Uncomfortable in the post "Happy Birthday, /r/ArtFundamentals!"

2017-08-16 16:21

I'm glad to hear that! I definitely felt the same way until I was taught this approach. They really don't cover it in as many schools as they should, and it was a bit of a pity that I had to go all the way across the continent for it.

Uncomfortable in the post "Happy Birthday, /r/ArtFundamentals!"

2017-08-16 16:20

Thanks! I look forward to you making your return.

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

2017-08-15 20:56

There's some good here, and some less good. I'm actually very impressed with how you tackled the textures in the dissection exercise - you've demonstrated a lot of patience and careful observation with each one, and never really succumbed to the urge to let go and rely on randomness and chaos.

Your organic forms definitely leave a fair bit to be desired. To start with, try and stick to simpler forms - there's really little benefit to deviating much from the standard sausage form. Instead, you want to focus your time and effort thinking about what those contour ellipses are - they're continuous lines that wrap all the way around a rounded form, running along its surface. It's important that those ellipses align to the central line (the minor axis) such that the minor axis cuts each ellipse into two equal, symmetrical halves down its narrower dimension. I see several areas where that alignment is off in your drawings. There are definitely places where it's done better, but overall I get the feeling that you were somewhat distracted by the complexity of your forms, and didn't quite demonstrate the best of what you could do in regards to actually executing each contour ellipse.

For the contour curves however, these don't quite capture the illusion that they are running along the surface of that form. Specifically, if you look towards the edges, you'll see that they fail to appear as though they're hooking back around - their curvature needs to accelerate as that surface turns away. I talk about this further in these notes. I'd recommend trying the 'overshooting' method described there. Again, keep the forms simple and straightforward.

Your form intersections were executed very cleanly, and the presentation is solid. The area where they miss the mark somewhat is in two specific ways, though they are quite related. Firstly, in the instructions I recommended that you avoid forms that are overly stretched in any one dimension. A good example of this would be the long tubes you included in your attempts at the exercise. The reason is that this exercise is already quite challenging, and this only serves to make it more complex. The other point I'd like to raise is that your forms generally have a rather dramatic foreshortening applied to them. In lesson 1, I explain why this tends to throw off the sense of scale when many forms are presented together like this with overly dramatic foreshortening.

The other thing I'd recommend on this front is that you should definitely be drawing through your boxes as mentioned in the 250 box challenge, as this helps you to better grasp how each box sits in 3D space. I actually just checked back, and it seems that in my critique for lesson 1, I did ask you to complete the 250 box challenge before moving onto this lesson, though you don't seem to have done so.

For your organic intersections, it's definitely a good attempt. One thing I'd highly recommend here is drawing each organic form in its entirety. That is, you've got several places where you've drawn parts of individual forms, but stopping where they'd be hidden by those in front of it. This does not give you a very good understanding of how each form sits in 3D space.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to do two pages of organic forms with contour ellipses and two pages of organic forms with contour curves. I'd also like you to complete and submit the 250 box challenge as previously requested, again with special attention paid to the notes about drawing through your forms.

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

2017-08-15 20:43

In general, this is really well done. Your arrows flow very nicely through 3D space, your contour lines wrap quite well around the organic forms in such a way that they accurately describe the deformation of those three dimensional surfaces, your form intersections demonstrate a great grasp of how those forms relate to one another in space, and your organic intersections capture how each form sags under its own weight.

The only area that was somewhat weaker was the dissections, and this is perfectly normal. The textures themselves are really more of a way for me to assess how you approach that particular kind of challenge, rather than expecting any particular level of quality.

I do see signs that you're experimenting with a lot of different kinds of textures, and that you're pushing yourself to draw what you see more than what you think you see, which is great. Developing your observational skills is important, and moreso is understanding that our memories are highly ineffective at this kind of task.

Where things go a bit wrong is that you have more of a tendency to scribble and rely on chaos. This should always be avoided, in favour of taking the time to really look at your reference image and identify the subtle rhythms and patterns that exist there. While they're not always clear, they do exist, and the second you give in and draw those details without thinking, your texture will start to fall apart.

I talk about this a little more over at the 25 texture challenge, so be sure to give that a read when you have the chance. I did want to mention though that I can see a careful consideration for how those textures wrap around your rounded forms, so that's great. Even though these textures are difficult, you're still applying your understanding of 3D space to great effect.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-08-15 20:35

Definitely better, though there are a few things that I'd like to point out:

• Your contour curves (especially the ones you draw on the torso) don't really wrap around the form that well most of the time. I'm sure you're capable of it, but you rush through drawing them more often than not, resulting in them being executed somewhat sloppily.

• I do think there are still places where you're jumping ahead of yourself and skipping constructional steps. In general you are doing better in this area, but if you look at this page, you'll notice that the legs and paws are quite complex, but you did not construct them on any sort of a simpler scaffolding as the constructional method would require. Observation is extremely important, but you've still got to build everything up from simpler elements, as you can generally guarantee the solidity of something that is simple in nature, and in turn that solidity will be maintained as you break forms down more to add greater complexity on top.

• I am definitely noticing that with your ellipses, you either skip drawing through them, or when you do draw through them, you sometimes end up with a considerable lack of control. Compare the circle used for the cranium to the ellipse used to block in the thigh in the page I linked in my last point. The thigh is nice and controlled, while the cranium is very difficult to pin down as it is all over the place. Take your time and try and execute them all more like the thigh. This will probably require you to apply the ghosting method more.

While there is plenty of room for improvement, I am going to go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, as I think these points cover most of what you need to work on. I also believe that the next lesson will push you to consider the simpler forms in your constructions with much more veracity, whereas this lesson and the few before it are a bit more forgiving. Keep that in mind - if you try and skip steps in lesson 6 and 7, you will end up paying for it.

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

2017-08-15 19:58

I think you're steadily improving. There's certainly room to grow, but over this sit you're demonstrating a developing understanding of how these 3D forms relate to one another, and are generally doing a better job of maintaining the illusion of form. I especially like the fly on the last page. While its construction is technically wrong (you incorrectly drew the thorax and abdomen as a single continuous mass), the forms you did draw actually feel quite plausible because of how you respected each component individually, and fleshed out clearly how they all connect to each other.

The wasp's head on the other hand still does start out more complex than it should, so you've still got a ways to go, but I think you should be good to move onto the next lesson, so I'll go ahead and mark this one as complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "25 Texture Challenge"

2017-08-15 15:26

I can definitely see that as being a tricky texture to approach. That said, I think your approach there fell away to a bit more chaos/randomness, which often happens when we get overwhelmed by something like this.

Uncomfortable in the post "25 Texture Challenge"

2017-08-14 20:51

It certainly looks like it was rough! I hope you didn't put your wrist out. As always, this is looking fantastic. In general you're demonstrating a very keen eye for detail. You've clearly identified the subtler rhythms of each texture, and pinned down just how the visual elements are grouped and populated across a surface in each individual case.

There is one thing that stood out to me however. In quite a few areas, you're still relying a little bit on hatching lines. This is usually in the capacity of laying down mid-tones (since ink only naturally allows us full black or full white). In these situations, it's best to force yourself to do one of two things:

• Identify what kind of details are present in that area, and use their specific pattern of tiny cast shadows instead of simple hatching. This will create a more interesting, somewhat less regular pattern across the surface, and will force you to apply the same kind of care and patience you've demonstrated elsewhere.

• If there is no such textural detail (for example, the surface is smooth), or if you wish to play down the actual texture in that area, don't be afraid of laying down larger areas of solid black. A brush pen can be especially useful for this. I see a lot of examples of you doing this already, but it's usually in combination of those kinds of hatchy mid-tones, which take the beauty of a bold statement about light/shadow and muddy it somewhat with the addition of a grey area.

It's absolutely true that there are going to be places where those grey areas are desired, and even necessary, when it comes to the styles you apply in the future. The reason it's incredibly useful to think only in terms of extremes in this exercise however is because it forces you to make hard choices, and to consider the edges of your shadow shapes' silhouettes.

Mind you, when I say hatching, what I mean may be somewhat unclear. For example, #20 may seem somewhat like hatching, but I think it's excellent because you're actually following a seemingly natural texture. In #4 however, those hatching lines used for shading on the scales don't really reflect what one would find on that kind of surface. Additionally, #25's loose hatching is more organic, but it feels sloppy and out of place for that particular kind of texture.

Anyway, overall this is an excellent set of work, so I commend you for pushing through and completing the challenge.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-08-13 21:45

Excellent work! I'm very pleased to see how conscientious you were with the corrections for each box, and the fact that you applied the extension method to each one. Your line quality is also looking solid, as are the box constructions in general. Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2017-08-13 17:29

Congrats on completing the challenge. There's one thing that really stands out to me overall: you're drawing very, very small. I had noticed this in the beginning of your box challenge, but as you progressed through it you opened up to drawing your forms larger. It seems now that I should have mentioned it then, though I thought you had kind of come to the correct conclusion on your own.

When you draw smaller, especially when it comes to tackling spatial problems involved in drawing three dimensional forms, it has the tendency to stiffen up your linework and your drawings. Beginners often do this out of a lack of confidence, feeling that smaller drawings will hide their mistakes, but the truth is that drawing smaller more often than not will reduce the quality of your work.

In the future, make a point of drawing somewhat larger than this - I'd say at least twice the size of these cylinders, if not larger still. This will give you more freedom to draw from your shoulder and to generally be more confident and bold with how you go about making those marks.

You've completed the challenge, so I'll mark it as such. That said, I think it would be in your best interest to do another 50. Remember to apply the ghosting method to every one of your lines - that is, investing all of your time into planning and preparing, then executing with a confident, persistent pace.

You are also welcome to get started on lesson 2, though I'd recommend doing those 50 extra cylinders before you tackle the form intersections. And the same thing about drawing larger goes for the lesson 2 material - and frankly, everything. If you draw small, your drawings will get cramped and stiff.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-08-13 17:08

You're definitely doing visibly better, especially when it comes to how you're applying construction to some of these drawings. There are a couple of issues I did notice, and they're related more directly to the decisions you made in your approaches rather than technical ability.

1. Your branches/stems exercises were not as strong as they were in the previous attempt. Reason being, you changed your approach from drawing the long, complex edges in segments (as mentioned in the instructions) to attempting to draw the entire edge in one go. This resulted in your branches getting narrower/wider inconsistently, which undermined the solidity of the form. In the previous attempt, the individual segments had visible breaks in their flow through the length of the whole compound line, but the approach itself was more correct. What is necessary to correct this broken flow is to draw a segment from one ellipse, overshoot the next and aim towards the third as you allow the line to taper and stop. The flow was breaking because you had been overshooting the second ellipse, but not aiming towards the third, so when you drew the segment going from the second, past the third, it would follow a different path, resulting in those visible breaks.

• You consciously attempted to draw more contour lines - this is not always a good idea. In fact, it's usually a bad idea. It is not a matter of more is always better - it's matter of the quality of those that have been included. When you draw many contour lines, the purpose they fulfill overlaps. You end up with many lines doing more or less the same job. This should be avoided. When adding a contour line, consider what exactly it is meant to do. Contour lines run along the surface of a form to help describe how it deforms through space. Then consider if you've already got enough such lines doing that - usually just a couple are enough. Thirdly, really think about how that surface turns in space, and know that how you draw that curve will effectively define the behaviour of that surface for the viewer. For the construction phase, especially with leaves, it can be a little easy to mix up the lines we add just to reinforce the illusion of 3D form and the lines we add as detail later on. Detail that runs along a surface will have the same effect, but will always be a direct reflection of elements visible in the reference image, and are left for a later point in the process. Contour lines we add during construction are always placed strategically, in a way that best describes that surface. I think this page did a good job, as most of the contour curves either reinforce the surfaces well and those additional ones line up with what one would naturally find in a leaf, so they don't end up making it feel more stiff. This page however is definitely overdoing it, and in general the placement of the contour lines do not feel natural, so the fact that there are way more than would be necessary to describe that surface really stands out.

Anyway, keep that in mind as you move forwards. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson. Be sure to continue working on those branch exercises though, as it's important to get the hang of having your line segments flow naturally into one another so you can handle more complex lines more naturally.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-08-11 20:34

Very nice work! Your overall construction certainly gets better, but more importantly your general sense of confidence improves considerably over the set. The only thing that I'd like to point out is your approach to the corrections phase - from the looks of it, you're focusing largely on pointing them out, circling them, and generally making notes. What's most important is somewhat lacking - that is, actually marking in the correct lines.

Additionally, I've pasted below an approach to identifying mistakes that was mentioned in the challenge page that should be useful, in case you missed it during your first read through:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

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

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

2017-08-11 20:29

Hahaha, glad to see that you're getting lots of love on imgur! And rightly so, because this set of homework is really quite well done. You're very clearly paying careful attention to the construction of each form, and demonstrating a strong understanding of how these objects occupy 3D space. I'm also seeing a lot of experimentation in terms of how to explore that space, and how to break down different objects - experimentation is important, so keep it up.

The only thing I noticed that I would change in your approach is that you have a tendency to treat certain incidental details as not being worth taking the time to properly be drawn from observation. It's certainly true that there are details that would fall into this category, but I think it's important simply not to draw them if that's the case. Anything that goes on the page should be the result of forethought and consideration. Not everything needs to end up in your drawing, and part of what makes it your drawing is what you choose to include and what to leave out. A lot of those extra little scribbled details really take away from the well planned construction of the forms themselves.

On that same note, I'd recommend not relying quite so much on hatching lines. They're a pretty common fallback for filling in space (especially when it comes to shadows), but they have a few important weaknesses. Firstly, we tend to overuse them (instead of taking the time to carefully identify what kind of textures are present on an object). Secondly, they can produce a lot of visual noise - the dense areas of black and white created by hatching will very quickly draw the eye, even if it was entirely unintentional. Consider instead filling in areas you want to have represented as being dark - a brush pen can be quite useful for this. This will give you that sense of darkness without the unnecessary visual noise. It'll also give your drawing a bit more of a bold, confident appearance, where hatching tends to give the impression of being uncertain and unwilling to make a decision.

Anyway, overall your work is fantastic. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-08-11 20:19

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, as I think you're grasping the issue with the branches - although you definitely need to continue to practice these as your edge segments are still visibly failing to flow into one another. At this point I think it's also important for you to move onto the next lesson, in order to look at the idea of construction from a different angle.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-08-11 20:17

Your presentation looks very polished. It is very important though that you go over those boxes with corrections - apply the extending-lines approach mentioned in the challenge page (I'll paste it below as well) will highlight a lot of inconsistencies that you may not have noticed. I'd recommend trying it out on all of the boxes on this page. Identifying those kinds of mistakes, especially when you don't see them initially is a great way to learn from them.

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-08-11 20:12

Honestly, this is better than I would have expected. You've got some good things going on in here, but there are still plenty of issues I can bring to your attention. Here are some notes pointing out specific issues. Additionally, I noticed that you've got a lot of places where you're scribbling details down - don't do this. If you're not going to take your time drawing things carefully from observation, you sure as hell shouldn't be adding them at all. They're only distracting you from focusing on construction, and make your presentation look much worse.

One of the things I pointed out in regards to your branches was that your edges don't flow too well into one another. We construct those branches in segments because it allows us to maintain more control over those sections, but it also comes with the risk that if those segments don't flow into one another, it will look very stiff and chickenscratchy.

When we draw those segments, we start at one ellipse, overshoot the next ellipse and steer towards the third. This last part - steering towards the third - is important, because this ensures that when we draw the next segment, it will go over the path of the first, avoiding the disjointedness we see now.

While there are risks involved in this approach, you should definitely use it instead of trying to draw an entire complex branch form in a single curve. You simply don't have the control right now to be able to achieve anything like that, and learning to understand how your lines flow through this approach will help you work towards that eventually.

On another note, aside from the incredibly sloppy ground/dirt, this mushroom is very well done as far as the construction and form goes.

I'd like you to do another four pages of plant drawings, focusing entirely on construction. No detail or texture whatsoever, just solid forms. Focus on capturing their solidity, and DO NOT SKIP STEPS. It doesn't matter if a drawing requires you to capture one leaf or a hundred, you need to draw everything with the same amount of care and patience.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-08-10 20:54

These branches are definitely looking better, but there are two things that I'm noticing that I want you to work on:

• In many of these cases, you're making use of the approach I mention at step 3 of the branches instructions, about constructing the larger edge out of segments. This overall keeps us from losing control of the line altogether, but it comes with its fair share of risks. Most importantly, if your lines don't flow into one another, we can start to move dangerously close to a sort of "chicken-scratching" aesthetic. This happens when the ends of each segment are noticeable, and especially when they veer off the path the next edge takes. You always want your line to overshoot past the second ellipse and continue on towards the third. In a lot of your cases, they overshoot slightly and simply move towards some arbitrary point. As a result, your next line does not coincide with the previous one, resulting in a noticeable break in the flow.

• Your ellipses are pretty much all of the same degree. As I describe in these notes, the degree tells us of the orientation of the circle the ellipse is representing in 3D space. If it's very wide and circle-like, the actual circle in 3D space is oriented directly towards us. If it's narrow, it's running across our field of vision. When you stick to roughly the same degree for all of these ellipses, it tells us that your branches are all more or less running across the same two dimensions of space, without breaking into the third at all. Sometimes this is appropriate, but in an exercise like this it suggests that you still need to work towards pushing your brain to recognize that this third dimension of space exists. So, I want you to play with that a little more, and vary the degrees of your ellipses while thinking about what exactly this means about the branches themselves, and how they move through 3D space.

I'd like you to do one more page of branches. Take your time, and really think about the ellipses as being cross-sections, and the edges flowing from one to the next to connect them in a sort of three dimensional game of connect-the-dots.

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

2017-08-10 15:32

I'll definitely keep those points in mind - although specifically in terms of mirroring across perspective, that is something I actually talk about in this lesson's intro video (from about 10:30 to 12:15).

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2017-08-09 23:26

Nice work. While your constructions are pretty nice throughout, I think your confidence markedly improves over the set, especially in regards to your ellipses. In general the issue is that at the beginning, they've got a fair bit of stiffness to them. There still is some of that by the end, but considerably less. Just always remember to draw your ellipses from your shoulder, and not to hesitate when doing so - execute them with a confident, persistent pace after ghosting through the motion several times to build up muscle memory.

The other thing I wanted to mention was that near the end, the additional effort placed on applying hatching lines isn't necessarily the best use of your energy. In certain cases, those lines work against the illusion of form you're constructing - specifically when you end up with straighter lines sitting along a rounded surface. In the next lesson, you'll learn about 'contour lines' - effectively lines that sit on a surface, and by their very existence describe how that surface deforms through space. If you take a sphere and draw a straight line across it on the page, that straight line will immediately tell us that it's flat and will undermine that illusion of form.

Generally the more successful use of hatching here are the longer lines that run length-wise along the surface of the cylinder.

All that said, experimentation is definitely important, and these are important lessons to learn. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-08-09 23:21

There are a few things that jump out at me.

To start with, your linework tends to feel rather stiff. This could be caused by a few things, and is most likely a combination. Firstly, drawing from your wrist instead of your shoulder. Secondly, drawing smaller - most of your plant drawings are okay as far as size goes, but your branches do feel rather cramped (often caused by a lack of confidence in what you're doing - students will often draw smaller in a subconscious effort to hide their mistakes, but it generally has the effect of making everything extremely rigid). Lastly, being too preoccupied with the precision and accuracy of your lines, and as a result drawing more slowly, instead of applying the ghosting method as described in lesson 1 (specifically investing all of your time in the preparation phase, and executing with a confident, persistent pace regardless of whether or not you end up missing the mark).

Another issue that comes to mind looking at your leaves is that the space you feel your drawings exist within appears to be limited to the page you're drawing on. That is, the bounds of that space are defined by the page itself. The page only has two dimensions of space, and as a result you are less able to push into that third dimension and explore it with your forms. Your leaves show this as they generally tend to move across those two dimensions, without much exploration into the third. Admittedly leaves aren't particularly long things, so there isn't a whole lot of exploration into the depth of a scene that can be done with them, but all the same this is more of a symptom of your current perception of things.

Take another look at the instructions for the leaf exercise, and focus particularly on the first step. It involves drawing a single line - when drawing it, consider the point from which it starts, and the point at which it ends. Think about where these points are - not on the page, but rather in the three dimensional world to which your page is merely a window. Draw your line such that it flows through these three dimensions, moving not only across, but also from farther away to closer to you.

When constructing these leaves, I want you to take much more time with each individual step - yours definitely seem quite rushed, which is not at all abnormal for one exhibiting frustration, but you need to force yourself to take your time. I do see some interesting leaves where their forms twist around themselves, but I also see a lot of leaves that feel very flat and unlively.

When you do this exercise, for the time being, focus on just those first two steps - establish the line of flow (this line is extremely important), and then by drawing two additional lines from the start to the end of the first, enclose the shape of the leaf. I don't want you to draw any contour lines, any detail. Just focus on how that leaf flows through space. All three of these lines need to be drawn from the shoulder of course, as the focus here is FLOW.

The branches are quite similar in this, in that they start off the same way, and that first step is the most important for the exact same reason. Once that flow is established, draw a few ellipses along that length - draw through them, of course, and also consider how their degree describes the circle they represent in 3D space. I have some notes about that here.

I noticed that instead of drawing your edges from ellipse to ellipse, you seem to have drawn each edge in its entirety in one go. In order to compensate for the inevitable difficulty here, you drastically slowed down, which also resulted in your lines getting quite stiff. If you look at step 3 in the instructions, you'll notice that I mention drawing your edges from one ellipse to and just past the second, overshooting it a little, continuing towards the third. For the next segment, start at the second ellipse and draw towards the third ellipse - flowing directly into the overshoot of your first edges - and repeating the process. If your lines don't flow together, they will look like chicken scratch, but if performed correctly your branches will not be quite as stiff as they are now.

The last point I want to make about the branches is that you're vastly overdoing it with those contour ellipses because you aren't really thinking about the purpose they serve. You're thinking about it as a rule - draw a form, fill it with contour lines, more is always better. This is not the case. They serve a purpose, and if you have lines that are not serving a purpose (because their purpose is already being served by another such mark), then they serve only as clutter, and tend to stiffen things up. Aside from the usual purpose of contour lines, to reinforce the illusion that a form is three dimensional and has volume to it, these ellipses serve as the junctions as we draw our longer edges, segment by segment. Keep that in mind when deciding how many ellipses you want to put along a length of branch, and don't use more than you need.

Oh, one other thing - keep it simple. Until you're able to capture these branches with the illusion that they flow smoothly through all three dimensions of space, I don't want you to play with having forking branches or anything complex like that.

I think that should be more than enough for now - I'd like you to do three pages of the leaf exercise, followed by three pages of the branches exercise. When you resubmit, link me back to your initial submission and we'll decide what the next step will be from there.

Oh yeah - apply the ghosting method to everything. Every mark you draw should be done so confidently, and from the shoulder. Do not allow yourself to rush, or to stiffen up. You WILL make mistakes. You must make mistakes. Accept that as a fact of life.

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

2017-08-09 22:59

Nice work overall, just a couple points to mention:

• I am noticing that your arrows, while generally well done, tend to move across two dimensions of space, rather than exploring all three. This shows me that your mind's a little bit trapped in the space defined by the page itself, rather than looking at the page as a window into a larger three dimensional world. Give the top-left part of these notes a read for a little more information on that issue.

• For your organic forms with contour curves, make sure you include the central minor axis line. While we're not drawing full ellipses here, the curves we draw are technically parts of larger ellipses, and the alignment of those ellipses should still be bound to the minor axis line.

• Your dissections were generally well done, but I'd like you to play a little with breaking up the silhouette of the forms themselves. Texture is not simply two dimensional wrapping paper stretched across the form - it certainly wraps around its parent form, but it exists in three dimensions itself, and can have parts that stick out beyond the natural edge of its parent. Like this. Since the silhouette is the first thing a person's eye notices, any information that is conveyed through that edge will generally have a much stronger impact than any details that exist internally within the form, so it can be a very effective way to communicate certain qualities without going to town on the whole thing.

• The form intersections exercise is all about drawing forms that feel consistent and cohesive within the same scene. I feel you achieved this quite well. The intersections themselves were fairly decent as well, though this is a much more advanced aspect of understanding the interactions between forms. I do not by any means expect students to be entirely comfortable with that just yet, and only ask them to play with it here so they can start thinking about how forms might cut into one another.

• Generally decent work with the organic intersections as well - you're doing a good job of showing how those forms sag against one another.

As for your question, I actually talk about this in the FAQ. The short of it is that your wrist should generally be used for lines that need to be stiff and precise (usually just detail/texture). Everything else that needs to flow smoothly should be drawn from the shoulder.

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

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

2017-08-09 22:48

Very nice work as always! I'm glad that your usual patience, care, and general grasp of 3D space carried over quite nicely into geometric construction from the organic stuff we were tackling previously. Since overall you're demonstrating a fantastic use of construction, I'll focus instead on the point you raised about the iron.

Before that though, just a quick tip - ease up a little on your line weights. You are definitely being a little heavy handed with them (or at least, are picking another particularly thick pen). Line weights generally benefit from being more subtle, as going overboard can easily flatten out a form. Because your constructions are solid on their own, there isn't much flattening going on here, but in general I think it's important to tone it down, and get used to using the same pen you used for the drawing when adding your line weights. This will make it considerably more difficult to add too much. You'd be surprised how little additional weight is necessary to help organize the mess of construction lines you're usually left with.

Anyway, about the iron - ultimately what works, works. Your approach did the trick, and resulted in a solid, believable representation of a fairly complex form. Overall what you did was pretty similar to the approach conveyed in the computer mouse demo (relying heavily on cross-sections and then connecting them all together), and so it definitely fell into the kind of subject matter we were looking to cover in this lesson.

The only thing I might tackle a little differently, is to start that handle off as a box, and immediately cut out another box out from inside of it. From there you can construct your cross-sections within the resulting planes, and connect them all together. This is by no means the 'right' way of doing it, and yours certainly is far from the 'wrong' way. It's just a different way to think about approaching the construction of these forms. Here's a demonstration of what I mean, though with a more generic loop rather than the iron's particularly complex handle.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-08-08 23:44

The first page is rather nice (especially in regards to the flow of the leaves), although you should always avoid cutting forms off as you did with the flower pot. If you end up running out of space and have to cut things off, make sure you cap off those forms. This will help reinforce the illusion of 3D form, whereas having two lines running parallel and suddenly stopping totally flattens things out.

Page 2 is definitely way overboard with line weight. Line weight variation should be subtle - just a little extra weight is generally enough to help organize one's linework, while overdoing it will very quickly flatten out a drawing.

Page 3 feels a little stiff, and it doesn't help that you didn't draw through your ellipses there.

Page 4 is better, albeit you need to work on your ellipses in general. Either you're not drawing through them, or they're very loose and unstructured.

Before I mark this lesson as complete, I want you to do one page of branch exercises, as I think that will target most of the issues I see here.

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

2017-08-08 15:05

Solid work on the arrows exercise. Your organic forms with contour ellipses are generally well done, though I do want you to give these notes a read to help explain what the degree of each ellipse really represents about the circular cross-section it represents in 3D space. Also be a little more careful about aligning your ellipses to the central minor axis line, as I noticed in a few cases that alignment was a little off.

Speaking of the minor axis, you should definitely continue to use them when drawing contour curves. Keep in mind that the central line is not also a contour line - it penetrates through the dead center of the form itself, and is still important for aligning the curves (which are just the visual portion of the full ellipses) in these exercises.

Your first page of dissections was definitely on the weaker side, but your second page improved considerably. You're demonstrating there a much more solid grasp of the individual textural components as being actual forms, just at a smaller scale. If you want more information on how to tackle texture though, I'd definitely recommend the texture challenge notes.

Both for your form intersection exercise was done quite well. The organic intersections were reasonably done too, and you're demonstrating a well developing understanding of how these organic forms all sag against each other whilst maintaining their volumes.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Keep what I've mentioned here in mind, but feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-08-08 13:44

At the end of the day, there's no value in how you feel you should be doing. There's no expectation, no standard of performance, and by expecting more of yourself than you are currently capable, you're only fooling yourself into feeling bad about what you've thus far achieved.

Your leaves section is looking quite solid - I think they demonstrate a nice, fluid flow through 3D space, and it shows that you're following the proper approach to construction for this kind of form. Your branches are also coming along pretty well - one recommendation I have here however is to explore how the branches might move a little in a third dimension as well. Right now they're all very much moving across the two dimensions of the page, but not exploring the depth of the space they occupy.

In the rest of your drawings, there's both good and not-so-good. One thing I'm catching is that you're a little rushed when drawing things, not quite taking the time to execute each stage of construction to the best of your ability. Patience is important, and you need to consider before calling a step "done" whether or not your form is maintaining the illusion of being three dimensional. Keep in mind that we are not drawing flat shapes on a page - we are placing 3D forms in a 3D world, and we need to firmly convince ourselves of this fact at every turn.

Looseness when drawing initial forms will undermine that illusion of solidity - so if you look at how things started out on the left side of this page, there's nothing really holding it together. The right side is similar as well - your starting ellipse was never really tight enough to feel like it could have been a proper ball. The line weight was well applied however, especially in how you took into consideration how each little ball would cast a heavier shadow below it, which you captured by adding a little extra line weight on its lower edge.

The issues in on this page are pretty straight forward - you just need some extra work with cylinders. The solidity I've mentioned a lot in this critique already is somewhat undermined by the subtle arc to the edges of the pot, and while at first it appears as though you drew a continuous minor axis around which to construct the cylindrical form, upon closer inspection we can see that it's actually two separate lines. In regards to the arcs, this kind of additional level of complexity (as I imagine that the pot's edges aren't actually straight) should be built upon the more solid scaffolding of a straight-edged cylinder. Anyway, I do recommend taking a look at the notes over on the 250 cylinder challenge, as there are certainly rules to how cylinders should be constructed.

Additionally, some of the more complex, wavy leaves should still be started out as a dead-simple leaf form, with the waves added after the fact. Remember that this process of construction is about solving problems one-by-one. First you establish the direction in which the leaf will flow (with the center line), then you establish an actual flat shape flowing through 3D space (by enclosing the leaf with simple edges), then you add any additional deviation from this flow (like wavy edges) within the framework already present.

I actually quite like how you've approached this pineapple - you're still being a touch sloppy when it comes to your first lay-ins, but generally it's quite well done. Just remember that we're following the mentality of roughly sketching things in first, then building on top of that. We're building simple, but solid forms, and as such we cannot rush through them. Be sure to draw through all of your ellipses (I've noticed that there are many cases where you don't), and be sure to apply the ghosting method to all of your linework - straights, curves and even ellipses.

Lastly, I think texture is something we should set aside for now. Your observational skills certainly need more development (there's a lot of signs that you're drawing things more from memory, rather than direct observation), but right now it's going to distract you from keeping your focus on the construction and combination of solid forms. When you end up with all of this on your plate at once, it's easy to separate one's mental faculties to attempt to tackle all of them, so removing this one element should help. Later on however, you should definitely give the notes on the texture challenge page a read through.

I'd like you to do another four pages of plant drawings, focusing entirely on construction with no texture whatsoever. Take your time with every form you put down - do not rush, and focus on the idea that at the end of every stage of construction, you should personally feel convinced that what you're drawing is not simply a bunch of lines on a flat page, but rather that the page itself is a window to a three dimensional space, with three dimensional forms sitting within it. I also recommend that before you do these last four pages, you watch the intro video once more. It's perfectly normal for some of this stuff to take a bit of repetition to sink in completely.

There's one last thing I want to point out - in all likelihood, that mentality that you "should be doing better" is probably what is causing you to rush through the early stages. You feel you should be at a point further along than you are currently, and therefore feel you should be able to get those steps down more quickly. As a result, the foundations of your drawings are shakier than they could be. Do not try to move at anyone's pace but your own.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-08-07 02:53

Nice work completing the challenge, and the last part of lesson 1. Those rotated boxes are looking very nice. The only issue I want to raise in regards to your boxes though is about how you're actually executing your lines.

I see a lot of signs that you're (for some of these boxes, moreso later in the set) drawing lines more lightly as a sort of rough sketch, then going back over them with a darker, but more hesitant line. I want you to avoid this two-stage approach entirely.

Instead, as you seem to have done for other boxes here, draw all of your lines with confidence, applying the ghosting method. You can use the first step of the ghosting method to place start/end points for each line before you actually commit to a stroke, but ultimately when executing a mark, you need to only be concerned with drawing with a confident, persistent pace, in order to maintain a consistent trajectory and a smooth line. If you're caught up in drawing a line lighter, or following the path you laid down previously, you are going to end up burdening your brain with too many concerns.

Similarly, instead of drawing a lighter line for the "drawn-through" portions of the box, you can draw them with the same kind of confidence you'd use elsewhere, but then fill in one of the front-facing faces of the box with some tight hatching lines to serve as a visual cue for separating front faces from back faces.

Anyway, feel free to move onto lesson 2, as I'll be marking both lesson 1 and the box challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2017-08-06 18:25

Yup, that sounds about right. Though keep in mind that this shift is generally going to be quite subtle. Similarly to the near/far plane size relationships, the greater the discrepancy, the larger the implied scale of the object.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2017-08-05 20:50

Nice work. I definitely think your grasp of 3D space and how to go about constructing these cylinders improves over the set, as does your general confidence. Your ellipses are generally coming out fairly smooth, and you're demonstrating a fair bit of care in aligning your ellipses to the minor axes. The only major issue I'm noticing is that you could certainly use a little more patience when actually drawing your initial minor axis - your lines aren't always straight in this regard.

Remember to apply the ghosting method to every single mark you draw - that is, all three steps mentioned in lesson 1, starting with placing points where you want your line to start and end. This method should be applied everywhere, even though it's somewhat time consuming.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-08-05 20:47

There are a few things that jump out at me:

• You seem to be a little afraid of letting your leaves fold back over themselves, as demonstrated here, especially in your first page. Sometimes that is the natural flow a leaf would take, so don't fight against it. Just follow the flow established with your initial central line, regardless of where that takes you.

• In your branches, you seem to be trying to draw each side with a single continuous line. In the instructions, I mention that it can be more effective to construct those edges as segments, so long as you ensure that those segments flow naturally into one another (so as to avoid a chicken-scratchy look). If you try and nail them in a single line, they will come out wobbly and uneven, and the branch itself will feel much less solid.

• Don't leave forms open ended, as you have at the base of these aloe leaves. The second it is left open, the form becomes completely flatten out. In this case, you'd be much better off establishing how each of those leaves connect to something, so as to reinforce that illusion of form. If you're not sure what they connect to and how, do some additional research to find images from other angles.

• Your linework tends to be somewhat uniformly heavy-handed. For example, look at these. Everything is equally thick, and it tends to make things flatten out. I'm also noticing that your petal construction there doesn't quite follow the methodology covered earlier on in the lesson. Always start out with a single central line, then enclose the shape of the leaf with edges that go from the beginning to the end of that initial flow-line, attempting to follow how that line suggests the leaf would flow through space. I think these are generally a better use of the technique.

There is a fair bit of good here, but overall there's this unshakeable sense of stiffness to your drawings, as though you're putting marks down without fully understanding what they represent about the forms you're drawing, and the space you're drawing them in. I'm also not sure what size you're drawing them at, but if it's fairly small, this can certainly be a contributing factor.

I'd like you to give these notes a read, then try another four pages of plant drawings. When you draw these extra pages, I want you to spend more time observing your references carefully, spending only a few moments at a time looking away from them to draw a few marks before looking back.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-08-05 20:32

There are a few things that stand out to me right off the bat. The first thing is that I think you're trying to handle too many things at once, and as a result you're getting distracted. The constructional approach to drawing is all about breaking things down into chunks that can be handled in isolation from one another. Instead of tackling many problems at once, we tackle one problem at a time. Once we move on from one problem to the next, we no longer attempt to change what was established in the previous step - even if it's off, we work within those bounds because if we try to correct those mistakes now, while accomplishing another task, we are going to risk compromising what we're doing now.

I think your approach to detail/texture has very much fallen victim to this, and as a result it's coming out either scribbly and chaotic, or isn't reflecting all that much careful observation of your reference image. Rather, you seem to be looking at your reference for a while, attempting to commit it to memory, then drawing for a long while from what you remember. Or rather, what you think you remember. What comes of this is that your details end up looking cartoony and oversimplified.

You need to accept that as human beings, our capacity to remember is intensely flawed. We need to instead look at our reference continually, in order to refresh our memories. We can only look away for a moment or two to draw a few very specific marks or establish a particular form before we have to look back at our reference.

This doesn't just apply to detail, but rather to construction in general. Take a look at the feet of your animals, or their eyes. If you compare them to your reference images, you'll notice that there's a lot more complexity to them there. Complexity that your brain threw out because it was not necessary to understand the concept of what a "foot" is, or what an "eye" is. Remember that we evolved to survive in the wild - only the basic concept of what an eye looks like is necessary to know that those eyes peering at us from the darkness means danger.

Anyway, for now I want you to set aside detail altogether. For the time being, it's only serving as a distraction that is keeping you from really focusing on your construction.

The second point I wanted to raise is one that I've raised a few times in the past already. Take a look at this bird. Notice how at some point you realized that its chest was puffing out further than you wanted? You then went on to entirely ignore the form that was there initially, treat it as though it was a flat shape on a flat piece of paper, and draw an entirely new line.

This makes sense if we're just drawing two dimensional shapes, but we're not - we're placing solid chunks of matter in a three dimensional world, and we need to continue to treat them as such if we want them to maintain their illusion of solidity. Think of it as being solid marble - you can't just ignore it when it suits you. You have to deal with it, or respect the fact that you've placed it there, and that it's not going anywhere.

That ties back to the idea of previous steps of construction dealing with certain challenges - and once those challenges are dealt with, it's inadvisable to go back and try and change them. In this case, that chest puffed out that far, so while that is not identical to the reference image you were using, that's simply how your drawing is now. So you need to push yourself to make that work, because while the result won't be exactly what you were trying to draw, it will still feel solid and most importantly, plausible as a three dimensional object.

On a related note, notice this dog's snout? You started off with the center line of the cranial mass oriented in one direction. Once that decision is made, hold true to it - the snout's orientation should match.

I'm not sure if I've shown you these notes before, but take a look, specifically at the part about lines closer to the bottom. I'm noticing that your linework tends to be very uniform, and this contributes to a general appearance of stiffness.

One last thing - when it comes to the initial masses (cranium, ribcage, pelvis), I want you to think about your own body. We also share in these masses, and their proportions aren't entirely dissimilar to those in these animals. Our ribcages take up somewhere around half of our torso, and our pelvis takes up maybe a quarter. In animals, the pelvis can be even smaller. When placing these masses, actually try and assess where they would sit on the animals you're trying to draw and how they'd be oriented. It's not just a matter of placing arbitrary masses.

Look at this dog. You drew the pelvic mass as this massive thing that doesn't really reflect a dog's actual pelvis. If you're unsure of how it should be oriented, you can certainly look at dog skeletons or other anatomical images to get a better sense of it. Once those masses are established, we can certainly add extra volumes here and there to represent some more noticeable muscle forms that tend to bulge out, but it needs to be built upon a framework that reflects that bone structure.

I'd like you to try your hand at this lesson again, but this time focus entirely on construction, with no detail. I don't want to see any lines that are not part of a form. No hair, no fur, no features, no arbitrary hatching lines. Just forms. Take a look at the 'other demos' section of the lesson as well if you haven't already. And most of all, slow down. Observe your reference more carefully, don't draw what you think you see.

Oh yeah, one other thing - eyeballs are spheres. You're drawing them like stickers on the face, but they're actual balls that sit in sockets, and eyelids wrap around them. It all comes back down to form.

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

2017-08-05 19:15

Overall you're doing very well. Your drawings convey a strong understanding of form and how those forms relate to one another in 3D space, which really is what I'm after.

There are a few qualities that I try not to encourage in these exercises, but because of the previous points I mentioned, I'm not as keen on having you change your ways here. Specifically, you draw with a degree of timidity - it's very clear to me, when looking over your work, that your end result is very much in your mind. When you put lines down, you're consciously considering whether or not you want them to be visible in the end, and while you are certainly laying down your initial masses in their entirety, you do sometimes skip steps in order to preserve the relative cleanliness of the drawing at the end.

Ultimately the goal of these exercises is to improve one's grasp of 3D space, and how these forms all fit together, and the best way to do that is to draw everything in its entirety, without skipping over constructional steps (remember the principle that any complex form you draw should be supported by the construction already on the page). Over time, the expectation is that a stronger grasp of 3D space will allow you to do more of that underlying construction in your head rather than on the page, so eventually you'll be able to draw more cleanly - not because steps were necessarily skipped, but because they were done through visualization instead.

So when I say you skip steps here, you are demonstrating to a degree that you're doing it in your head, rather than actually skipping through them entirely. The result is, as I mentioned, that your constructions still retain their sense of volume, form and solidity.

That doesn't mean that this is the best approach right now however. I think there certainly are benefits to drawing things in their entirety even when you don't necessarily need to, because doing things explicitly will always grant you more insight. Again, that is what these exercises are about.

Anyway, I have a pretty easy solution that should work into your approach - just draw bigger. I think you're currently holding back on some of your lines because of the space you're left with - a confident mark here and there stands out a lot more when your drawing is a few inches wide, than when it's half a page. This should give you more freedom to explore those forms more explicitly.

Anyway, like I said before - you're doing great as it is, I think you just need to give yourself the freedom to draw a little less hesitantly, and remember that it's the exercise itself, not the end result, that matters to us here.

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

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

2017-08-05 18:47

Definitely better. A lot of people have a bit of a disconnect between the ellipses and the curves, so it's important to reiterate to them that they're basically the same, with the curves being only the visible section of a larger ellipse. That said, we often hesitate when drawing just the curves, as it's tougher to allow ourselves the kind of follow-through we get from a full ellipse.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Make sure you continue practicing these as warmups though, as there is definitely room for improvement (in drawing the curves more confidently to keep them smooth, and in aligning them correctly to the minor axis line). You're on the right track though, so keep it up.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-08-05 18:43

Nice work! I'm especially pleased to see that you extended most of your lines back for all of your boxes. It's certainly time consuming, but it definitely seems to have helped as your constructions and general grasp of 3D space does seem to have improved over the set. I'm also quite pleased with all of the corrections you marked in.

Overall, I don't have much to offer in the way of critique. I noticed that you were playing with line weight early on, but seemed to give up on that later on. Nothing wrong with focusing on one thing in order to really nail it, but it would be good to play with line weight a little more in the future, as it helps kick solid boxes up to the next level, as far as the illusion of cohesion and solidity goes.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-08-05 18:34

Nice work! I can definitely see the construction of your boxes improving over the set, and I think a lot of that has to do with how conscientiously you're applying those corrections. That said, as you improve, you may find that you'll notice fewer and fewer mistakes, because they naturally become more subtle (since you're already more aware of the obvious ones). In this case, it becomes extra useful to apply the following method, which was mentioned in the challenge notes:

Each box consists of three sets of four parallel lines, each set having its own vanishing point. When going over a box in the correction phase, you can extend these lines two to three times their original length towards their implied vanishing point. This will give you a better sense of how these lines behave as they converge. Ideally all four lines of a given set will converge towards a single point at roughly the same rate. By extending these lines, you will start to notice how some lines within a set converge more quickly than others, which implies several points of convergence instead of just one. By being able to spot these mistakes, you should be able to learn from them that much more effectively.

It's definitely time consuming, but it'll help you keep from plateauing, as you'll have a more concrete way of identifying where (and why) things appear to be a little off.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2017-08-05 18:31

Looking good! There's a lot of great stuff here, and your linework and execution of your ellipses is coming out quite confidently. In general you're demonstrating a good eye for form and 3D space, and I'm glad to see how conscientious you are about your minor axis.

There's just a couple things that I noticed here and there that I want to point out:

• There are noticeable cases where your farther ellipse ends up with a degree narrower than the near end. For example, 237 jumps out at me, though there are others. Remember that the far end should generally have a slightly wider degree. Based on its infrequency, I can totally understand this as being slip-ups now and then, but I figured I'd point it out anyway.

• I also noticed some cases like 215, where the orientation of the ellipses is somewhat reversed (the minor axis is cutting through that near ellipse's wider dimension, rather than its narrower one. In general, for ellipses with degrees that circular, you're also generally going to see much less of the length of the cylinder. That is, the two ellipses will overlap more. The one next to it (217) shows that orientation of a cylinder with ellipse-degrees that match it more closely.

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

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

2017-08-04 03:48

I think it's very good that you decided to double back to this lesson. Your organic forms with contour ellipses are looking good, although you seem to have neglected to do the organic forms with contour curves. Based on your organic intersections however, I do see some areas where your curves don't quite wrap around your forms correctly. This isn't always the case, you kind of waffle back and forth between them. In case you don't recall, I discuss this issue in these notes.

In your form intersections, it's important that you draw through your forms. This exercise is all about understanding how the forms relate to one another, and drawing through them is the best way to get a sense of how each box sits in space. Additionally, your linework here is notably sloppy. Doesn't look like you're applying the ghosting method - your lines tend to arc and waver. Lastly, I noticed that you use a minor axis in the construction of your cones and cylinders some of the time. It's a great thing to apply all across the board. When you do though, make sure your minor axis is longer - the ellipses should sit with the minor axis going all the way through them, rather than just partially, as the purpose of the minor axis is to help with alignment.

Skipping back to your arrows, I'm getting the impression that you're still somewhat thinking about the scope of space as being the page itself. The arrows feel quite a bit like they're going across the page, rather than going all that far into it. As I discuss in these notes, it's important to think of the page as a window into a larger three dimensional world, rather than defining the bounds of the world in which your drawings exist.

Lastly, I'm going to leave the dissections alone for the time being, because your primary focus should be on establishing the illusion of form. Texture will largely just be distracting. Once we get through that however, it wouldn't be a bad idea to gradually work through the 25 texture challenge - after reading through the notes there of course. But again, just tuck that away for later.

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

2017-08-04 03:40

Those droopy sausages are exactly what it's all about - and you did a pretty solid job with them too, especially in that last page. The key is to keep the forms simple, and just focus on how they, well.. droop. And sag.

You also demonstrated a fair bit of improvement with your form intersections, between your first attempt and your last. Your last couple pages feel very confident and demonstrate a generally strong sense of 3D space.

Your first page of dissections is quite well done, and demonstrates a variety of different textures all approached in ways tailored to what you're trying to capture. I think after that you got a little sloppy and lazy though. Overall, keep in mind that this exercise should be built on top of the same kind of results we get from our organic forms with contour curves/ellipses. Meaning, you should be adding textures to forms whose volumes are already solidly fleshed out.

Speaking of which, your organic forms with contour curves don't quite make the cut. Specifically, your contour curves aren't accelerating enough in their curvature as they reach the edge of the form. They need to give the impression that they're hooking back around and continuing along the other side. Instead of focusing on that in your first page, you seem to have instead increased the complexity of your forms, giving yourself entirely different challenges to contend with before the main one was actually handled. I've got some extra notes on this issue here. The 'overshooting' method described here is generally a good way to draw a link between drawing full ellipses, and drawing just the partial curves.

I'd like you to do two more pages of organic forms with contour curves before I mark this lesson as complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-08-04 03:34

There's definitely a lot of good here as far as the use of construction goes, though there are some key points I'd like to draw your attention to.

• As demonstrated here, when drawing your branches (and any other situations where you're splitting a longer more difficult line into several segments), it's extremely important that you ensure that those lines flow into one another. If you allow them to visibly break as you are currently, it'll look like very patiently-executed chicken scratching. The flow of your overall line is paramount.

• Draw through all of your ellipses, so you're better able to draw them confidently, which in turn will keep them evenly shaped.

• In your sunflower, you don't appear to be applying the leaf-construction approach, or at least not particularly mindfully. The initial line that is drawn establishes the flow of that petal/leaf, and the next lines enclose a shape around it. That first line should not end up floating arbitrarily in the enclosed shape, but rather that shape should start where the first line starts, and end where the line ends. Because this was not followed, those petals look rather flat.

• This page definitely shows that you're drawing somewhat more from your memory than you should be. Our memories are pretty awful, as a species - the moment we look away from an object, we immediately start simplifying what we remember, which makes it quite difficult to retain enough information to draw it faithfully. As such, we need to keep looking back at our reference, continually refreshing our memory while taking only enough time to draw a couple marks before looking back again. Also, in this drawing your contour curves are not wrapping particularly well around your forms, and the leaves are quite stiff (similarly to what I mentioned in the last point).

• Always remember that everything we construct should be, in your mind first and foremost, a solid 3D form or something made up of smaller 3D forms. In some cases, you definitely try to apply this principle, but in others you skip a few steps and jump into more complex forms before they can really be supported by your construction. Starting simple and continuing to pile on more simple forms is key - something complex is really just a lot of simple things mashed together. Take a look at this.

I'd like you to do the following:

• Half a page of leaves

• Half a page of branches

• Four more pages of plant drawings

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

2017-08-04 03:11

Generally good work, but I have a few things to point out:

• For your organic forms with contour curves, you've still got to include your minor axis, to help with the alignment of your contour lines. The minor axis is not just another line that wraps around the form length-wise - it actually cuts directly through the center. Keep in mind that contour curves are just the visible portion of elliptical cross-sections of your form. If their alignment is off, it becomes considerably more difficult to nail the illusion that they're wrapping around the form.

• Very nice work with your organic intersections, you really nailed the idea that these forms are sagging on top of each other.

• Also great work with your dissections - you've got a lot of careful observation going on here.

• For your form intersections, you missed the instruction about avoiding overly stretched forms. This brings in more perspective-complexity to the table, and makes an already difficult exercise more unmanageable. I am glad however that you drew through your forms. You definitely do need to work on your ellipses when it comes to capturing spheres (really, circles in this case rather than ellipses). The other thing I wanted to point out is that you should avoid going back over your work with an evenly weighted line over an entire form. Students often do this as a sort of "clean-up" pass, but as a result it drastically stiffens their linework, since they're drawing slower and trying their hardest to be accurate, rather than focusing on flow. Instead, if you want to add line weight, focus it on specific sections of lines, especially where you want to clarify overlaps.

Anyway, while there's certainly room for improvement in certain areas, you should be okay to move onto the next lesson. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, just make sure you continue to work on these exercises as warmups, along with those from the previous lesson.

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

2017-08-04 03:02

Pretty solid work. Your linework is especially confident - both in your lines section and your ellipses, and it helps keep your lines smooth and evenly shaped, which is pretty important when it comes to constructing more complex forms, where their solidity tends to weaken if a line gets stiff or wobbly.

Your boxes are generally well done, though there are a few things I'd like to point out:

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

• For your rotated boxes, while you ended up executing them quite well, it's important that you follow the instructions and draw through your boxes. That is, drawing all of the lines that make up each box, regardless of those lines are hidden from view. This helps us to better grasp how each box sits in 3D space, and this exercise is very much about understanding that in particular, and how it changes as those boxes are rotated.

• You did quite a nice job with the organic perspective boxes. We'll continue to focus a little more on this sort of topic (of rotating boxes freely in 3D space), but you're doing quite well with this as it is. For this exercise, I do not expect perfect work. Rather, this is an opportunity to get one's feet wet with this particular kind of struggle, and difficulties are expected.

As for that bit about doing the plotted perspective exercise freehand, the bit about using a ruler was actually included in the lesson instructions. There are a few things I leave out and place in the self critique resources, but for the most part, they're just reiterations of things people tend to miss. Sometimes it's necessary for students to make the mistakes and then read about it after the fact for certain things to really sink in. Either way, it doesn't look like doing those lines freehand hindered you at all, so no harm done. I allow for the use of a ruler here primarily so students can focus entirely on the elements of perspective that are being conveyed, like what a vanishing point is, and how they work. Doing the linework freehand tends to provide more distraction than would be beneficial for those students who are new to perspective.

And in regards to switching your pens, I highly recommend sticking with the 0.5 - reason being, it forces you to build up your pressure control. 0.5s are particularly great because they allow you to make some pretty heavy lines, but still make it possible to make lighter marks if you're able to exert a little control. Those who are new to that kind of tool will generally go full-on or nothing, but over time if they're forced to contend only with that thickness, their linework will develop more nuance.

Anyway, 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 in particular should help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space, which is what I mentioned in regards to your rotated boxes.

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

2017-08-04 02:52

Quite well done. Your arrows flow nicely through 3D space, your organic forms' contour lines wrap convincingly around their rounded surfaces and your dissections demonstrate a variety of different textures and a well developing approach to observational drawing.

Your form intersections are quite well done too, although I think the foreshortening on your boxes might be a little bit too dramatic, and it's throwing off the cohesiveness of the whole set. I think it'd help to make them a little bit more shallow, so the far planes don't get too much smaller than the near planes. Still, I'm very pleased with how this exercise came out as well, as you're very diligent about drawing through your forms.

The organic intersections are pretty decent, although in certain places your contour lines get a little bit sloppy as far as having them wrap around the forms goes. Being mindful of your minor axis in this situation is important, as contour curves that are slightly misaligned can be considerably more difficult to work with.

One last point about your dissections - remember that the texture you apply to the object needs to wrap around it - so when that surface turns away from the viewer (due to being rounded), that texture needs to demonstrate this as well. You showed some signs of this towards the edges of your basket weave, but not so much towards the ends. Similarly the hardwood floor showed that you kind of understood what you should be aiming for, but the texture still came out like the flow of those panels were working against the actual surface they were being placed on.

Anyway, overall you've done a pretty solid job. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-08-02 23:19

Very nice work! You're definitely pushing the principles of construction quite far, and are applying them quite well. As a result, your forms tend to look solid, and the constructions themselves feel tangible and cohesive. Your leaves also flow fairly well through 3D space.

There's only a couple things I wanted to point out. Firstly, I think your flower pots are generally missing an extra inset ellipse under the lip. It's possible that the flower pots you're drawing are shaped strangely, but even if that's the case, extra ellipses are definitely going to be needed to help further define that form, as those bits of the construction don't quite work convincingly.

The other bit I wanted to mention was in regards to the bulb-like plant with the small bumps on it. I can see your progression in how you were trying to tackle the bumps, and you definitely made some improvements compared to the first shot, where you outlined each bump fully as tear-drop shapes. That said, I think it would help a fair bit to add a little extra definition on the underside of each bump, as some added line weight here can effectively mimic a cast-shadow, which helps describe that form to the viewer.

I demonstrated both points in these notes.

Other than that, great work. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-08-02 22:56

I wouldn't say it was tough, so much that you didn't really apply that much from the lesson, and eventually just went your own direction with everything by the end of it. If you look at what you drew at the end of the last lesson (for instance, this wasp), while it's far from perfect it demonstrates some understanding of how your forms exist in 3D space and how they relate to one another. Nothing in this set demonstrates anything even close to that. All I can see is that you skimmed the lesson content, started loosely following the first-three-masses without really grasping what they represented (think of your own rib cage - it's not just what sits between your shoulders, it's a solid half of your torso), and eventually just dropped that stuff altogether.

Furthermore, from the look of your work, you're not observing your reference much at all. You're likely looking at it for a bit, then drawing the rest from the memory of what you saw - rather than what I mention frequently, looking back at your reference constantly so as to keep yourself from relying on your faulty memory.

This does not demonstrate patience, nor care in going through the lesson material provided, nor does it demonstrate the skills that you have shown yourself to be developing in the past. If you're having this much trouble, I'd recommend going back to the first two lessons and revisiting them, especially since this work here tells me that you're not likely going through those exercises regularly as warmups as instructed.

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

2017-08-02 14:41

Your work is generally very well executed. Your lines are smooth and confident, and your boxes demonstrate a well developing understanding of 3D space. I just caught a couple minor things worth mentioning:

• For the funnels, the alignment of your ellipses is often off somewhat - it's important to keep in mind that the central line represents the minor axis of your ellipses, so each ellipse should be split into two equal, symmetrical halves down their narrower dimension by that minor axis line. Yours appear to be slanted slightly, favouring one side.

• Your rotated boxes are very well done. The only issues I caught were very minor, and are best demonstrated on this page by the box directly above and to the left of the center, where the corner closest to the viewer seems to be pushed back into the box somewhat. This is best avoided by keeping the gaps between your boxes narrow and consistent, so we can ultimately use neighbouring edges as hints when adding new lines. Once lines are that close together, we can effectively draw them as being parallel on the page, or very close to it, eliminating some of the guesswork that tends to generate errors.

Your organic perspective boxes were also executed quite well - keep in mind that my expectation here is not for students to necessarily do perfect work on this exercise, but rather to get them to start thinking about how one might freely rotate a box in 3D space. As such, you've done a solid job.

I'm going to 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 in particular should help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space, and will in turn clarify where some of your angles might be a bit askew.

As for your questions,

1. I think drawing through your boxes will help with this - when drawing boxes partially (not drawing them where they are occluded by other forms, and not drawing the lines that make up the other side of the form), we only get a partial understanding of how they occupy space. By drawing everything that defines that box in space, we gain a much stronger understanding of the relationships between its angles and lines. Additionally, keep in mind that the initial 3 lines of the Y all point towards a vanishing point off in the distance. Each of these 3 lines belongs to a different set of parallel lines (there are 3 sets of 4 parallel lines), and all of the other lines within a set need to go off towards the same VP. The first line (from the Y) points towards it, and the second line of a set firmly defines where that point sits. Every other line needs to converge towards that point in order for the box to feel correct.

2. Yes - you can think of the center of the funnel being directly at eye level, with the ellipse representing the cross-section of a cylindrical form. That center ellipse is effectively going to be completely flat, and therefore wouldn't be visible as much more than a simple line. As you go above and below it, your ellipses rise above and fall below your eye line, so their degree expands, gradually becoming more circular.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-08-02 14:27

Overall I think you're actually doing quite well as far as applying the concepts in the lesson goes. There's certainly room for improvement, but I think that's more of a matter of practice in order to get comfortable with the execution of what you seem to already grasp.

Key points that I'm noticing:

• You're generally constructing things step by step - for example with leaves, you're not skipping through anything, you're taking the time to define the line of flow, building out the simple encompassing shape of the leaf, and then breaking those down into greater detail.

• You're drawing through most of your ellipses

• You're mindful of the primitive forms - for example, constructing out your flower pots as cylinders, rather than focusing too much on the intricacies of those objects too early.

There are a couple of things that caught my eye as far as areas you could tweak your approach:

• Sometimes the curves of a branch are just too long to maintain consistently through their entire length. In this case, I recommend instead setting out your ellipses and drawing an edge that comes down from one ellipse towards the next, overshooting it slightly. Then you'd repeat the process with that second ellipse, drawing down to and past the third, but being sure to keep your lines flowing together. I demonstrate this in the branch exercise instructions (step 3)

• You will need to spend a little more time observing rather than drawing, as there are some basic aspects of the forms you're drawing that you're not quite capturing. For instance, a flower pot has thickness to it. If you draw a cylinder and put some dirt in the middle, that cylinder will read as being paper-thin. Instead, you want to give the top edge a sort of lip, that you achieve by adding an additional ellipse inset into the top of that cylinder. Remember that when it comes to drawing from observation, you want to spend most of your time observing the reference, with momentary breaks in between to draw a couple marks before returning your gaze to the reference to refresh your memory.

Aside from those two points, continued exercise should see some continued improvement. So, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-08-01 21:43

The improvement over the set - and through those three rounds you've been posting to the main subreddit - is considerable. Your drawings convey a very strong sense of volume and form, with your constructions feeling very solid and tangible. You've also applied a great deal of personal flair to your approach with line weight, but not in a manner that has undermined or sidelined the central focus of the exercise, which is definitely nice to see. Often times when people introduce too much style, they get distracted.

I often find that the hybrid exercise at the end is what shows us whether or not a student truly understands how the things they're drawing exist in 3D space. There are a lot of students who get caught up in replicating the 2D images they're working from, and when they're forced to combine things in a novel way, they find that everything falls apart. You certainly proved that you know what you're doing, and that you fully understand how all of these forms relate to one another.

As far as detail goes, I see an interesting mixture of hatching lines and very careful, observant application of a variety of textures. Usually I'd encourage students to stay away from hatching, but as with all things, that is a rule meant to be broken once a student has demonstrated their capacity to observe and replicate a wider variety of textures with a great deal of success. You certainly have moved beyond that point, and as a result your use of hatching helps push your resulting drawings in a fresh direction.

I did definitely notice that you're still quite timid about drawing through your ellipses, and if you look carefully, you'll notice that the ellipses where you've only gone around once tend to be less evenly shaped. You're managing it decently in this lesson, but I do believe that it will become a much larger concern when we get into more geometric forms where smooth ellipses become a major element of the constructions. So, when drawing organic matter, do as you like, but make sure you continue to push yourself to draw through each ellipse two full times when working on the material in the next few lessons.

I am genuinely curious how you'll fare with lessons 6 and 7. I'm certain you'll do well if your past performance is any indicator, but the subject matter changes drastically, and some students find it to be more of an obstacle than they'd initially expected. That said, as you've demonstrated a strong understanding of 3D space here, it shouldn't be too bad.

Keep up the fantastic work and consider this lesson complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-08-01 21:33

Looks like your post got stuck in the spam filter, so I almost missed it! I guess reddit isn't too fond of url shorteners.

So while your drawings are generally quite nice, you appear to be skipping past a vast amount of what's covered in the lesson. Rather than completing the drawabox lesson, "drawing animals", you primarily just drew some animals. Now, that's not entirely true - in some areas you applied the principles from the lesson a little more, and in others you used them a little less, but overall I think your application is quite loose and approximate.

The first and most important thing that I want to point out is that you approach the initial steps - that is, laying in the cranial, ribcage and pelvic masses - as being more of a loose sketch that can be disregarded at will later on. That's not really what we're after here. Instead, think of it more as though you are introducing three balls of solid marble into a three dimensional world.

The thing about solid masses is that once you've got something that you're convinced is substantial, you cannot simply ignore it when it suits you. If you want to alter that form, you have to deal with it, as it exists, in some way or another. We can choose to build on top of it, by placing more masses on top of it (with an awareness of how the new mass wraps around or sits on top of the first). We can also choose to carve into the mass - which means to have an understanding of how both the piece that remains, and the piece that is being cut away, exist in 3D space and how they relate to one another.

It's considerably easier to make alterations when all we see is a 2D shape, because we're free to draw on top as we please - but this does not maintain the same sense of solidity and dimensionality that we want to achieve.

Take a look at this oryx from the 'other demos' section of the lesson. Notice how explicit I am with every form I add to my drawing? I am by no means ever attempting to draw faintly to hide my underlying construction, because I know my goal here is not to create a pretty drawing at the end. When you get caught up in the end result, you take shortcuts which undermine the core focus of the exercise itself. And it is an exercise after all - meant to build up your understanding of the constructional method, as applied in various contexts.

The way I see it, before adding a line to a drawing, one must consider whether or not it helps them to better grasp how the things they're drawing sit in 3D space, and how they relate to one another. If it contributes in that manner, then it should be drawn confidently with no attempt to hide it. We can always come back to add extra line weight in key areas to clarify overlaps and separate things out a little bit as needed, but right now our focus is on constructing an object that feels solid. If however the line does not contribute to that goal, then it should simply not be drawn at all.

Now of course, drawing every single line in this manner is not what we'd do if we were drawing something for-realsies. But again, these are just exercises - and by repeating them over and over this way, we continue to develop our mental model of three dimensional space. Over time we will shift from doing more of this explicitly on the page to doing more of it in our minds. But that is not a target you should be remotely concerned with right now.

So, I'd like you to do another six pages of animal drawings, taking what I've said here into consideration. Don't skip steps, draw all of your lines confidently, and apply the constructional method as stringently as you can. Always start simple, and gradually build up complexity - never introduce visual information whose complexity cannot be supported by the forms and construction already present in your drawing.

I'm 100% certain that you're capable of this already, from what I can see here, but you need to be pushed back onto the right path as far as following instructions and applying the lesson's concepts goes.

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

2017-07-31 16:21

Quite well done! You definitely have the confidence down with your execution, which is an important advantage at this point. My only concern is that as a result, your ellipses may be a touch too loose. I recommend spending more time in the preparation/ghosting phase before drawing them, to improve your accuracy. It also seems to me that when you draw your ellipses, you may not be quite as aware of what your goal or target is - for example, you have a tendency to leave gaps between your ellipses in the funnels, and have your ellipses-in-planes floating a little arbitrarily at times. Always strive to keep your ellipses snug against whatever edges contain them, be it the lines around them, or their neighbouring ellipses. You did this somewhat better with the table of ellipses, but it's definitely something to keep in mind. Having a clear criteria or goal allows you to determine whether or not you successfully met that particular goal.

Your boxes are generally solid. Your rough perspective boxes are coming along great, just be sure to go over your completed work as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

Your rotated boxes were very well executed - you maintained clear structure, kept your gaps narrow and consistent, and followed my instructions to the letter. Excellent work.

Your organic perspective boxes are coming along well too - keep in mind that this exercise was largely meant to be an introduction to the challenges of rotating forms freely in 3D space, so I fully understand that students would generally struggle with this, and don't expect perfect work here. Your attempts were about where I'd hope them to be.

So, I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next to get some more work in with those freely rotated boxes. Be sure to read through all of the notes on the challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular should help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space.

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

2017-07-30 21:02

You did a good job with the rough perspective boxes, but you mistakenly did the organic perspective boxes exercise instead of the rotated boxes. That said, those were done fairly well. You can count those towards the 250 box challenge, though I'm still going to want you to do the one page of rotated boxes.

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

2017-07-30 20:55

Overall your work is quite well done. I'm especially impressed by your rotated boxes exercise, as most people struggle a fair bit with that. In general your line quality is quite smooth and confident, although your ellipses are a touch on the stiff side. Applying the ghosting method to every mark you put down is especially important, as it forces you to invest most of your time in the preparation phase, ultimately executing your marks with a confident pace. In the case of ellipses, it helps keep things smooth and evenly shaped. Some of your ellipses were better than others in this regard, but overall I feel like there's a little bit of hesitation when you draw them, as though you're afraid of making mistakes. Mistakes happen - all you can do is prepare as best you can, then let what's going to happen, happen.

For your rough perspective boxes, you've done quite well, just be sure to go over your completed work as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to drift.

Your organic perspective boxes were a very solid attempt at this particularly difficult exercise. I've included it here largely to introduce students to the challenges involved in rotating boxes freely in 3D space, and I by no means expect students to be able to nail it just yet.

So, 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 on that challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular should help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space.