notably scratchy and timid. Theres not a lot of confidence there, youre hesitant to really push forward and commit to your marks. Frequently I see marks doubling up (where youve attempted to reinforce a shaky line), or places where youve attempted to replace an existing stroke entirely.

By and large, youre actually doing a pretty good job of employing constructional techniques, but none of it feels particularly solid because your marks have no confidence behind them. The very foundation of a solid construction is the smooth, confident strokes and evenly shaped ellipses that hold it up. This is an issue were going to have to address before we move forwards, and thats going to largely mean getting you to employ the ghosting method a lot more fervently throughout.

Remember, the ghosting method is a matter of planning out each individual stroke, identifying where you want it to start and end, then preparing by repeatedly going through the motion of drawing without actually having the pen touch the page. Thisis where all of our time is invested - once we finally touch the page to execute the mark, we do so with a single, confident, persistent motion. We accept that at this point any mistake that may occur, in terms of accuracy, is inevitable and unavoidable. All we can do here is ensure that the mark comes out as a single, smooth, confident stroke.

Theres still much that can be done with a confident stroke, even if it doesnt quite hit the mark. A wobbly, uncertain, or scratchy stroke however doesnt have much to offer, and theres not much to be done with it. Any construction built upon it will be flimsy and insolid.

One issue more specific to your leaves is that I noticed when you were adding more complex edge detail to them, you had a tendency to dip above and below the earlier, simpler edge. Instead of doing that, I want you to build directly off that underlying edge, as demonstrated here.

This means not only ensuring that we work additively, building directly off this simpler leaf construction, but it also means drawing a series of distinct lines rather than a single continuous stroke zigzagging back and forth. Each line should have a clear, concise trajectory. Once that trajectory changes, we lift our pen and begin another dinstinct line. This ensures that the overall line does not become muddy, and also allows us to design that edge detail more carefully without falling into the trap of working from autopilot.

When it comes to your use of the branch technique when actually constructing your plants, I noticed that you tend to put contour ellipses down wherever and whenever, without any real rhyme or reason. Theyre not immediately associated with the individual segments youre combining to create the larger, more complex branch (as covered as part of the branch exercise), and theyre certainly not present all to reinforce the illusion of form. Instead, youve just.. drawn a lot for no real reason. Its a frequent thing I see from students who arent necessarily thinking about what purpose those contour ellipses are meant to serve, and instead try working from rote memory of this is how you do it in the hopes that itll make sense later.

Whenever you put a mark down as part of a drawing, I want you to stop and think about what its meant to contribute. Is it going to help communicate some integral aspect of what youre depicting to the viewer? Or is it going to help you better grasp how the forms youre constructing sit in 3D space or relate to one another? If so, they draw that mark with a consistent, confident stroke - no attempt to make it particularly faint, or to allow it tobe hidden later on. Just draw it in ane qual manner to everything else, using the ghosting method to achieve a confident, even stroke. If it does not fall into either of those categories however, or if its purpose is already being achieved by another stroke, or if it COULD be achieved better by another potential stroke altogether, then simply dont draw it.

So in this case, many of those contour ellipses dont actual serve a purpose - a couple of those would be more than enough to convey the illusion that the tube is solid and three dimensional, and based on where you placed your edge segments, again a couple would have been more than enough for you.

Now, despite what Ive mentioned here, for the most part your use of constructional methods to create these objects is pretty solid. You just need to solidify your approach to the underlying techniques.

So, Id like you to do 4 more pages of plant drawings, after reading over this critique, rewatching the videos in the lesson and reading over the notes about common pitfalls I shared at the beginning of this critique.