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

2017-11-01 22:57

So I've identified a few things where your attempts differ from my demos. Take a look and try all three again. I'd also like to see what your lesson 1/2 warmups look like.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-11-01 22:23

This page fucking excites me. That's some excellent construction right there - forms, just forms, pure and simple. While there's room to improve in your general spatial sense, you're very clearly striving to understand how everything interconnects, how they all sit together in space. Fantastic.

Your other pages are also fairly well done. Your leaves flow well, your branches are quite smooth, and generally you're absolutely going about things correctly. I think you should be good to move onto the next lesson immediately, if you want to, so I'll mark this one as complete.

Also- sorry for the delay. Work's had me bent over a barrel, with 36 hours in the last three days (sunday included). Luckily I rather forcefully took today off to recover.

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

2017-11-01 22:16

Sorry about the delay! I definitely didn't forget about you, and did add your submission to my backlog. I've been having a ridiculously tough time at work of late, worked through Sunday, then nearly 18 hours on Monday and another 10 on Tuesday - so I'm rather behind on my critiques, and used most of the time that I had to make sure new patrons didn't think this was a regular occurrence.

Anyway! I've rather forcefully taken today off, so I'm hoping to get through the whole list. I believe there's a key point where your constructions start to improve. In a lot of cases, especially early on, you're a little haphazard in your use of the techniques and general construction of your forms. There's a lot of signs that you're very much focused on drawing the object as you see it, rather than actually building out the construction and thinking purely in simple forms.

You've got to totally cut the guesswork out. In previous lessons, we were dealing primarily with organic forms where this sort of thing was forgiven more easily. When you deal with hard, constructed objects, thinking purely in form becomes extremely important.

Looking at this drawing, there's a few important things that jump out at me as issues. Firstly, the cylinders aren't super solid. Cylinders are definitely difficult, so put some more work into nailing them. Skinny cylinders are especially tricky.

See the joint where the two major cylinders meet? There's no construction there - you've perceived it as a flat shape, rather than a form.

Lastly, I've noticed that you have a tendency to "clean up" your lines with ones that are drawn more slowly and carefully, rather than being confident. This goes back to stressing accuracy over flow, which is simply not the way you should approach your execution at any point. From what I can see, this seems to be how you're looking to apply line weight.

Line weight is used to clarify specific local areas where the excess of lines becomes confusing. We use it more specifically to clarify overlaps of different forms. The concept of "local" weight is important - we don't add weight to an entire length of a line, or the entirety of an ellipse. We do it to a specific part, allowing our weight to taper on either end so it blends back into the rest of the line.

If you try to add weight to the entirety of a line, you'll end up going slower and more carefully out of fear of missing the mark. Definitely not what you want to do, because that stiffens up your drawing.

This drawing was considerably more successful. There's a lot more that has gone into thinking through its forms. You've clearly thought in boxes, rounding out your corners only afterwards. The one recommendation I have for this one is to use more subdivision. By subdividing a box (for example, the base of the whole object, that big box) you can create landmarks that can then be used to determine the position of other forms you may attach to it. Right now it looks like the sides of the smaller form were guessed, rather than determined using subdivision - or alternatively, using the mirroring technique discussed in the lesson's intro video.

So, overall you are making strides in the right direction, but there's more room for improvement. I'd like you to do another 4 pages of everyday objects, though you may want to practice some more boxes and cylinders before that. Maybe make a warmup routine out of it.

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

2017-11-01 01:32

That section was only highlighted red because I linked directly to it! So it's not like you missed something that was specifically highlighted or anything.

As for the matter of using your elbow as a support, that's something I don't usually recommend. As I explain here, it's better to use the side of your hand, or your pinky. Basically, being anchored by your elbow makes it quite challenging to draw from the shoulder - and that's already difficult enough without the extra struggle.

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

2017-10-31 05:50

Excellent work! Your linework is extremely smooth and confident, which is great to see. You're also maintaining some very evenly shaped ellipses, due to the same confident and persistent pace with which you draw your lines, so good on you for that.

Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, my critique there actually has nothing to do with the boxes themselves - just about your hatching. It's best not to let those lines just float arbitrarily on a face. Make sure they stretch all the way across from edge to edge, for the sake of presentation and cleanliness.

Very nice work with your rotated boxes. The organic perspective boxes could definitely use more work, but this is entirely expected. Both these exercises are here to get students to change how they think about rotating objects in 3D space, and I don't expect them to nail both. That you nailed the rotated boxes is impressive already.

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 the notes on the challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This should help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space. Also, the bit about correction techniques is also useful, and should be applied upon the completion of each page.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-10-30 21:01

I've got a shit ton of critiques already added to my list and I'm probably going to be pulling loads of overtime tonight so in the interest of keeping the list I have to deal with when I get home as light as possible, I'm going to bump you to the front and handle this one right here and now! Because it's extremely easy:

Excellent work. Your flow looks way better, and your general constructions look much more confident and solid. Keep up the great work and consider this lesson complete.

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

2017-10-30 17:00

Sure, feel free.

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

2017-10-30 14:25

I think that sounds like a good plan. Best of luck!

Edit: Oh, and thank you for increasing your pledge! It's much appreciated.

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

2017-10-30 05:20

Very nice work! Your linework is quite smooth and confidently executed. I do feel like there's a little less of that with your ellipses, so you're definitely going to want to push yourself to execute those marks with a more confident, persistent pace. Right now they come out a little stiff, as you seem to be hesitating somewhat as you draw them. It can take some practice to get used to, but always remember that accuracy is not the most important thing - flow matters far more.

For your rough perspective boxes, be sure to go over your completed work as described here. This will help you identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

Fantastic work on the rotated boxes. This exercise, as well as the organic perspective boxes are notably difficult, and were included here largely to get students to start thinking differently about 3D space, rather than with the expectation of success. Your organic perspective boxes do still need work, but that's totally normal and we'll get to that.

So, 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 on the challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This should help you better graps how each box sits in 3D space. The bit about corrections is also important, and the techniques listed there should be applied to each page of boxes upon completion.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-10-30 05:14

While you're generally doing okay (your constructions are coming along well) there is one issue that I'm noticing across most of your work. Your linework tends to be quite stiff. You're definitely executing your marks rather slowly. They're not wobbling that noticeably, but the stiffness in general comes from not drawing with a more confident and persistent pace.

This applies especially when you're drawing your leaves, as the first step of their construction - the direction line - establishes how it flows through 3D space, so if you draw it timidly, your leaves will feel like they're stuck to the page. It's important to think about which end of your leaves is closer to the viewer, and which end is farther away, and applying that as you draw them. This will allow you to give the impression that the object you're drawing exists in a larger 3D world, rather than just restricted to the two dimensions of the flat page.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to do three more pages of plant drawings. Draw through your ellipses, and execute all of your marks with the ghosting method - putting your time into the preparation phase and executing with confidence. Focus on achieving a sense of flow, and consider the space in which your objects exist.

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

2017-10-30 04:35

So while you're generally doing okay, there are some major things I want to address.

• If you'd only included the organic forms with shading/rendering, I'd have asked you to redo it. In general though, I prefer that the exercises not stray from the instructions. It's totally fine to draw whatever makes you happy separately, but I don't want students getting distracted from the purpose of each exercise. In this case, we really don't want to be relying prematurely on light/shadow to convey the illusion of form. We need to be doing that purely through the methods outlined in the lessons (like contour lines).

• Don't leave the minor axis lines out of your organic forms with contour curves, and don't get too complicated with the forms themselves either. Even just drawing regular sausage forms with no branching is likely to help you keep focused on the task of wrapping those contour curves snugly around the forms in a way that reinforces their curvature.

• Your dissections are excellent. Great texture, great experimentation, great balance of detail without getting too noisy and distracting. At least, in that first and third pages. The next page has next to no texture, but I'm willing to forgive that.

• Your form intersections are well done, but your line quality is not. You're being very sketchy, and lack the kind of deliberateness that comes from the use of the ghosting method. Ghosting each and every line is extremely important - you need to break the habit of automatically reinforcing your lines, and get used to executing each mark separately, as the result of clear planning and preparation.

• Your organic intersections are okay. They definitely do demonstrate a general grasp of how these forms sit on top of each other, and sag where their weight is not supported. That said, I do believe you could have probably done better.

Overall, I definitely got the impression that you were distracted throughout the set. You're demonstrating enough of each concept for me to mark this lesson as complete, so I will - but you should know that I am well aware of the fact that you can do much better if you focus on following the instructions to the letter. Yes, the exercises can be dry and boring - but they are laid out in a particular fashion for a reason.

Try not to bite off more than you can chew - do a page a day if you have to, and spend the rest of your time drawing things that are fun. What matters though is that the time you spend on these exercises are spent applying them as they're meant to be done.

If you'd like to try this work again, you're welcome to. If you want to move onto lesson 3, feel free. But either way, keep in mind that this point forward, you should be incorporating the exercises from lesson 1 and 2 into a regular warmup, picking two or three exercises to do for 10-15 minutes each day.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-10-30 03:35

There are definitely issues, but we can work with this. I do however think that as you progress through the lesson, you start to fall back into old habits and lose track of what you should be focusing on. By the end, you're overly focused on detail and working too much from memory with very little direct observation.

Here are some notes about the bear. I'd like you to try the lesson material again, but this time I want to see no texture or detail whatsoever. Focus entirely on construction, and make sure you're looking at your reference 99% of the time. Only look away for a moment at a time to draw a few specific marks before looking back. Your memory is not reliable, and you need to get used to the idea of not trusting it.

Hell, you can even try drawing forms on top of your reference images before starting your actual attempt, to see how things line up.

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

2017-10-30 02:24

Excellent work! You've done a great job here. I have just a couple minor things to point out.

• For the funnels, try varying the degree of your ellipses - ideally they should be quite circular towards the extremities and very narrow towards the center.

• For your ellipses in planes, you focused more on the evenness and flow of your ellipses rather than accurately fitting them into your planes. That is absolutely the correct way of going about it - the result was of course that some of these are floating more than they ideally would, so just keep working on inching that accuracy forwards while maintaining your flow.

Huh! That seems to be it - the rest of your work is spot on. You totally blew the rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes out of the water, despite those both being exercises students regularly struggle with. They're really there to push students to think differently about how forms can sit in space, but you've demonstrated that your grasp of 3D space is already very well developed.

So, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next one!

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

2017-10-30 02:02

Shadows are definitely better, though the other issue - your forms cutting into each other rather than resting on top - is still there. Take a look at this and try another page.

Uncomfortable in the post "Uncomfortable's Unsolicited Advice: Nothing Can Defeat Failure"

2017-10-30 01:17

Oh but it was! You and everyone else who struggles with the rotated boxes (which is just about everyone) but feels the need to nail it down before moving on. Some of these exercises are just meant to be about getting you to think a different way, rather than expecting any kind of success. The exercises are just tools, their perfection is not necessarily my goal.

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

2017-10-29 14:22

I was just taking a peek at your homework while adding it to my backlog, and noticed that it looks like your link only includes the first page of your homework. It's clear that you did the full set from your comment, so something probably went wrong when you were uploading or linking it.

Feel free to just edit your original reddit comment with the link for the full album when you get a chance.

Uncomfortable in the post "Uncomfortable's Unsolicited Advice: Nothing Can Defeat Failure"

2017-10-28 21:08

Hahaha, I'm glad you think so :P

..this is how i view all my students.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2017-10-28 04:07

I agree with you - it does seem like as you moved through the set, you started to get sloppier and may have just wanted to get through it all. Watch places where your forms have gaps (lines not touching ellipses), and definitely work on tightening those ellipses up. The confidence and flow you've got is good, but if they get too loose you will lose the sense of solidity that we really need when it comes to these forms.

Overall you're approaching them well, you just need to exhibit a little more care and patience with each one. While quantity is important, the quality of each will really impact just how much you get out of the challenge.

You can certainly consider the challenge complete though - beyond the patience issue, I don't see any overarching issues with your cylinders. In the future though, I'd definitely recommend practicing constructing some of these in boxes, as this becomes a useful tool to align them in specific ways in space.

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

2017-10-28 04:04

Pretty nice work overall. Your form intersections were especially well done, despite the challenge they posed. Here are a few tips:

• For your arrows, try and play a little more with perspective, with one end being closer to the viewer (larger) and one end being farther away (smaller).

• Your dissections are pretty good, albeit they do feel a little half-assed. It's not that they weren't done well, but rather that they seem a little rushed and you didn't really cover as much surface area as you could have to get more out of the exercise. That said, the areas you did cover convey good observational skills, and a good sense of how those details need to be organized.

• Your organic intersections are honestly a little bit iffy. More than anything, the dropshadow with the scribbly hatching really takes away from the overall drawing. If you lay down a shadow shape, fill it in completely. Leaving areas of white amongst the dark becomes quite distracting. I also get more of a sense that your organic forms are cutting through one another, rather than resting on top and sagging around each other.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to take another stab at the organic intersections, once you've had a chance to look at my example for that exercise again.

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

2017-10-28 03:50

That actually is considerably improved on the points that I mentioned (drawing through forms, and your contour curves). I honestly didn't expect to see that, since you finished it in basically a day or less. I expected more of garbage fire, so I've been pleasantly surprised.

The next thing I'd like you to do is try and reproduce all three of the demos from the lesson. I want to see exactly how you approach these - pay special attention to your proportions, and really take your time observing your reference images. Remember that you don't want to rely at all on memory. Look at your reference, study it closely, and look away only to draw one or two very specific marks before looking back.

For this next submission, I'd like you to take several photos throughout the process, so I can see each phase of construction.

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

2017-10-28 03:45

I definitely think you're making good progress. It's steady, but it's coming along. The freehand constructions will definitely continue to improve with time and practice, but I also think moving onto the next lesson will give you some more angles with which to tackle this kind of construction, especially since you're allowed to take a bit of the pressure off and use a ruler.

So, I'll go ahead and mark this as complete (which it already seems to be, looking at your badges). Feel free to move onto the next one!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-10-28 03:22

Overall, pretty nice work. I do have a few recommendations to make that should help however:

• When drawing your leaves, think about one end being further away from the viewer, and another end being closer. You have some examples that did this reasonably well, while others were a little flatter, sticking to the limited depth of your piece of paper, rather than exploring all three dimensions of space.

• Flower petals are just like leaves - they're flat objects that flow through 3D space. Be sure to apply the same constructional approach to them, starting by defining that line of flow.

• Draw bigger! You've done so with some, but other pages have a few drawings crammed together. Construction really does demand, especially at first, quite a bit of space in order to think through those spatial problems. This allows you to think more about how everything sits and moves through 3D space. Helps especially to keep your leaves flowing smoothly, rather than sticking to the 2D page.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one. You're doing well, just keep those points in mind as you move forwards.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-10-28 02:29

Your leaves are definitely much improved in their flow and general construction. Your branches however still feel rather stiff, so that's still going to need some work in the long run. Make sure you're drawing from your shoulder, and focus on being bold in your movements. Avoid pressing too hard with your pen, as that'll anchor you too solidly to the page (and generally leave your lines somewhat devoid of subtlety).

Also, give these notes a read if you haven't already. They should help give a little more context to the degrees you choose to use for each ellipse, and how that describes the orientation of those cross-sections of your branches relative to the viewer.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-10-27 00:35

I gotta say, when someone submits a lesson quickly (I believe my last critique was almost exactly 24 hours ago), I worry that they've rushed - either not being as careful in the work as they could have, or not paying as much attention to the instructions. Sadly, this is no exception. I fully understand being enthusiastic, but you've got to slow yourself down and read both the notes provided in a given lesson or challenge, as well as my critiques.

At the end of my lesson 1 critique, I wrote this while advising you to tackle the 250 box challenge:

Be sure to read through the notes on that page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms, which as I mentioned in regards to your rotated boxes will help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space. Also make sure you read through the bit about correction techniques, and apply them upon completing each page.

You did note the bit about corrections (although you didn't apply the line-extending method as much as I'd have hoped to see), but you definitely ignored the point about drawing through your forms.

The thing about my lessons is that they are very dense. There's a lot of information in each paragraph, and while it's completely normal to overlook things in your first read through, you must be ready to compensate for that by making a habit of rereading the material whenever necessary. That goes doubly when I actually point something out to you directly in a critique.

I'd like you to try the challenge again. Take your time. No one's got a gun to your head expecting you to complete this work as quickly as possible. Not only is it in your best interest to work through the material slowly, but rushing through all the lessons in a week, or even a month, is simply not how this whole program works. In the past, if I've felt a student was submitting too frequently within a given month (relative to their pledge), I haven't been shy about telling them so. Moreover, the only times I've really had to do that, the student in question was skipping important instructions and generally stunting their progress by doing so.

Enthusiasm is great, but only when it's directed properly. So settle down, read through the notes, and try this again. Here's a few other points to keep in mind for your next submission of this challenge:

• Draw bigger. Beginners will often feel like drawing things smaller, and while it may not always seem that way, it's often the result of a lack of confidence. This has the negative effect of causing us to stiffen up, and generally hurts us when we're trying to think through spatial problems (like constructing boxes)

• When redlining your boxes, extend your lines further back towards the vanishing point. Try doubling the length of the original line, and pay attention to how those lines converge. Each box is made up of three sets of parallel lines, and each line of a given set SHOULD be heading towards the same point. Of course, since we're estimating, we're bound to make mistakes with that pretty much every time, but by watching the rates at which those lines converge, we can identify which ones don't match the rest of the set.

• Apply that extension method to every box, and do it when you finish a page. Since you'll be drawn your boxes bigger, you won't be cramming quite as many into each sheet so it should be something where you can do one full page each sitting.

I also recommend taking a look at other submissions in this thread to get a better sense of what you should be doing.

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

2017-10-27 00:14

Generally you're doing pretty well, but I do have several points of advice to offer, so you get the most out of these exercises in the future.

• For your arrows, I highly recommend that you draw a little larger and make your arrows longer. We have a natural tendency to draw a smaller when we're less confident in our abilities, but this has the negative impact of causing us to stiffen up. When dealing with spatial problems (like understanding how these arrows should flow through space), we benefit considerably from giving ourselves a lot more room to work.

• You are demonstrating a good grasp of the contour lines, but you're also skipping steps at times and perhaps overcomplicating things. Firstly, the minor axes lines are important, so be sure to include them in all of your organic forms. Secondly, there isn't necessarily too much to be gained by making your organic forms all kinds of wacky and complicated. When it comes to grasping the purpose of the exercise - which is a matter of simply drawing lines so they sit on the surface of a form and describe it as it curves through space, a simple sausage is generally best.

• Nice work on your dissections. You've got a lot of great variety here with your textures. If you'd like to explore this further (which you don't necessarily need to do now), give the notes on the texture challenge page a read, where I go further in depth into observation and how to organize visual details.

• Nice work with your form intersections. You're grasping the core concepts well, though I have one major suggestion - don't draw lightly, then go back over your lines to replace them with a cleaner stroke. The reason this is not a good approach is that when you go back over those lines, you're bound to do so with a lower, more deliberate and belaboured motion. This is entirely contrary to the principles of the ghosting method, which are all about executing your marks with confidence in order to keep them smooth and maintain their flow. When it comes to line weight, it is not about replacing your linework - it's about clarifying specific things. We don't apply line weight to the entirety of a line, but rather to specific localities, mainly to clarify how forms overlap one another.

• Also, for the form intersections exercise, I did recommend in the instructions that forms that are too long in any one dimension should be avoided, to keep the exercise focused on a certain set of challenges without introducing further complications.

• Nice work on your organic intersections - you're nailing the idea here, your forms give a good sense of how they all relate to one another. I did notice however that your lines are quite rough and a little hairy, which suggests that you may have grown a little lax in your use of the ghosting method, and generally focusing on confident executions of individual, planned strokes.

Anyway, there's a lot here to keep in mind, so try to apply it when attempting these exercises in the future (as you should be adding them to those from lesson 1 to make up a regular warmup routine, picking two or three out of the set to do for 10-15 minutes at the beginning of a sitting). I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-10-27 00:03

Phenomenal work! You approached this with exactly the sort of care and patience I want to see from students. Your lines have been very confidently executed (each clearly demonstrating the ghosting method), and your weights are very confident. You were also extremely complete in your corrections, and as a result are demonstrating a strong grasp of 3D space.

Ultimately it's much easier to move forwards in noticeable ways when you're not very good to begin with - but in your case, you're at a point where the improvements will be more subtle. That said, I can see a considerably improved grasp of how your parallel lines should be behaving, and I think the consistency of your more advanced, subdivided boxes really demonstrates that to a great degree.

Sadly I really don't have much more to offer than praise! You've done very well, so consider this challenge complete. Keep up the fantastic work and feel free to move onto lesson 2.

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

2017-10-26 23:13

So one thing that stands out to me in a big way is something I actually mentioned in regards to the last lesson a couple times. Draw through your forms. If your drawing is made up of two spheres that intersect with each other, I want you to draw two full spheres that overlap - not draw one full sphere, and another that stops where it hits the first.

This is VERY important. While practicing and learning this stuff, we draw through our forms because it gives us an understanding of how EACH form sits in 3D space, and how they all relate to one another. If you only draw the portions of each component that is visible, you only end up looking at those forms like they're 2D shapes on a flat page, with no understanding of their three dimensional qualities.

Construction is all about looking at a 2D image, breaking it down into its 3D forms and reconstructing those 3D forms into a 2D drawing. Currently you are jumping from 2D to 2D, instead of 2D --> 3D --> 3D --> 2D.

There are other issues (proportions could use some work, and your textures are very, very scribbly) but this matter of construction and drawing through your forms is the most important one. I want you to try the homework again, and this time I want you to focus entirely on construction. No texture, no detail, draw through all of your forms and strive to understand how they all exist in 3D.

On, one other thing - your contour curves aren't that great. Work on getting them to wrap around forms more convincingly and use the overshooting technique mentioned there.

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

2017-10-26 01:07

I think it's lovely. Great observation, excellent construction. Nice ellipses, too! The claw section was definitely a little more from-the-hip than it should have been, I'd have probably tried to determine a more precise point for the end of those curves based on subdivision, but generally it came out quite well.

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

2017-10-26 00:00

Pretty well done! Just a few things to point out:

• Your lines and ellipses are generally coming out well.

• Don't leave gaps between your ellipses in your funnels exercises, keep them snug up against each other.

• Watch how your ellipses are getting deformed when jammed into those planes. Read these notes.

• Be sure to go over your completed rough perspective boxes work as described here.

• Looks like you didn't draw through the boxes for your rotated boxes exercise. This is a very important part to understanding how those boxes sit in 3D space, and how that changes as they rotate.

• Pretty good attempt with your organic perspective boxes. There is room for improvement, but this is about what I was expecting. The exercise is quite challenging and was included here not with the expectation that students would master it easily, but rather just to get them to start thinking about forms and space in a different way.

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 the notes on that page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms, which as I mentioned in regards to your rotated boxes will help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space. Also make sure you read through the bit about correction techniques, and apply them upon completing each page.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-10-25 23:16

Looking pretty good, but there's one big thing that caught my eye that you're missing. In the challenge page notes, I've got an explanation of a very useful technique to identify mistakes by extending your lines towards their implied vanishing points. You should definitely be applying this approach, ideally upon completion of each page. As you get better with boxes, your mistakes are going to become less noticeable, so it's normal to kind of plateau. This kind of approach will keep your returns from diminishing.

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

2017-10-25 02:08

Very nice work! I think you definitely made the right call on bringing the level of complexity down and focusing on really getting your head around some slightly more irregular forms and working your way up. The oil lamp is fantastic

A few things with some of these drawings did catch my eye however, and are worth mentioning. Firstly, with this box (I imagine it's one of the more extravagant ones), you definitely skipped some steps. Notice how complex those clasps and ornamental elements are? From the looks of it, they were positioned by eye - you definitely could have used more subdivision to give yourself a more concrete guide by which to place those elements. Additionally, the ornaments themselves are quite complex, and really should have been started out a little more simply themselves. It's easy to forget though, and treat them more like observational detail, but you'll get better results by treating them as constructions of their own.

Another thing I noticed was that you have a bit of a tendency to go over some of your lines (perhaps to add more line weight, or perhaps to 'clean things up'). This is something you should avoid, as a rule - there's a good reason for this. When we draw lines with that purpose, they tend to be drawn more slowly and deliberately, which also makes them less confident. Instead, you want to apply weight to sections at a time. Always keep in mind that the primary purpose of line weight is to clarify things like how one form overlaps another. It's not for the sake of replacing faint or sketchy lines (lines should be drawn confidently to begin with).

One last thing - I mention in the video (I think) that you should have completed the box and cylinder challenges before starting this lesson. It doesn't appear that you have! It would be entirely in your best interest to do so before tackling the next lesson.

Anyway, just be sure to keep that stuff in mind in the future. I'm going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.

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

2017-10-25 01:45

Overall, pretty good work! Here are some points that should help though:

• Wobbling, Drawing Too Slowly and Carefully

• Arcing Lines

• Stiff, Uneven Ellipses (many of your ellipses are quite well done, but there are some especially in the planes that get a little stiff and deformed)

• Be sure to go over your completed rough perspective work as described here.

• You made a good effort with the rotated boxes - it's normal for them to be a struggle. The point isn't so much to nail this one, but rather to get you to start thinking about rotating boxes in a different way without relying on strict perspective tools and instead internalizing what all the perspective rules really mean. Also, I did notice that as you went further out towards the extremities (especially the corners) you stopped drawing through your boxes.

• Same deal with the organic perspective boxes - you made a good effort, and that's all I ask for at this point.

I'm going to 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, especially the tip about drawing through your forms, as it'll help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space. Additionally, the correction techniques mentioned there should be applied at the end of each page.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-10-25 01:10

You're definitely showing some improvement, but I do agree with your assessment, that your drawings - at least components of your drawings, specifically the leaves. What's most important here is that initial flow-line that we establish with the first step of the leaf construction process. From what I can see, right now when drawing it, you're not quite thinking about how this simple line flows through space. What might help is to think about how one point of the line sits farther away, and the other end sits closer to the viewer. Try and draw that mark with greater confidence, and in general if possible, you'll probably find it easier to build up a sense of that when drawing larger leaves rather than smaller ones. Get used to the bigger ones, and then apply that to smaller ones later.

I also did notice another point about your stems. Take a look at the branch exercise instructions. Notice how on step 3, we start constructing the edges of a longer tube/branch form as segments, rather than all in one go. I think you may benefit from this approach. It's tricky, and a little risky - we don't want to end up with something that looks like chicken scratch. So basically, we construct our segments so they flow from one ellipse, past the second and towards the third. Then the next segment runs from the second past the third, towards the fourth - flowing right over the previous line so they merge into a single stroke. This approach, when done properly, will allow you to achieve greater control over your cylinder construction, which in turn will help you keep it more solid.

Lastly, drawing through ellipses is still important! You're doing it some of the time, but not always. The more round forms on this page would definitely have benfited from it. Though I also want to recommend that you not go evenly over the entirety of an outline with a slow, deliberate mark to add weight. Weight should be added to portions of an overall line, rather than the entire thing all at once, as line weight is generally used to demonstrate specific overlaps. Here, it appears that you are instead going back over those lines to replace the line underneath, which should generally be avoided, as the new line will tend to be less confident.

Anyway, while I do want you to continue practicing those leaves and branches, I think you're generally demonstrating a decent enough grasp of the material and are certainly showing improvement over the set. I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, so you can move onto the next one. There you'll face similar challenges involving form and construction.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-10-25 00:15

Nice work! Your boxes definitely improve in confidence and construction over the set, especially from about halfway onwards. The only thing that I want to recommend is to give the notes on the challenge page about correction techniques - specifically extending your lines back towards the implied vanishing point. Doing this upon the completion of a page really goes a long way to make certain mistakes more obvious, especially when they tend to be more subtle and harder to detect.

Anyway, keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.

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

2017-10-23 02:34

Generally looking good so far. One thing that caught my eye though was that in your super imposed lines, you've got some wobbling going on because you're focusing more on your accuracy over maintaining the consistency and flow of your line. I talk about this a little in these notes.

Also, make sure that when you submit your homework, it's all of the work for the whole lesson. So in this case, it'd be the lines, ellipses and boxes section all together rather than piecemeal.

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

2017-10-22 16:18

Hey, it doesn't look like I have you marked down as being eligible for my critiques. If you are a patreon supporter, be sure to check your patreon inbox as I'll have sent you a message asking for your reddit username. Otherwise, you're welcome to submit your homework directly to the subreddit for a free critique from the community. Folks over at the discord server are also usually more than happy to offer advice and point out where you may be misunderstanding concepts.

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

2017-10-21 16:37

Hm, alright. Just wanted to make sure. Another question: Are you scanning your work? And if so, are you using a 'drawing' preset on your scanner? I've always found those presets to really increase the contrast on linework and throw away a lot of the nuance of one's lines, causing it to come out somewhat clunkier and less subtle than the drawing itself. When scanning, photo presets are generally better.

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

2017-10-21 02:57

So overall, you're not that far off, but there are a few things that kind of catch my eye in terms of your general approach. I definitely agree that another stab at a shit ton of boxes is always going to be beneficial, so definitely do that - but there are some things I can point out that may also help.

Let's take a look at this page. See those buttons? I love that you've tried to construct them as independent forms - that's how it should be done. What's missing however is the fact that before you drew those buttons, I don't see any additional constructional lines that would help you in positioning them. On top of that, each mini-box looks pretty rushed - there was no solid box constructed first, you immediately jumped into some of the rounded corners. You're thinking too far ahead - putting less time than a form deserves because you're concerned with what needs to be done next.

On the matter of jumping into rounded corners too early, while almost everything in the world is bevelled in some manner or another, curves are vague, and vagueness isn't great for construction. A curve can represent any number of transitions from one directional line to another, and as a result many students will capture a curve in all of its vagueness without truly knowing what the lines that curve represents would have been. As a result, this unawareness is conveyed in their construction as a perceived lack of solidity.

For this reason, I always encourage people to work on solid, sharp, boxy forms for as long as possible, and smooth things out at the end, as demonstrated with the spray bottle here.

Beyond that, I think another stab at the 250 box challenge will give you the chance to continue honing the control behind your lines. As it stands, there are a lot of cases where you might lose a handle on your ghosting, and things go a little awry. It's very easy to forget the need to really ghost before every single mark, so it's good to have reminders of this.

Once you've been able to go through the 250 box challenge again, I'd like you to try another four pages of these everyday object drawings. I do have one question to ask before you go off and do that though - what size/type of pen are you using? Your marks look particularly thin, and don't carry a whole lot of confidence behind them. That may be a big factor, as confidence is as I've mentioned before, super important when conveying forms that feel solid and believable.

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

2017-10-21 02:27

Wow, I was really dropping the ball in regards to your box challenge. Sorry about that!

Your lesson 2 work is quite well done. Your arrows flow pretty nicely - though right now we can see that most of that flow happens across the two dimensions defined by the page. It's a good idea to try and push into the third dimension by playing with depth, setting one end of the arrow as being farther away, and the other as being closer.

Solid work with your organic forms with contour lines. My only recommendation there is to ensure that you're aligning your ellipses/curves to the central minor axis line.

Your dissections are coming along well - plenty of room to improve your observational skills, but you're heading along the right track. You're demonstrating that you've moved well past the tendency to draw strictly from memory with a few minor glances at one's reference. You're definitely looking at your reference frequently. As you continue to build upon this habit, the amount of detail you start to notice, and aspects of how it is organized, will certainly continue to improve.

When it comes to textures that perhaps seem a little too much like pattern (like the brick wall), we have a tendency to revert back to following what we already know about brick walls (which isn't a whole lot). So in those cases, you may still want to kind of force yourself to pay closer attention to your reference.

Your form intersections are solid in the areas I'm looking for, which is primarily being able to draw forms together within the space so it feels consistent and cohesive. The intersections themselves do need work, but this is totally normal at this point. It's going to require more development of your understanding of 3D space, which will take time.

Lastly, your organic intersections are looking good. They convey the sense of how they sag over each other quite nicely. My only critique there is to keep the lines of your forms smoother - right now there's definitely a wobble to them, so you'll want to work on executing those marks more confidently, and with a more persistent pace. It's not just a matter of aesthetics, but the additional complexity that comes from a wobbly line tends to undermine the solidity of the form.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-10-19 21:34

Excellent work! I can really see an increase in your general confidence, and a sort of subtlety and nuance that increases in your boxes over the set. You're also clearly very conscientious and patient about extending your lines to identify and mark in your corrections. Great work all around.

I gotta say - when I assigned this challenge for the first time, it was largely because I didn't want to deal with someone who was struggling with the organic perspective boxes exercise. I figured I'd give them some busy work and then deal with it later. Turned out the exercise was hugely useful, and the student came back having a considerably stronger understanding of 3D space, along with a greater tolerance for some of the monotony of these exercises.

Anyway, well done. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work!

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

2017-10-19 01:13

Your first few pages definitely are a bit of a struggle as you start to get your head around how to piece your forms together. From there however, you show considerable improvement, and come out the other side with a handful of very successful drawings and what appears to be a much stronger understanding of form and construction. Some of my favourites include the fly on the top right of this page, and most definitely your dragonflies.

A lot of people tend to get very distracted and overwhelmed by both the detail on dragon flies, as well as the complexity of their constructions, but I think you did an excellent job balancing both, and keeping your mind on what you were doing at a given moment (rather than trying to think ahead and lose focus).

There were still some areas where perhaps you did think too much about detail, too early - like this page where your construction was not quite solid before you moved onto the more 'fun stuff'. That said, you are still showing considerable improvement and are heading in the right direction.

Keep up the great work, and consider this lesson complete. Feel free to move onto the next lesson, and keep in mind what I've said here about always looking past detail towards the underlying forms, and ensuring that they feel solid and believable before moving onto detail.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-10-19 01:08

Honestly, I'm not sure why you were so worried about this - your animal drawings are quite well done. There is some room to improve (mostly just through continued practice), but you're applying the principles of the lesson fairly well, and are constructing animals that feel solid and believable - especially as you move through the lesson.

The only issue I noticed is one that was at first a little difficult to put my finger on, but I think I've got it.

There are definitely cases where you give the impression that you feel you are putting down flat ellipses (2D shapes) rather than constructing solid balls (3D forms). You do piece them together in a way that suggests more understanding of the form and construction, but there are these little things that you're not quite treating the act of drawing like you're sculpting something in a 3D world.

Specifically, here are a few things that I noticed:

• Notice the head at #3. See how you first established it as a ball, but then ultimately ended up building up the rest of the construction ignoring that piece of the ball that falls inside the open beak? If the ball was considered to be a solid 3D form - like a piece of marble in the scene - this would not be something you'd be likely to do. Instead you'd have to work around what you'd already placed in the scene, either finding some way to consciously cut that piece out (cutting being an act that involves being aware of both the piece that remains and the piece that is subtracted, and how they exist in 3D space).

• Look at wolf #1. See how its belly kind of tucks in somewhat, and you captured that by ignoring the initial trajectory of that torso mass? Again, it's ignoring form that you've placed down, rather than dealing with it in a more constructional fashion.

I do believe that there are areas where you handle this much better. For instance, many of your horses convey a very strong sense of form, especially on this page.

That said, what ends up being a real test of one's ability to construct (rather than relying purely on observation) is the hybrids section of this lesson. Your seal-horse-bird-croc was definitely interesting, and didn't come out that badly, but it did suggest that your awareness of form is something that does have room to grow.

When it comes to form, always ask yourself if you believe that something is just a shape on a flat page, or if it is a real mass in a 3D world. Think about how your forms actually connect to each other in those three dimensions, and actually draw those connections in. Notice how in this demo, on the second phase, I point out where I've drawn an ellipse where the neck and torso meet - those kinds of additional constructional elements really help me believe in the construction I'm building up. Ultimately that's what is most important, because if you are convinced of the lie we create on paper, then the little decisions your subconscious makes will help sell it to your audience as well.

While that is an area for you to improve upon, you are demonstrating excellent observational skills, and constructional skills that are steadily getting there. Keep up the great work, and consider this lesson complete.

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

2017-10-18 16:34

Any time after completing lesson 1 and starting lesson 6.

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

2017-10-18 01:33

Pretty nice work, though I've got a few points to share:

• To help with the organic forms with contour ellipses, give these notes a read. Should help you better grasp what the degree of your ellipses really represents about the orientation of those circular cross-sections in 3D space.

• Your organic forms with contour lines were generally pretty decently done.

• In general, the more complicated organic shapes with branching arms and whatnot don't actually add that much to the exercise, and instead can become distracting. Practicing on basic, plump sausages is generally best.

• Very nice work on your dissections. Lots of varying textures, and you were very patient in executing them. I also like that you're demonstrating an awareness of the form by compressing the textures as they reach the edge of the form (as that surface turns away from the viewer).

• For your form intersections, you definitely missed the instruction about avoiding forms that are stretched in any one dimension. It's best to keep them fairly equilateral (think cubelike proportions, roughly the same in all three dimensions). Stretching them too much brings a lot of perspective and foreshortening into play, which makes the exercise (Which is already difficult) even more challenging, and needlessly so. Also don't forget to draw through your boxes so you better grasp how each one sits in 3D space, and how they sit in relation to one another.

• Pretty good work with your organic intersections. You definitely demonstrate that you understand what you should be aiming for. You'll improve with more practice, but you're heading in the right direction.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Be sure to keep practicing the material from lessons 1 and 2 as part of a warmup routine, but feel free to move onto the next lesson.

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

2017-10-18 00:45

I actually do like the stacked boxes on this page, but in general you should avoid overlapping your boxes for this challenge, as it adds an extra point of difficulty. We want to focus entirely on constructing boxes with confident lines, such that they come out feeling solid. As soon as the boxes overlap, you also have to worry about keeping them feeling consistent with one another.

For your organic forms with contour ellipses, I noticed that as your ellipses increase in degree (become more circular), the alignment to your minor axis tends to get worse. This is definitely something to work on. Also, on the matter of degree, give these notes a read, as they may help you get a better sense of what the degree of your ellipses tells us about their orientation in space - and therefore the orientation of these cross-sections.

Also, for your ellipses.. now you're kinda overdoing the drawing-through. Aim for two times, three at most.

Your contour curves are looking decent - the only thing I want to remark upon there is that your line weight is very uniform, in a way that suggests you might be using a little too much pressure. If you draw with a confident, but not overly hard touch, usually your lines will taper slightly where they start and end, which adds just the slightest bit of dynamism and life to one's linework. Right now the very samey overall weight is a bit dull. Keep in mind I don't mean the kind of line weight that comes from going back over your forms - just the basic variance that comes from how we use our pen the first time.

Your form intersections are looking okay. The intersections themselves definitely do need work, but that isn't something we want to stress about too much right now. It takes a lot of time to develop enough of an awareness of 3D space to nail those things - for now we just want to make sure the forms feel consistent and cohesive amongst one another.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so go ahead and move onto the next one. I did want to mention though - keep in mind that me writing these critiques takes a fair bit of time, and you've been submitting pretty rapid fire. I know you've got a bunch stored up (which isn't really how this is meant to be done as I mentioned before), but keep in mind how much you're contributing with your pledge in relation to what you're asking, especially when you're submitting two lessons and two challenges in the span of three days.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-10-17 04:14

You've definitely improved considerably over the set. The boxes near the end are considerably more confident and much better constructed, in terms of the angles and relationships between the planes. I did notice however that while you're very conscientious in applying the line-extension method to your boxes, you definitely became less active in marking in your corrections closer to the end. Make sure you keep on top of it in the future! It's definitely worth it.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the great work.

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

2017-10-17 04:06

Your arrows certainly are coming along well. If I had to give one recommendation here, it's to consider how your arrows move through all three dimensions of space. Right now you're somewhat restricted to the two dimensions of the page. Try and think of the page as just being a window into a larger, three dimensional world, and consider one end of the arrow as starting from being farther away, and the other end being closer to the viewer.

For your organic forms with contour ellipses, I'd recommend giving these notes a read. Should help you better grasp what the degree of an ellipse conveys about that particular cross-section of the form. Also, try to stick more to basic sausage forms, rather than making things more complicated. A more complex shape won't actually teach you more about the purpose of the exercise, and instead will distract you with unnecessary concerns.

The organic forms with contour curves are generally okay, although I did notice that your line weight is pretty uniform throughout with your lines. This sometimes has to do with pressing a little too hard on your pen tip, but no matter the cause, try and draw so the ends of your lines taper ever so slightly as this will add a little more life to your drawings. I discuss this further at the bottom of these notes. The rest of those notes are also worth reading.

Your dissections are coming along well. I do think that you've left a lot of surfaces blank, which is in no way in your interest, but what you have drawn is coming along decently. I do want you to read through the notes on the texture challenge at some point to further your development in that area, but it's not a high priority right now. I actually realized you had another page of dissections later in the set that definitely are way too simplified - the ones I'm referring to as decent are these.

Overall, another thing I noticed was that your ellipses tend to be very tight. This is fine, and even good, but I believe you may be focusing a little too much on keeping them tight and as a result drawing them a little less confidently. This in turn causes your ellipses to stiffen up a bit. Keep that in mind - confidence is still your first priority, you want to keep your ellipses nice and smooth, even if that means loosening them up a little bit. You'll eventually tighten them back up, but once you're able to do so without getting stiff.

Your form intersections are a little lacking. You're not really filling up the page (there's plenty of blank space). Your box constructions are decent for the most part, though your cylinders and cones should be built around a minor axis line (give the 250 cylinder challenge page a read if you don't know what I mean). The intersections themselves are generally quite far off the mark, though this isn't really a major concern for us right now.

I think doing an intersection with just boxes is definitely a good idea, though in the page you did, your sense of scale seems to be rather inconsistent. This actually relates back to this issue mentioned in lesson 1. Keeping your boxes fairly equilateral (and outright avoiding anything that is remotely stretched in one dimension as mentioned in the instructions) helps.

Your organic intersections are okay, though again - you've got a whole lot of blank space on your page, and that one form laying aside from all the rest seems to be entirely pointless.

I'd like you to do the following:

• One page of organic forms with contour ellipses

• One page of form intersections with only boxes. I want you to try a little harder here with the intersections, as generally box-on-box intersections are easier to wrap one's head around, and this should help you push the bounds of your understanding of space. I want you to fill the entire page, and keep your boxes relatively equilateral. Avoid any boxes that are particularly long in one dimension.

• One page of form intersections with any assortment of forms. Don't forget to use minor axes for anything built off a circular base. Again, keep your forms equilateral.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-10-17 03:42

There are certainly improvements here over the last two attempts. There are some places where you missed my instructions, but many more where you did apply some of the things I said.

Some of the things you missed:

• On this page, you did not draw through your leaves, instead stopping a leaf where it was blocked by another. Gotta treat these things as being see-through.

• The general construction of this page is better, though if you look at the star-shape on the top of the one on the left, that star is definitely a complex shape/form and should be built up from several separate leaves.

Other points worth mentioning:

• On this page, your construction feels a little weaker because you haven't really defined how those forms actually connect to one another. If you look at my constructions, I tend to draw an extra ellipse where two rounded forms meet to really solidify how they come together. This helps sell the illusion much better. Also, the contour curves aren't wrapping around the forms super well.

• These mushrooms came together quite well. See how the connection point between the cap and the stem is defined with an ellipse? That's what I mean about defining how things connect in my last point.

• Here you're definitely missing out on important information about the flower pot's form. Gotta spend more time observing your reference and breaking your forms down. While a lot of information can be set aside as detail and texture, it's important not to miss that which can still be expressed as part of your form construction.

Now, I am going to mark this lesson as complete. The next step, I'm going to leave up to you. I've mentioned this before and it is still very much an issue that is going to hinder you considerably - your linework is quite stiff and still has a great deal of wobbling to it. You need to iron that out, and the exercises covered in lessons 1 and 2 are designed to do that.

Unfortunately that's not something I can really hold your hand through - I've given you the tools to tackle it on your own, along with the notes and instructions, but you have to work through it yourself. Specifically, keeping your lines and ellipses smooth and confident, and eliminating the tendency to hesitate.

Of course, absorbing the instructions is something that has also given you something of a challenge - the material in these lessons certainly is dense, so you need to build up the habit of reading and rereading the material as often as you need - and frequently, being sure that you're armed with the freshest understanding of the exercise you're about to do before every time you sit down to do it.

So. I'll mark this lesson as complete. You can choose to move onto lesson 4, or you may want to spend time revisiting material from the previous lessons.

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

2017-10-17 03:29

So there are definitely some things worth bringing to your attention here.

The 250 box challenge:

• Probably should have submitted all of the pages, not just the last two. It's good to show me where you started and how things ended to give me a better sense of your growth, rather than just your currente state.

• When drawing through your boxes, avoid broken lines (you cannot trust their trajectory, as every time a line is broken and resumed, its direction shifts slightly).

• Draw through your boxes all the way, rather than just placing an arbitrary cross-axis in the middle. If you're getting confused by that illusion where when drawing through a box, you can't really tell which side is which, try filling in one of the front-facing faces with tight, consistent, parallel hatching. It'll serve as a visual cue to clarify the confusion.

• You don't seem to have applied any of the correction techniques mentioned in the notes. Read the notes! They're important. Corrections are a solid 50% of the work here.

Cylinders:

• Didn't draw through your ellipses.

• You need to be constructing around the minor axis for all of these cylinders, not just some of them. It's a big part of learning how to align your ellipses.

Lesson 2:

• Nice work with your arrows.

• Not drawing through most of your ellipses in your organic forms.

• Your contour curves generally do wrap decently around the forms, but your alignment isn't always the best. Remember that the contour curves are just visible portions of larger ellipses, and those ellipses should be aligned to the central minor axis line, so the contour curves basically are cross-sections cut perpendicularly to the flow of the form. So minor axes are important! Don't leave them out.

• Your dissections' textures are coming along well. A little scribbly at times (rather than being more intentional and careful with your mark making), but generally moving in the right direction. That said, I do mention in the instructions for this exercise that you need to start it out as though it was an organic form with contour lines. You definitely skipped right over that. Remember that every single drawing you do for my lessons are just exercises - mostly being exercises in understanding how to manipulate forms in 3D space. If you skip linework or steps in favour of keeping your drawings cleaner for the end result, you will be missing out on the purpose of the exercise.

• For your form intersections, drawing through your boxes is hugely beneficial, as it helps you to understand how these major forms sit in space. Also, while the intersections themselves don't matter a whole lot in this exercise, your manner of depicting them by filling them in kinda defeats the purpose of the intersection itself. Soo... don't do that. Oh, and again - draw through your ellipses!

• Your organic intersections are pretty well done.

So, I think the biggest trend I'm seeing overall is that you're not particularly careful about following instructions. Not an uncommon thing to see here, but definitely something you'll want to remedy. There's a lot of content in the lessons, they are quite dense and difficult to work through. It's generally necessary to read and reread the lessons several times to continually refresh your memory.

So, before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to do the following:

• Two pages of organic forms with contour curves. Don't forget your minor axes, and work on the alignment of your curves.

• Two pages of form intersections. Draw through your boxes, construct all your cylinders around minor axes, draw through your ellipses. It is definitely a good idea to go back over your 250 box challenge work to apply the correction techniques mentioned in the challenge page notes so you can learn from the boxes you've already drawn by identifying where things have gone wrong.

I am going to mark your two challenges as complete, because you met the requirements for them.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-10-17 03:00

So I do have a few thinks to suggest for you to focus on.

• For your leaf exercises, one thing that I'm finding fairly often is that your leaves have a tendency to flow across the two dimensions of the page, rather than flowing through the depth of the scene as well. Remember that what we're drawing does not sit on the page, but rather the page serves as a window to a larger, limitless, 3D space.

• You definitely do need some work on drawing the segments of your branches. Part of it has to do with ghosting your lines more, but in addition to this, when you draw a line from one ellipse to a second, as you overshoot the second you need to aim towards the third so your subsequent line runs directly over it. If you allow there to be obvious separation between the different segments, you'll have a very broken flow through the length of the branch and it will tend to look quite chicken scratchy.

• For this page in particular, your leaf constructions are jumping in too complex too early. You do this elsewhere as well, but it is most prominent here. Read over the leaf construction steps again - you need to focus on enclosing the area of the leaf in the simplest terms first (your initial directional line to define the flow, then two simple curves) before worrying about how the edges of the leaf get wavy. This allows you to tackle one problem at a time, rather than trying to do everything at once.

• For your cacti, think about these as you would the organic forms from lesson 2 - you haaaaave been continuing to practice the exercises from lessons 1 and 2, right? It's been a month, so my guess is that you may have fallen off the wagon from there. If you look at your organic forms from lesson 2, they're considerably better than what you've done here.

• When drawing cylinders like your flower pots, remember that they should be built around minor axes. If you're not sure what that means, take a look at the 250 cylinder challenge.

• This page is pretty good. Most importantly, the lines are more confident, and tend to flow better through space. Elsewhere you have a tendency to be somewhat stiff.

I'd like you to try the homework for this lesson again, keeping what I've mentioned here in mind. This time however, I want you to steer clear of any texture or detail. Focus entirely on construction. I believe that with detail in the mix, you're getting distracted from the core constructional principles, because your mind is jumping ahead to focus on how you're going to tackle more of the superficial elements, rather than the more important, structural components.

And like I mentioned before, be sure to practice the exercises from lessons 1 and 2. Ideally, incorporate them into a warmup routine, picking two or three exercises to do for 10-15 minutes at the beginning of each sitting.

Oh, I forgot to include this - give these notes a read. These issues are common pitfalls I notice at this point, and they definitely apply here.