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

2017-06-14 13:21

It's not about drawing smaller or bigger cylinders - it's about their proportions. When doing the form intersections exercise, avoid any forms that are stretched. That means cylinders whose length are significantly greater than their diameter. Imagine that you were constructing a cylinder inside of a cube - it'd be quite short and fat. That's what we're after.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-06-14 02:48

Much better. I especially like the first dog drawing, the second mouse and the second hen, and of those, the hen most of all. You're demonstrating a much more solid grasp of how all of these forms fit together. There's of course room for improvement, but where before you were kind of stumbling around in one spot, now you're running off in the right direction.

As for your questions, hopefully this helps. 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"

2017-06-14 02:38

The thing about wobbling is that you are fully capable of drawing any completely arbitrary line (without any set goal, just a random strike across a page) and have it come out smooth. It may not be straight, but if drawn with no thought and no hesitation, it will flow well.

The problem is that such lines aren't terribly useful, because they don't fit any set criteria. But trying this yourself does help you acknowledge that your body is capable of producing such marks. Take a piece of paper and make some arbitrary marks on it, both lines and ellipses. Don't think at all, just go for it.

Then consider what feels different between doing that, and applying the ghosting method. You'll come to realize that you're still hesitating, still holding yourself back, still afraid of missing the mark after preparing all you can. And that is why your lines wobble.

Looking at your homework, you've done a decent job with the organic forms with contour curves. They're wrapping around nicely. They do wobble of course, but we've already discussed that. I am however also noticing that you've got a lot of double-lines going on, where there should only be one. Ask yourself why that is. Was it a conscious decision you made? In that case, it's simply wrong, as every line should be made with a single mark. Was it something you did reflexively? In that case, you need to gain greater control of what your body does. Every mark you put down must be the result of conscious thought and planning.

Your form intersections are okay, aside from the wobbling of your lines. One thing I did notice however is that you ignored this from my last critique, which in turn was pointed out because you ignored it from the lesson instructions themselves:

you seem to have missed the instruction about not drawing overly stretched forms (like long cylinders), as this takes an exercise that is already quite difficult and makes it even moreso.

You've got a lot of long cylinders there. Ultimately it's up to you to follow the instructions.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. I think it'd be a good idea for you to move onto the 250 cylinder challenge next, to get some more work in on drawing confident, smooth lines and ellipses.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-06-14 02:26

This covers a lot of major issues that I saw. To summarize though, you're getting distracted by detail, aren't focusing enough on constructing solid three dimensional forms (you're not drawing arbitrary ellipses, you are building up solid spheres and balls, and need to be aware of how these forms connect to one another), and lastly are showing signs of symbol drawing/working from memory in certain areas. Observe your reference more, looking away only for a moment or two to draw a couple lines before looking back and refreshing your understanding of what you're looking at. This is especially important when working on construction, as the relationships between the forms can easily be missed.

I'd like you to try another 8 pages of animal drawings, but this time with no detail at all. Removing this additional distraction should help you put more of your attention and energy where it counts.

Lastly, remember that construction is all about going from simple to complex - building things up gradually, rather than jumping into complicated forms that can't quite stand up on their own. While there are lots of examples of this in your work, I specifically want to draw your attention to the antlers of your deer - notice how you've created a complex structure of branching forms without any underlying scaffolding to support them? The result is that they come out feeling flat, because you're juggling both establishing convincing 3D form and creating a believable branching structure. Our brains aren't great at multitasking, so breaking things down into bite-sized tasks as the constructional method does helps considerably.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2017-06-13 13:33

The ones you linked there generally look fine, but it isn't about the ellipses being too pointy/tapered or that other thing you mentioned. That said, upon reflection, I think it may be best to disregard what I mentioned before. I think I was a bit brain-addled after doing a lot of overtime at work.

Once you have actual vanishing points implied, it is definitely possible to have arbitrary ellipses that don't actually represent a circle in 3D space (as explained by that video I linked). In this case however, those vanishing points aren't implied until the cylinder itself is constructed, so technically speaking we could argue that any ellipse at that point is in fact a circle, so long as anything added afterwards conforms to the vanishing points implied by that first cylinder.

I think what caught my eye was more that you had particular issues in keeping your ellipses aligned to the minor axes. Also, there were many cases where the change in degree between the ellipses on either end of a cylinder was rather extreme. While still technically correct, it does imply that the cylinder is so massive that it bends around us. It's best to keep that shift in degrees on your ellipses more subtle, with the far end being only slightly higher in degree than the near end. Again, these examples are looking fine in that regard, so continue to aim for that. You are still struggling with aligning to your minor axis though, so that's definitely where you're going to want to invest more of your effort. Make sure that you place each ellipse entirely on the minor axis - you've got a few that have the minor axis stop halfway through instead.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2017-06-13 02:18

Generally your cylinder constructions that start off from minor axes are fairly well done. Early on I think you're a bit sloppy about ensuring that your ellipses both sit on the same minor axis such that the line penetrates all the way through (otherwise it can be more difficult to judge whether or not the ellipses have been aligned correctly), but this improves over the set. One thing I have noticed though - and this is less of an issue at this point, but is definitely something to be aware of - is that your cylinders have a tendency of being squashed in one dimension. Basically, the ends of the cylinders are not circular, so it is as someone has taken a cylinder and flattened it out a little bit.

This leads into something I noticed about most of the cases where you constructed your cylinders by starting with boxes. Your ellipses aren't really constructed inside of the planes of the given boxes. You're touching them against the upper and lower edges of said plane, but not those along the side. This renders the box a little pointless, as the purpose of this approach is to establish the box as a representation for the space the cylinder will eventually occupy. This means that its dimensions are effectively the same as the resulting cylinder, and that the ellipses should make contact with all four edges of their enclosing planes.

This video (linked in the 250 cylinder challenge) touches on both what determines whether or not an ellipse represents a circle in 3D space, as well as how to go about constructing an ellipse within a given plane. I recommend that you give it a watch if you haven't already.

Aside from that, you're doing pretty well. Your linework is confident, and your use of line weight is solid. I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.

As for your theory, the idea that foreshortening is more dramatic and more noticeable on objects of a larger scale is correct (I mention this in these notes). That said, I wouldn't say that the rotated boxes exercise is done at too large a scale - certainly not at the scale of a skyscraper or anything like that.

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

2017-06-13 02:05

Generally you've done well. There's just two issues that I'm noticing, and they're related to each other. They have to do with your organic forms with contour lines.

To start with, your contour ellipses are not quite aligning correctly with the central minor axis line. Remember that the minor axis runs through each ellipse, cutting it into two equal, symmetrical halves down its narrowest dimension. Many of yours are slanted in this regard.

For your organic forms with contour curves, you're struggling to achieve the illusion that your contour lines actually run along the surface of this rounded, three dimensional form. Your lines need to accelerate in their curvature as they approach the edges of a given form, and ultimately hook back around to give the impression that they continue on along the other side. Additionally, ensuring that the curves (which are really just the visible portion of a larger, more complete contour ellipse) align to the minor axes will also help, as it can be particularly difficult to achieve that sort of wrap-around illusion when the curve isn't aligned correctly.

You'll find some additional information on this particular issue in these notes. The 'overshooting' approach explained there can definitely be helpful, as it bridges the gap between drawing full ellipses and drawing the partial curves.

I'd like you to do one more page of organic forms with contour ellipses, followed by two pages of organic forms with contour curves.

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

2017-06-12 01:53

Gesture with a time limit (5 minutes works well) and construction without is a good plan. Draw from reference. You don't yet have the visual library to draw from scratch yet, you'll develop that by studying reference images.

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

2017-06-12 00:34

Move onto the 250 box challenge. You don't start off with a sense for where your lines should end, you develop it by trying, making mistakes, and the identifying what went wrong. That's one of the reasons the challenge itself involves a lot of boxes - it's there so you have a lot of room to mess up.

The reason I encourage the use of the Y method is because you establish one of each set of parallel lines - meaning the next line you draw after the Y will imply a vanishing point. From there, you have to think about how those lines converge, and try to draw other lines that will roughly converge at the same point. The Y method is entirely about perspective - specifically, about the convergence of lines at their implied vanishing points.

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

2017-06-12 00:15

I definitely agree that you're generally not subdividing your boxes enough. The important thing to keep in mind is that you should not be relying on guessing - if you cannot geometrically prove that something should be in a particular location, you haven't subdivided enough. That said, despite that you have had some success.

I especially liked this lamp, as it conveys a good sense of solidity and form.

Another issue you're coming up against is that you're a little too loose with your linework. This lesson, as well as the next one, really demand a strict use of the ghosting method, and of patience. Any kind of sketchy or loose behaviour can risk resulting in a bit of a mess. You've got a lot of drawings here where you're just too relaxed with your use of lines. You correct often (which is a bad habit), you reflexively reinforce your lines immediately after drawing them, etc.

Lastly, cylinders and ellipses appear to be your biggest weakness here. I'm glad that you're still drawing through your ellipses, but you definitely need to work on tightening them up, and keeping them aligned with your minor axes. I think this flashlight was fairly well done, but they do get quite sloppy elsewhere.

Overall you are moving in the right direction, but you need to exhibit a little more self-restraint. Don't let your marks get away from you - it's always better to think and plan than to draw without a specific mark in mind.

I'd like you to do another four pages of these drawings.

As for your other question, all of drawabox is about things to do for daily practice. The exercises from the first two lessons and the challenges are obviously especially important, but in general the lessons are about learning how to practice. They're marked as complete when I think you're ready to explore the application of the same principles on the next topic, but there is always going to be plenty of room for improvement.

Admittedly, were I you, I wouldn't bother with lesson 8. As far as I'm concerned, drawabox ends at lesson 7. I'm just not that great at teaching figure drawing. You may instead want to look into Stan Prokopenko's YouTube Channel for that.

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

2017-06-12 00:03

Not bad! Your linework definitely starts off somewhat stiff and wobbly, but it improves considerably over the course of the lesson. One thing I do want to draw attention to however is your super imposed lines exercise. It's a good example of priorities being somewhat reversed.

Looking at the exercise, I see that you jumped to the execution of your lines very quickly, but actually performed the execution slowly and carefully. As a result, you didn't always start them off from the same point, but you course-corrected your line as you went.

Instead, more time should be invested before executing a mark (planning/preparing - of course we hadn't gotten into the ghosting method here yet, but ultimately that is what ghosting is all about). In this case, taking the time to line your pen up at the correct starting point. Then when it comes time to execute the mark, we do so with a confident, persistent pace, so that our brains are unable to drive the motion of our hands. We trust instead in our muscle memory. The result can be a decrease in accuracy (which is why we put more time into preparation), but the lines come out smoother and more consistent, maintaining one trajectory instead of a wobbly stroke.

This principle is important - the flow of your lines is always more important than accuracy. Don't hesitate while execution. Mistakes will happen, that's a given, but you cannot allow the fear of mistakes to keep you from being bold.

In this regard however, you did a pretty good job with your ellipses, and as a result they generally came out quite smooth and evenly shaped.

Your boxes were also very well done. The rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes exercises were actually included here not with the intent that students would nail them, but rather to push students to start exploring the challenges of rotating boxes freely in 3D space. That said, you did a solid job with both. I still do believe you'll gain from reading through the notes on the 250 box challenge page (especially the tip about drawing through your forms, which will help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space).

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2017-06-11 23:50

In general you're doing a great job leveraging construction along with measurement and the other techniques covered in the lesson. There is certainly room for growth, as there always will be. Specifically though, you'll want to focus on your estimation of the alignment of your lines (relative to the invisible vanishing point). Basically, drawing a line on a plane that goes off to the same vanishing point as the lines on either side of it. One exercise I recommend for working on this is described in this video.

In terms of other issues, always remember that every form you draw has thickness. Take a look at the cattle-catcher on the front of this train - notice how it's very flat, and hasn't been drawn with any thickness to it? This is the sort of thing that will naturally damage the believability of a drawing.

Conversely, I really love how particular you were with this car. It's true that the hood/trunk suffer from the same thickness issue, but the detailing on the front side of the car was really drawn with a degree of care and patience that it really shows that you understand how they all sit there as the result of solid forms of their own.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching material of drawabox!

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

2017-06-11 23:42

Your lines section is pretty solid. Your ellipses are alright, although you're definitely not drawing them quite as confidently as you should be, and as a result your hesitation is causing your ellipses to stiffen up. Remember that we draw with a confident, persistent pace in order to keep our brains from course-correcting as we draw. Trust in your muscle memory, and allow yourself to risk mistakes in order to improve the flow and smoothness of your linework.

For your rough perspective boxes, be sure to go over your completed work as described here to help identify where your estimated perspective is off, so you know what to work on during future attempts of this exercise.

Your rotated boxes are okay, although the biggest tip I have for you here is to keep the gaps between your boxes consistent and narrow. This will allow you to use neighbouring edges as hints when drawing new lines, and to generally keep things structured.

Lastly, your organic perspective boxes don't seem to reflect any of what you learned when last completing the 250 box challenge (you're not drawing through them, to start with). That said, I glanced at your work before and I think a piece of advice that I added to the challenge notes a couple months ago may be useful to you, specifically when going over your boxes to find and correct mistakes (which you seemed to have difficulty with).

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.

I definitely think that trying the boxes again would be a good idea. As for that other issue you were having with your lines when drawing boxes, remember that you're meant to apply the ghosting method to each and every mark you put down. You don't seem to have had much difficulty applying the technique to draw a line between two points in the exercise for it, so there's no reason you shouldn't be able to apply it successfully when drawing boxes.

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

2017-06-09 21:05

Wasps are definitely a good subject matter to practice. I think by your last page, things start coming together a little better, especially with the left side. On the right, the thorax definitely looks weirdly huge.

I do have one thing to add though - do not draw lightly, then go over your lines to replace them with a cleaner pass. This is why the thorax of that wasp on the right side of page 4 looks bumpy - you draw that darker line too slowly and carefully, and so it came out stiff. You should be drawing your ellipses confidently from the get-go, rather than expecting to hide them later. You may be confusing the process of adding line weight with a clean-up pass. The important thing about line weight is that you're only adding weight to specific sections of a line, to clarify particular areas of overlap.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-06-09 20:54

Somewhat better. You'll definitely want to look at the 250 cylinder challenge at some point (they're not a huge deal until you hit lesson 6).

Overall there's definitely a lot of room for improvement, but I think you'll benefit more from moving onto the next lesson instead of hanging back here forever. Sometimes tackling these challenges from a different angle, with a different subject matter, can help things click a little better. So, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.

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

2017-06-09 20:49

Certainly an improvement. The main area I was interested in were your ellipses, which definitely appear to be smoother. There's certainly room for improvement, but you're moving in the right direction. With those ellipses in planes, I noticed that you weren't always aiming to get the ellipses to fill out the planes, so mind that in the future. It's one thing to accidentally miss the edges because you were focusing on drawing smooth, confident ellipses, but here it doesn't always look like you were really intending to hit the edges in the first place.

I did notice that the lines for your rough perspective boxes were a little wobblier than the rest of your exercise - make sure your'e taking the time to apply the ghosting method to every single line you draw.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so go ahead and move onto the 250 box challenge.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-06-09 20:45

This set definitely has some interesting examples of construction, and some that are definitely less strong. The biggest issue that I'm noticing across the board though is that you have a tendency to get too caught up in details, with less of your attention being spent on the construction itself. That said, before I get int the construction stuff, I want to mention that when getting into detail, you seem to be scribbling quite a bit. Don't. Scribbling and randomness is never the right choice, as it completely neglects any attempt at trying to identify the actual rhythms and patterns that exist in your reference image. Additionally, it suggests that the student is trying to apply rendering (light/shadow) to the reference, using texture (or in this case, scribbly hatching) as a tool to show that lighting information. This in turn implies that the student is attempting to use lighting to convey the 3D nature of a form.

Those priorities are generally completely mixed up. When it comes to capturing solid, believable form, we do this through the use of confident linework. Shading/lighting is not necessary to this end. Instead, we use light and shadow in key areas as a way to capture the surface quality of those objects (effectively their texture), as texture is made up of small forms, and the lines we see that make up that texture is made up of little shadows cast by those minute bumps and masses.

But again, we're not going to get into that right now. You can read more about it on the texture challenge.

As far as construction goes, you do have some examples that are coming along reasonably well (like this horse), but in general there are some key mistakes that I'm noticing in particular areas. First and foremost, at every stage of construction, make sure that you believe in, and are convinced of, the illusion that what you've drawn on your page is actually three dimensional and solid. So when we lay in our initial three masses (cranium, ribcage, pelvis), they should be balls rather than ellipses. Imagine that you are placing balls of solid marble into a three dimensional world, and now that they are there, you must either carve into them, or build up around them.

Next, make sure that when you attach another form to build up complexity, you explicitly define how those forms connect to one another using contour ellipses, contour curves, or something of that sort. With these cats, we have no idea of where the neck sits, or more importantly, where the neck intersects with the ball of the head, or where it intersects with the ball of the ribcage.

When you look at your reference image, you're bound to see a lot of visual information. You'll see eyes, tufts of fur, all kinds of little details. Look beyond them. It's very easy to get caught up in seeing an eye, and merely drawing an eye on the head with now real sense of how it exists in 3D space, and how it fits into the rest of the 3D structure of the head. Instead, in this particular example, you build in the eye sockets, and build up the structure around those eye sockets to get them to integrate comfortably with the muzzle, and whatever other elements are required for the particular head you're drawing. Then you can place your eyeballs inside, and then wrap eye lids around them, and so on.

So, what I want you to do is five more pages of animal drawings - but this time, no detail or texture whatsoever. Any information added to your drawings should be done so in the form of constructed form. This means you should have a solid understanding of how those forms fit into one another, and how they all relate to each other. Also, remember to draw through all of your ellipses confidently, and to apply the ghosting method to all of your lines - I noticed that you were getting a little sketchy/chicken-scratchy in certain places. 90% of the process of drawing is not about putting marks down on the page, but rather thinking and observing.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2017-06-09 20:03

So one thing that I always advise against is drawing anything lightly/faintly first, then going over it to clean up your lines. This is inherently different from adding line weight, which doesn't seek to replace entire lines, but rather adds thickness to key sections (often to clarify overlaps and the like). When we try to replace our linework, we end up working against the principles espoused by the ghosting method, and these lessons in general - that is, we draw way more slowly, causing our linework to come out rather stiff. This is one issue that you seem to be encountering quite a bit, and it very much undermines the solidity of your cylinders. At this stage, when getting used to the structure and solidity of rudimentary forms, it's very important to draw every mark confidently - that means the ellipses on both ends - and not to attempt to hide them. Remember that the construction is what matters - not the end result.

I also see a lot of examples where you've tried to make things more interesting by combining cylinders in various ways, creating objects, and so on. This inherently distracts from the central focus of the construction of each cylinder (which admittedly is boring as all sin, but by this point I'm sure you're familiar with that particular part of the drawabox curriculum). As a result, you end up spending less of your brain power reinforcing the basic tenets of what it means to build up a cylinder. Your ellipses tend to align to the minor axis less frequently, your lines don't tend to be too straight, and your ellipses sometimes come out less than even.

You put a lot of work into this, but that effort was very much invested in the wrong place. All the challenge asks for is 250 individual drawings of cylinders, using the two methods outlined in the notes (starting with your minor axis, and starting with a box). Your main focus should be on conquering the challenges of aligning two ellipses to a single minor axis, constructing ellipses of particular degrees to fit the orientation of the cylinder you're after, and ultimately to apply the ghosting method to achieve smooth, confident, straight lines to join them.

I am 100% certain that when putting your focus to the correct areas, and by resisting the urge to make things more interesting, you'll be able to kick the crap out of this challenge. Because of that, I'm not going to mark this challenge as complete. If I didn't know you could do much better, I probably would (because after all, you did draw 250 cylinders). This time, I choose to hold you to a higher standard, and I look forward to seeing you meet it.

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

2017-06-09 19:52

Not bad! Your lines are generally looking pretty confident and well executed. Your ellipses are fairly smooth, although when you get into drawing ellipses in planes, you're definitely getting a little caught up in getting them to fit into the awkwardly shaped planes to the point that their shapes get oddly deformed and stop being ellipses altogether. Remember that the evenness of the shape and the confidence of the stroke is paramount, and is a higher priority than accuracy. Make sure you draw through them all as well.

Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, make sure your horizontals run parallel to the horizon, and your verticals run perpendicular to it. I see some cases where some of your lines slant a little. Also, it's a great idea to go over your completed work for this exercise as described here to help identify where your estimation of perspective tends to stray. This will help you figure out which areas require greater focus when attempting this exercise in the future.

For your rotated boxes exercise, try and keep the gaps between your boxes smaller and more consistent - this will allow you to use neighbouring edges as hints when drawing new lines, and will generally allow you to keep things more structured.

The rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes exercises were included here not with the expectation that students would be able to nail them, but rather to get them to begin thinking about how these forms exist as three dimensional objects in space, rather than just 2D drawings on a flat page. We'll continue to work on this particular sort of challenge as we continue to move through the lessons.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but 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.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-06-08 20:47

Nice work! That definitely looks much better, and much more solid. My only critique is that on the right side of this page, you're still jumping in too complex with those leaves, too early. You've got to establish the basic flow of the leaf with simple lines (one for the center, then one on either side to kind of enclose it). THEN you can build your wavy leaf edges within that defined space without having to worry about also tackling the flow at the same time, since that's already pinned down.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-06-08 02:56

You're welcome to submit a followup, or to just practice the boxes further on your own and then move onto lesson 2 when you feel comfortable with them.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-06-08 02:36

As far as the drawings themselves go, they're quite nice and demonstrate some fairly well developed observational skills. Your earlier ones (before that 2 month gap) also do demonstrate that you're getting the hang of construction as well, though the last two end up weighing too heavily on the observation side, focusing far too much on detail than on the underlying construction.

Here's a few things that stood out to me overall:

• You're definitely noticeably focused on the end result, rather than the construction. Remember that these exercises are not about creating a pretty end result, but rather about the actual process of drawing. Don't hide construction lines, or purposely draw them faintly. Drawing things faintly goes hand-in-hand with not applying very much confidence to those strokes, and in turn it results in forms that fall a little flat. Draw all of your linework confidently. You can come back later to emphasize certain lines by giving them additional weight (that doesn't mean darkening an entire shape, but rather specific areas to clarify overlaps and such - we're not cleaning up a sketch or anything like that).

• You've got a lot of cylindrical flower pots, so they should be constructed as cylinders - that means starting with a minor axis. Similarly for anything box like, draw through your boxes in order to maintain a better understanding of how they sit in 3D space.

• Your leaves are generally okay until the 2 month gap. Examples like these don't follow the process of going from simple to complex.

This is ultimately totally normal, when it comes to people stopping for several months. I'd like you to do three more pages of plant drawings after you've had the chance to go through the lesson material again, with one added requirement - I want these drawings to be 100% construction, no detail whatsoever. Additionally, don't forget that you are expected to keep up with the lesson 1 and 2 material as regular warmups, and I imagine you've fallen a little behind on that.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-06-08 02:25

Here's my critique. One thing I didn't mention there is that your leaves aren't really conveying a strong sense that they exist in 3D space, or that you perceive them that way. I feel like you're still very much locked into the idea that you're drawing flat shapes on a two dimensional page (this is especially noticeable with how you approached those little circles-on-lines). This is definitely something all beginners need to conquer, and I talk about this a lot in these notes, which I'd mentioned in my last critique. I'm hoping that writing this stuff out directly on your work will make it somewhat easier for you to understand.

Try another four pages.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-06-08 02:05

Congratulations on completing the challenge. I think you're generally showing some improvement with the confidence of your linework, but I see a lot of places where your boxes are skewed, or where your far planes are notably larger than your near planes. When going through to apply your corrections, I recommend applying this method mentioned in the challenge page 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 especially helps when you're not able to pick up on mistakes merely by looking at them. Sometimes this is because your eye simply isn't used to it, and later on it'll be because the mistakes themselves will be less noticeable in general.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-06-08 02:02

Generally better, but there's a couple things I want to point out.

• For this page, you skipped a major step of fleshing out the simple shapes for each petal - you jump right from the overall ellipse to the wavy forms. It's important to go step by step, from simple to complex. By skipping through, you missed a step that would have helped you more clearly define how the petal itself sits as a flat shape in 3D space.

• Draw through your forms. Take a look at this page - see how your petals stop where they would be occluded by neighbouring petals? Draw them anyway, as though you have x-ray vision. The point here is to understand how each petal behaves in space.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2017-06-07 22:08

Nothing is out of the ordinary here - by drawing boxes, making mistakes, identifying and correcting those mistakes, you gradually build up this mental model of how 3D space works. You're supposed to be making those mistakes, and from the look of things your mistakes are growing more and more subtle thus far, so they seem to be doing their trick. Just keep going and don't think that because you're making mistakes, you're doing something wrong. Sometimes failure is planned and expected, just make sure you're identifying the nature of those mistakes by extending the lines as you have been.

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

2017-06-06 13:15

Definitely looking better, so I'll go ahead and mark the lesson as complete. One thing I want to point out though is that you seem to be applying line weight as a way to separate "clean" lines from the underlying construction, which is not really how it's meant to be used. As described in the notes on the 250 box challenge, you use line weight in key areas (not all the way around a given form) to clarify specific overlaps and give some forms dominance over other forms at specific locations. Long story short, think of line weight as something that is applied to specific parts of a form, rather than the whole thing.

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

2017-06-05 22:15

That definitely looks considerably better. The only recommendation I'd have is to exaggerate the rotation of the boxes further out to the sides a little more in order to really fill out that 180 degree arc of rotation.

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

2017-06-05 22:13

You don't seem to have understand my critique about carving at all, as you're still doing the same thing as before. You start out with these ellipses to loosely establish where your forms are going to go - instead, I want the marks you start with to be the forms you build into and on top of. It doesn't matter if those lines aren't exactly the shape you're after - you either cut/carve into them, build on top of them, or simply move ahead with the forms you've got.

Here's another attempt at explaining this concept a little more visually: http://i.imgur.com/Lz8gLjR.png

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

2017-06-05 00:34

All in all, not bad, but there are some things I'd like to point out that should help keep you on track. Before anything however, I want you to read through the introduction to lesson 1 - that is, the part boxed in blue and labelled "As this is probably your first lesson at Drawabox, read this before moving forward!" - or reread it, as I'd imagine you must have at least gone through it once before when first jumping into the lesson. The point I make there is that you're not meant to aim for mastery of each exercise. 70 hours is definitely excessive, and if you refuse to let yourself move forward until things are perfect, you will burn out. All we're looking for at this stage are signs that you understand what each exercise aims for.

Here are some things I'd like to point out that should help improve your work:

• Lets start by taking a look at the ghosted lines exercise. Notice how they're quite wobbly and wavy? Your goal here is very clearly to hit both points accurately. Unfortunately, in order to prioritize accuracy above all else, you end up with a line that doesn't flow particularly well, and isn't terribly straight. When executing our marks, we want to do so with a confident, persistent pace - prioritizing the flow of our line above all else, rather than accuracy. Accuracy is of course still important, but once we've finished going through the preparation phase of the ghosting method, we've done all we can to ensure our accuracy. From here, all we can do is execute with confidence - maintaining the same trajectory from start to finish, rather than course-correcting as we go. Drawing with a persistent pace means shutting off your brain and trusting in your muscle memory. Ultimately, mistakes may happen, but that's perfectly fine. There are always more opportunities to do better in the future, and accuracy will certainly improve with practice, but the flow of a mark relies more heavily on one's approach rather than just raw practice. I talk about this further in this comic.

• This matter of accuracy vs. smoothness applies to your ellipses as well, and the whole idea of drawing through your ellipses hinges quite heavily on you first drawing with a more confident pace. Overall this will help you maintain a more even shape, avoiding any wobbling, pointy ends or misshapen/bumpy features. You'll notice that things got especially awkward in the ellipses-in-planes exercise, where you stressed how the ellipses would fit in each plane so much that many of them stopped being ellipses altogether. This is a pretty common thing that I see, of course, as the shapes of the planes tend to overwhelm students a little and draws their attention poignantly away from the flow of their lines.

• Jumping ahead to your rough perspective boxes, I've got a few things here. Firstly, draw your compositions in frames as instructed. This helps give structure to the overall exercise, and that structure encourages a more disciplined mindset when approaching the exercise. Secondly, I highly recommend that you go over your completed work for this exercise as described here. This will help you identify areas where your estimation of perspective is off. This is entirely expected, and by finding where you tend to stray more, you'll know what to focus on in future attempts. Lastly, here and there you get a little loose and sloppy with that hatching you're applying to the near planes of your boxes. Try to keep them consistent, parallel, and snug within the confines of the plane. So avoid overshooting or undershooting - keep them going from edge to edge. It takes a little bit more time and focus, but ultimately our presentation is judged by the weakest part of our work, so even some superfluous detail can be the basis on which we are perceived. Nothing should be halfassed, everything should be the result of planning, preparation and forethought. This is of course a minor concern, but still worth mentioning.

• Your rotated boxes exercise was a very solid attempt. This exercise, along with the organic perspective boxes one were both included here intended to be perhaps too difficult for students at this stage. Rather, by attempting them, the seed is planted to start thinking about how these forms can be manipulated in 3D space, and so the student begins to build a model of three dimensional space in their minds. This model is yet undeveloped, but we explore that further in a bit. All that said, your rotated boxes are quite well done. One recommendation I have on this front is just to keep the gaps between your boxes more consistent and parallel, as we can use neighbouring edges as hints when drawing new lines in a way that helps maintain the overall structure of the set of boxes. Your organic perspective boxes are somewhat more in line with my expectations, in that we'll be working to further develop your ability to construct more arbitrarily rotated forms.

I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, but 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.

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

2017-06-04 20:34

Overall, pretty great work! Your lines are generally quite confident, which helps keep your lines straight and your ellipses smooth, and will generally help you imbue your forms with a sense of solidity in the future. Both the first two sections were done very well, so I don't have much to say on those as far as critique goes.

I do have a few recommendations for the boxes section however. Firstly, I noticed that your linework in the rough perspective boxes had a few areas of inaccuracy, with lines missing their mark at times. This is of course completely normal, and will improve with time, but I do want to ensure that you are applying the ghosting method here, and really with all of your mark making. The preparation phase is really key to being able to execute with confidence whilst maintaining your accuracy.

Additionally, definitely take the time to go over your completed rough perpsective boxes work as described here. This will help you identify areas where your estimation of perspective is off, so you know what to focus on when attempting this exercise in the future.

Your rotated boxes were interesting - for all intents and purposes, you did a really solid job here. What I did notice in particular though are how you went about drawing through your forms (the parts we wouldn't generally be able to see). You've got a lot of overlap going on here, with boxes spilling into one another. In general, it's a good idea to keep the gaps between your boxes consistent and parallel - you did this for the 'visible' gaps (those on the outside of the set), but the internal ones weren't quite so consistent. Keeping them parallel like this allows you to use neighbouring edges as hints when adding new lines, which helps keep everything sorted out.

Anyway, both this exercise and the organic perspective boxes were included here with no expectation for students to be able to do them well just yet. That said, you did a really good job despite this, with the internal overlaps being the only issue. Your organic perspective boxes were a little weaker (as one would expect), but I have additional resources to help you in that area.

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 before starting the work - especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular should help you better grasp how each arbitrarily rotated box sits in 3D space.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-06-04 19:53

Your leaf exercises are looking alright, for the most part, though continue pushing yourself to think about how things move through 3D space, rather than just across the page. I talk about this in these notes, which I may or may not have already linked to you before.

Your branches are vastly improved. I can't actually tell if you applied what I mentioned in the last critique (about drawing individual segments, and focusing on getting them to flow together nicely). I don't see any obvious separation between those edges, so either you're really good at hiding them, or your previous approach to drawing branches just improved considerably. If it's the latter, I'd still recommend the approach described in the instructions. I say this because if you skip down to the pitcher plant, it looks very stiff (likely because you drew the entire length of it in one go, rather than piece by piece and focusing on getting them to flow together).

In your actual plant drawings, definitely ease up on your contour ellipses. Remember that they're a tool, and they serve a specific purpose - to describe the surface of the form as it turns through space. If you can achieve that end with just a few contour ellipses, then the rest are entirely superfluous and just clutter your drawing.

I particularly liked this construction (aside from the excess if contour ellipses, which you didn't draw through). Specifically, I like the leaves - they flow quite nicely through 3D space.

Lastly, always draw your flower pots like cylinders - starting with the minor axis, and constructing around that.

I think you've improved a fair bit, and while there's definitely room for improvement, you're certainly moving in the right direction. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

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

2017-06-04 19:38

Not quite. Overshooting your curves is a way that helps bridge the gap between drawing full ellipses and drawing just the curves, which is a trick that is necessary for those who struggle with getting the curvature right when only drawing the visible portion of the curve. So I do recommend doing that right now, but only because you're not yet able to get that curvature right.

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

2017-06-04 19:34

On one hand, you're demonstrating a lot of confidence with your linework, but on the other, you're also being pretty sloppy and that has a negative impact on the perceived solidity and three-dimensionality of your results. You've got to slow down. Remember that the ghosting method, aside from involving actually ghosting over your intended mark, is all about separating the drawing process into 90% planning and preparation, and 10% actual execution with a confident stroke.

In general, it does feel like you're putting effort in some of the wrong places. For instance, I noticed that your organic forms themselves are generally focused on being somewhat wackier shapes/curves. There's really no need for this, and certainly no benefit. I mean, look at the one from the lesson. It's very simple. This allows us to focus on the meat of the exercise, which is taking that shape and giving it volume.

You are definitely improving as far as having your contour curves wrap all the way around however, so congratulations on that. They are however still pretty sloppy - I can't shake the feeling that you drew them all in quick succession, rather than planning out each and every one individually. I have seen this problem with students, especially those who are very eager - their minds tend to focus on several steps ahead, instead of the one they're on right then. So for instance, they may be drawing the first contour curve, but their mind's already set on the fourth or fifth. One can imagine how this would lead to considerable sloppiness. You've got to make sure you do everything you can before executing to ensure that the mark falls exactly where you mean it to.

Lastly, your organic intersections, while again better than your first submission, still feel kind of flat at times. A big part of that is the really heavy, graphic shadows that don't actually run along the surfaces they're cast onto. It looks like they started out as line weight (and were therefore stuck to the edge of the form itself), but they ended up getting so thick that they became more like cast shadows. The thing about shadows is that they are not attached to the form that casts them - they rest on the surfaces on which they are cast. Therefore, like contour curves, they need to run along that surface, otherwise you'll lose the illusion that what you've drawn exists in three dimensions.

Additionally, take a look at this page. You've got a form that comes up and over what is otherwise the topmost form, but where it does, this form ends up looking completely flat, as though it has no volume at all. Since these forms are meant to be rounded, it's especially important that you take into consideration how this would be demonstrated through its silhouette. Like this.

So, while we're pretty far into these revisions, I do want you to do just a few more:

• One page of organic forms with contour ellipses

• One page of organic forms with contour curves

• One page of organic intersections.

You're improving with every set, but there's definitely some habits here that I want to nip early so you're able to move forward with greater ease in the future.

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

2017-06-04 19:14

There are definitely quite a few things to work on here, though many of the issues are fairly common things students face.

• Your arrows are looking decent. When practicing these in the future, I'd recommend checking out the top left of these notes.

• Your contour ellipses are okay, although your choice of degree is a little arbitrary. These notes should clarify what the degree of an ellipse represents in regards to the circle it represents in 3D space.

• Your ellipses are also looking a little bit stiff. Make sure you're applying the ghosting method to these. That means taking the time to plan and prepare beforehand, ghosting through the drawing motion, and ultimately executing the mark without hesitation, but with a confident, persistent pace. This will help keep them more evenly shaped.

• Your contour curves don't wrap convincingly around your organic forms. Read these notes and watch the video linked there as well. Some of yours are a little more successful than others (the right and bottom of these, although you need to keep the ellipses snugly between the edges, and the curve on the side closest to us on the bottom one should really be an ellipse). Remember what contour curves are - they're lines that sit on the very surface of a three dimensional form, and by virtue of running along that surface, they can help describe that surface to us. Think of it like having a long balloon (of the sort clowns make balloon animals from), and drawing on its surface with a big black marker. That is essentially what you're doing to your forms. As those curves reach the edges of the form, they should accelerate in their curvature and hook back around to give the impression that they continue onto the other side.

• Your dissections vary in quality. I see some that are a start in the right direction. Others are examples of common mistakes. At all costs, you should avoid any kind of scribbling or randomness. This automatically implies that you did not take the time to study the patterns and rhythms that are present in your reference image. Another issue I noticed in some places is similar to the issue with the contour lines - you've got to imagine that you're wrapping these textures around an existing 3D form, so they run along its surface. Lastly, it's important not to let yourself work from memory - the moment you look away from your reference image, your brain goes to work throwing out the bulk of the information you had observed. As such, we need to continually look back to our reference, taking only a moment or two to put down a couple lines before looking back. Not doing so results in textures that look cartoony, because they're based on a very limited amount of information. I talk about this more in the texture challenge notes, which are definitely worth reading.

• Your form intersections are a good start, though you need to be drawing through all of the ellipses you draw for my lessons. I also noticed that you drew through some of the boxes (which is great), but not all of them - make sure you do this across the board, as it will help you better grasp how these forms sit in 3D space.

• Aside from being upside down, and the issues I mentioned about your organic forms with contour curves, the organic intersections are okay. There's certainly room for improvement, but I do feel they demonstrate the bulk of what I'm looking for at this point.

I'd like you to do two pages of organic forms with contour ellipses, four pages of organic forms with contour curves and one page of form intersections. Safe travels!

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

2017-06-04 19:00

There isn't much change between the previous set and this one.

• You're not defining the connections between forms

• Your contour curves don't wrap around forms properly

• You still seem to be drawing more from memory than from observation, which results in drawings that feel underdeveloped. You need to spend much more of your time really studying your subject, identifying the actual three dimensional forms that exist there. You're tackling only the most major forms, and ignore the rest of what's there.

• Your linework is sloppy. Even in areas where I see some improvement in your understanding of forms like this page, you're severely limiting yourself by being vague and loose. Construction does not mean a sketch. It means focusing on establishing solid, concrete forms. If your linework is sloppy and rushed, it will not look solid.

I can continue to repeat the same points every time, but things will not change until you slow down and apply them. Here's some overdrawing, try again. You should also spend time practicing the organic forms with contour curves exercise specifically.

I want you to take the week to work on this - don't submit until Friday at the earliest.

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

2017-06-03 18:15

These constructions are generally better, but one thing that you're definitely missing is a sense of how those different forms actually connect to one another. If you look at my demo drawings, you'll notice that I draw actual contour ellipses or contour curves to define exactly how two shapes touch. An awareness of this contact area goes a long way to help grasp how everything relates to one another in 3D space.

Also, I noticed that especially with the wasps, the contour curves you have on their abdomens don't wrap around the forms convincingly at all. They're flattening your forms out, as they don't hook around near the edge to give the impression that they continue around to the other side.

Lastly, make sure you're applying the ghosting method, and taking the time to plan and prepare before every stroke you put down.

Try another two pages.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles"

2017-06-03 18:10

Overall this is vastly improved. You've still got work to do as far as proportion goes, but you're effectively now on track to do so because you're using the tools and approaches from the lesson to much better effect. Rather than relying on guesswork, you're actually logically measuring things out.

I have just a couple of tips as you continue to move forwards, but I'll be marking this lesson as complete. Firstly, it helps when drawing your wheels to start them off as entire boxes. I can see that you're fleshing out the plane of one side of each wheel, but I'm noticing that you're still guessing a little at the opposite side. The more you limit guesswork, the better. Even when creating inset ellipses (within a larger ellipse), you can start them out by drawing an inset plane within the larger plane. I believe I do this in the barrel demo from lesson 6.

The other thing is just to keep an eye on how things are aligned. The jeep looks fantastic and solid, although it's a shame that the front wheels are totally misaligned from the body of the car (so the front left wheel ends up way further back than it should be).

Oh, and I did catch some signs that you may be freehanding some of your lines. Remember that the instructions do allow you to use a ruler for this lesson, since it's particularly complex. A ruler not only helps you keep your lines straight, but it also helps you plan things out a little better, and can help you to avoid alignment problems like this - at least to a degree.

As for that bicylce thing, I think you did a really good job with the handle bars. My bigger concern is that the wheels look flat, because you more or less built them into a flat plane, rather than into a 3D box.

Anyway, like I said - I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. Congratulations on completing the dynamic sketching material. You definitely had a bit of struggle near the end, but you pushed through and did a good job of it. Keep up the good work!

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

2017-06-03 18:03

With many of these drawings, you are definitely demonstrating a good internal model of 3D space, and a solid understanding of how your forms intersect with one another and how they sit within that space.

The only issue of significance that I'm noticing however is more about your linework. You're noticeably sketchy, and your earlier lines shown signs that you're actively trying to make them less noticeable. This in turn causes them to be less confident, which then impacts the perceived solidity and believability of your forms.

Keep in mind that you should be applying the ghosting method to every single mark you put down. This means planning and forethought preceding every line, not drawing from the gut. Additionally, don't think about it as drawing line-by-line. Think about the forms themselves - focus on drawing each one such that you believe it to be a solid, three dimensional mass in 3D space, and ensure that each one is self-enclosed. I noticed a lot of gaps between your lines.

Another very important piece of advice is that at every stage of construction, you should confidently believe in the solidity of each and every form you've already put down. I can see in certain drawings that you start off by drawing ellipses - which is fine, that's part of my instructions. The point is, however, that these ellipses should be turned into three dimensional balls.

What's the difference? Think of it as though you're placing a ball of marble into a three dimensional world, and your piece of paper is a window into that world. If you decide that the ball of marble no longer fits the exact shape you need, you cannot simply ignore it and draw something else on top - the form exists there, whether you like it or not. If it were just lines on a flat page, you could do whatever you wanted, but since it's solid marble, it needs to be dealt with in a way that suits its properties.

So, we cut and we carve. The difference between cutting a drawn form and simply drawing over it is that cutting requires you to understand how both the piece being cut away and the piece remaining exist in 3D space. You need to understand them as forms, not as flat shapes. This allows you to manipulate the forms in your three dimensional world, whilst continuing to respect the fact that they are solid. This in turn will allow that solidity to continue to imbue your drawing, resulting in a drawing that does not feel flat.

I'd like you to do four more pages of insect drawings, but I want you to focus entirely on construction. Don't get into any detail or texture and focus entirely on creating those confident, self-enclosed forms. The goal here is ultimately to get you in the habit of planning out each form independently, rather than being quite as sketchy as you are right now.

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

2017-06-03 17:51

It's a good start, though there are certainly some issues I'd like to iron out before we move onto the next lesson.

The biggest issue is a somewhat common one that impacts pretty much all of your work - you're stressing too much about accuracy, and as a result your lines are stiff and wobbly, rather than smooth and confident. The super imposed lines exercise is a good place to demonstrate why.

Basically, if you look at each of these, you'll see that your lines often wobble back and forth over the original mark. You're stressing over matching it accurately, so you end up drawing slowly and carefully, and every time you catch yourself off track, your brain redirects and course-corrects your hand. I talk about this issue in this comic and in these notes.

Ultimately, of these two priorities (accuracy and flow), flow comes first. When you execute your mark, do so with a confident, persistent pace, just quick enough to keep your brain from micromanaging your hand. Once you've started drawing a line, and have achieved a particular trajectory, don't change that trajectory - our muscles are very good at this. So, you want to trust in your muscle memory, which is what you end up relying upon by drawing a little faster.

On the flipside, this will reduce your accuracy, so that is where the ghosting method comes in. We invest all of our time into preparation and planning, ghosting through the mark we want to make to build up muscle memory, and ultimately improve the likelihood of our hitting our goal. Once you move onto the execution phase, you're pretty much set. If a mistake is going to happen, there's nothing you can do about it beyond here - and if you TRY to do something about it (by hesitating, slowing down, etc.) you will stiffen up and your line will wobble. It's best to just accept the inevitability of mistakes at this point, and realize that it's not the end of the world. Just let them happen - there are plenty of opportunities to do better later on.

So this applies not just to your straight lines, but also to your arcs and to your ellipses, and as such, the ghosting method should be used for every single mark you put down. Especially with ellipses, you'll find that my insistence upon people drawing through them will make a little more sense if you're drawing more confidently.

Your lines in your ghosting exercise are generally pretty well done - likely because you're applying the method purposely there. Elsewhere however - in your rough perspective boxes, rotated boxes, and so on you definitely stiffen up to varying degrees.

Moving on from this, there's just a couple other things I want to point out. Firstly, for your rough perspective boxes, be sure to go over your completed work for this exercise as described here. This will help you identify where your estimation of perspective is off, so you can focus more of your efforts there in the future.

For your rotated boxes, it's a good start, but you definitely need to push and exaggerate the rotation of those boxes, as you're not quite covering the full 180 degree arc. That said, I'm very pleased to see that you're keeping the gaps between boxes narrow and consistent, and are using neighbouring edges as hints when drawing new ones.

Both this exercise and the organic perspective boxes one are intentionally very difficult, so I don't expect people to be doing those perfectly just yet. Rather it's meant to get you started on thinking about how things exist in 3D space, and how to manipulate that in your mind.

Once I do mark this lesson as complete, I'll want you to move onto the 250 box challenge next to get more work in on this particular area, as well as to get more practice applying the ghosting method. In case I forget, I just want to mention that when you approach the challenge, be sure to read through all of the notes on that page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular will help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space.

Before that I'd like you to do one more page of the table-of-ellipses exercise. Focus on drawing more confidently and applying the ghosting method to smooth out those ellipses.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-06-03 17:38

Oh, it looks like I missed this. The first half is fairly weak and shows the sort of focus on detail/texture over construction that I mentioned earlier, resulting in drawings that felt quite flat. The second half (starting from the rhinos) was a significant improvement, although I really want you to take to heart what I said about treating things as solid, three dimensional forms that must be cut and carved.

Also, I figure it's worth mentioning that the overlays are entirely irrelevant - don't focus on reproducing the image you're drawing from. Focus on understanding the forms that exist there, and how they fit together.

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

2017-06-03 17:35

It certainly is better in several ways than the last time you tried it, though there are a few things that stand out to me.

• Rather than a page of organic forms with contour curves, you seem to have done one form only. Additionally, the contour curves in this one example more or less cut straight across the form with a very minimal arc. This does not give the impression that the form itself is rounded at all, but rather flattens it out. Remember that these contour curves are meant to run along the surface of the form - as they reach the edge, their curvature should accelerate as they hook around so they can continue along to the other side. Here are some notes on the issue, and be sure to watch the video linked there as well. When trying this again, I want you to apply that 'overshooting' method described there.

• Your textures are an okay start for the most part, but keep in mind what constitutes a texture and what doesn't. Texture is essentially what wraps around a form and gives it the impression of being rough, wet, dry, smooth, sticky, bumpy, etc. While textures are made up of small forms of their own, they generally follow whatever they're wrapped around. So the orca/killer whale you added on the second page is most definitely not a texture. Also, avoid any kind of randomness or scribbling, as you did in other parts of the same form as the orca. We only scribble when we're not sure what rhythms and patterns exist, and we do so in order to save ourselves the trouble of looking deeper and studying things more carefully. You'll find more notes about all of this in the texture challenge, which you can read through later.

• I see no sign of you using the ghosting method in your form intersections, and as a result your lines look a little sketchy. I'm pleased to see that you're drawing through some of your boxes, but you should be doing this for all of them. Also, you seem to have missed the instruction about not drawing overly stretched forms (like long cylinders), as this takes an exercise that is already quite difficult and makes it even moreso. Lastly, make sure you draw through all of your ellipses. You seem to be doing it somewhat selectively.

• Your organic intersections suffer from the same problems as your organic forms with contour curves, but aside from that they're okay. The only other thing I want to mention here is that you've got some forms that are particularly wavy - avoid this kind of complexity for now. The more complex a form is, the more difficult it is to build up the illusion that it is solid and three dimensional. So a simple sausage form will feel much more solid than a form with irregular waves to its edges. The whole constructional method revolves around this - that you start out with things at their simplest, and then build on top of those more solid foundations to add that complexity in later passes.

I'd like you to do two more pages of organic forms with contour curves, followed by two more pages of form intersections. Also, when doing the form intersections, don't add any line weight. Focus on drawing everything confidently (and applying the ghosting method) in the first pass, with no follow-up passes to clean things up.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals"

2017-06-03 17:19

While your initial rabbit holes (especially that cat drawing) are far too focused on detail and texture with little to no construction (you don't really adhere to those starting ellipses, nor do you really establish them as being three dimensional balls), the main lesson homework seems to be markedly better.

I especially like the reindeer in the upper left. There is of course plenty of room to grow, but you're definitely heading in the right direction. I have only a couple of suggestions:

• Decrease your focus on texture/detail when doing these exercises. Construction should be what you spend the vast majority of your time on. Sometimes just knowing that you'll be moving onto detail later can influence your ability to focus on construction, and can cause one to draw less confidently, attempt to hide their lines, or simply rush.

• Don't go over your construction with a heavier pen as you did here, or do your construction with a lighter coloured pen. I remember finding those grey triplus fineliners when I was taking classes, and they're great for laying things in for drawings whose end result actually mattered, but all of these are just exercises. Approaching them in the way you did for this particular drawing leads to the sort of things I mentioned in the previous point. I'm glad to see though that this seemed to primarily be an experiment, rather than a trend in your work. Still figured it was worth mentioning. Use one pen for the entire drawing.

• I noticed in a couple of places (like the horse drawing here) that you weren't quite treating your individual phases of construction as being quite as solid as you should. For example, if you look at the ellipse you laid in for the pelvis, you treated it more as an exploratory mark. Instead, I want you to treat these things as though they are solid forms, like masses of marble being placed within the three dimensional space. Plan them out more carefully, and abide by them once they're there. If you need to adjust them, you must cut and carve into them, rather than simply ignoring parts of them and moving on. The difference is that when you cut, you are aware of both the piece being cut away, and the piece that remains, as it exists in three dimensions. This forces you to continually acknowledge your forms as they sit in 3D space, and avoid falling into the trap of seeing your drawing as something flat and two dimensional.

• Ease up on the scribbly hatching. Any kind of unplanned marks tends to look sloppy. There are some places where hatching was fine (where purposely flattening out far legs to push them back), but I'd advise against using any kind of hatching when applying texture, if only to force you to look more deeply into your reference images. It's very easy to just apply some hatching and move on, but this results in the same kind of texture being used for all cases. Of course, you didn't do too much of this, just in a few places like this bird's chest. Either way, when you do use hatching, don't be sloppy about it.

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

Oh, a side note about your doodly warmups. Try to be more structured when doing them - don't just jump from one to the next, do several of a single exercise and try and don't rush through it or approach it sloppily. When constructing cylinders, always draw a minor axis. When drawing contour curves, always take care in wrapping them around your form's surface. And always apply the ghosting method to each and every line. Don't be sketchy or loose.

Uncomfortable in the post "Frequently Asked Questions: I compiled a bunch of questions I felt were being asked rather frequently, so read through this list before asking your own."

2017-06-03 16:12

All of the exercises in lesson 1 are meant to be done from your imagination. We do eventually get into drawing from observation and reference, but at this stage I want students to focus on building a sort of mental model of 3D space, and to begin developing their abilities to think spatially.

As explained here, the rotated boxes and organic perspective boxes exercises are exceptionally difficult, and I don't expect students to succeed at them before completing this lesson. All I want them to do is to follow the instructions to the best of their abilities. This gets your brain started in thinking about how things turn in 3D space, which is a key skill that you will continue to develop over time. Just make sure you complete the exercises, even if they don't look right.

If you've struggled at all with these two exercises, I recommend moving onto the 250 box challenge next. Be sure to read through all of the notes on that page, especially the tip about drawing through your forms. This in particular should help you better grasp how each box sits in 3D space.

One thing to be aware of in regards to the difference between rotating them in your mind and copying from a picture is that when copying, you're not factoring in how those boxes sit in 3D space. All you're doing is copying a two dimensional image, so there's no three dimensional information or understanding that comes into play. That's why it's easier, but also not particularly useful. In later lessons (3 and onwards), we get into constructional drawing, which is a greater application of this idea. It is an approach that forces you to break down a two dimensional image into its primitive three dimensional forms, then building back up. Ultimately this forces you to think about how the object is laid out in 3D, rather than focusing only on the 2D image before you.

Of course, in order to be able to do that, we must first get used to manipulating simple forms in 3D, which is what lessons 1 and 2, and the box challenge, are all about.

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

2017-06-03 00:00

Definitely looking much better.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-06-02 23:58

Your leaf and branch exercises are looking decent, although there's definitely a lot of stiffness in your plant drawings. Here's some redlining/notes that mention some of your major issues.

Additionally, I noticed that you have a tendency to start your leaves out with ellipses in your plant drawings. Note that this is not part of the instructions on how to tackle leaves from the lesson. As a result, they end up lacking a sense of how those leaves flow through 3D space, and end up feeling quite flat. At times your linework also ends up being somewhat erratic, at times sketchy, which gives me the impression that when frustrated or somewhat overwhelmed, you respond poorly to that stress. When faced with a situation like that, put your pen down and step back - don't respond to it by drawing. Think about the problem you're facing and think about how it relates to the lesson and the stuff I mention in the introductory video. Take your time, and plan out your strokes using the ghosting method. Draw confidently, but not without forethought.

In addition to the redlining from above, I'd also like you to give the notes I posted earlier this week a read through. They talk about a lot of overarching and common issues students face, especially when first breaking into the whole constructional drawing thing.

Also, when drawing those contour ellipses and contour curves, don't forget this.

Once you've had a chance to review the material, and reread the lesson itself, I'd like you to try another four pages of plant drawings. For these, don't include any texture or extraneous detail. Focus entirely on constructing your forms, and considering how they connect to one another. Additionally, take the time to observe your reference images more carefully. There are certain places where you definitely slipped back into working from memory - for example, the grass at the base of these mushrooms.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-06-02 23:36

As far as construction goes, things are coming along okay. I can see signs that you're thinking about things in three dimensions, and building up a sense of how the forms connect to one another, and how they sit in space. I also see signs that you are thinking about how your leaves flow, as flat shapes moving through 3D space. There is of course plenty of room to improve on these points, and I recommend that you look through the notes I posted last week, but you're moving in the right direction.

There are a few things that definitely need work however. I've outlined them in these notes.

I'd like you to do four more pages of plant drawings, but I want you to leave any and all detail out and focus entirely on construction. This means that everything you put down should be a form of its own - anything else that would ultimately be drawn without volume or without an understanding of how it sits in 3D space, should be left out.

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

2017-06-02 23:15

Your work certainly improves over the set, but overall I think you're in many ways still preoccupied with the beauty of the end result, as though you're approaching these exercises with the intent of having something nice to show off. For that reason, your mind is set on rendering, line weight, the use of hatching, and so on, while you're also failing to draw through your ellipses, establish your forms in a way that appears solid and really conveying the illusion that these objects are three dimensional.

The spider near the beginning is definitely one of your weaker drawings, and I really went to town on it adding these notes. Key things to take away from it:

• Draw through your ellipses

• Not sure why you're applying hatching in the way that you are, but it's flattening out your forms and serves no purpose whatsoever

• Don't guess or work from memory (which is very similar to guessing). If you're not sure how certain things fit together, or about the specifics of some part of your subject matter, don't hesitate to find other reference images that are clearer, or shot from a different angle. Always look at your reference image over and over, constantly refreshing your memory, effectively putting down only a few marks before looking back again.

This ant definitely shows a better grasp of 3D space, and the legs are coming along well too. I'm not sure there's very much benefit from drawing them as lines initially though, which you're doing in a few places (you mentioned this yourself when submitting). If anything, they make things feel somewhat stiffer than they otherwise could.

This mite looks interesting, though while the details are neat, the form is generally still quite flat, especially on the top. The part where the legs connect to the body give it a little bit more dimension, but even the legs themselves feel very flat.

I'd like you to try another four pages of insect drawings, but I want to see no texture or detail whatsoever. Focus entirely on construction. Also, if you haven't already, make sure you give these notes I posted last week a read.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants"

2017-05-31 22:33

You're definitely moving in the right direction, but there are a few things I'd like to point out that should help.

Your leaves are generally looking pretty good (I'm more focused on the simple ones that focus on basic construction - try not to fuss too much about detail right now, as that is not particularly important). Those two that are bare flow quite nicely through space. The more detailed ones do tend to feel a little bit more stiff - this often happens when we know we're going to detail something. It causes us to be too careful and hesitant when putting down lines, concerning ourselves with what will show through in our "final drawing". The way to avoid this is to remember that the final drawing doesn't matter - these are all just exercises and drills, so everything should be drawn with full confidence, thinking only of how things sit in 3D space.

For your branches, take a look at those instructions again. I can see that you attempted to draw the full length of each branch with a single stroke. Because of this, you hesitated a lot with your lines, and ended up quite stiff and wobbly. The instructions talk about dividing the segments, and focusing our efforts instead on making those segments flow nicely together (to avoid a hairy, chicken-scratchy look). This allows you to maintain confident strokes with a single direction and flow, rather than something that twists and turns a lot. Of course, this will also apply to similar plant constructions, like that pitcher plant.

Your later constructions definitely show a lot of promise, though one thing that I'm noticing is that you're being a bit loose at times with your linework. For example, take a look at that mushroom. The ellipses are kind of vague, you're not drawing through them, and those things don't show a lot of signs of being carefully planned and executed using the ghosting method. Your mind seemed to be more on the texture of the thing, rather than that underlying construction.

For this one, I do like how lively and gestural those leaves look - they do feel like they're flat objects flowing through 3D space, which is great. There are a couple things that could definitely have been better however. Firstly, construct all cylindrical objects around a minor axis. You can take a look at the cylinder challenge notes for some more info on that, but I did see you apply that approach in some of your other constructions. Secondly, that texture you applied to use it - the crosshatching - was very flat. Remember that texture wraps around the form beneath it - the lines you drew did not take into consideration the curvature of the cylindrical form. Instead, this flat crosshatching tells the viewer that the surface is in fact not curved at all, so the whole image flattens out considerably. Also, again, draw through your ellipses.

I'd like you to take another stab at this lesson, but this time, don't include any textures or details. Focus entirely on taking your time with each construction. Plan everything out, and be more mindful of how you place your marks, your ellipses, and so on. It's actually quite often that I see students get too caught up in texture and detail, to the point that it distracts them from the real meat of the lesson. Forcing them to focus on this particular part usually yields much better results.

As for your question, you can make one-time donations via paypal. I feel like reddit might have rules about mentioning your email, so instead I'll point you to the giveback page. Third paragraph down has information in donating via paypal. Thanks in advance!

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

2017-05-31 22:21

Thanks for pledging, and I'm glad to hear that drawabox has drawn you back into the frey. So far you look to be doing reasonably well - your lines are coming out fairly smooth (keep pushing yourself to execute those lines confidently to continue to improve on this point, invest all of your time in the preparation phase of the ghosting method and then execute without hesitation).

When submitting homework though, make sure you complete all sections of the lesson - you seem to have only included part 1 here, so the ellipses and boxes still remain. I look forward to seeing the rest when it's completed!