Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 6: Drawing Everyday Objects (new 30min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-16 17:38

Looking great! Your new pages are definitely showing some considerable improvement. I especially like your use of line weight in pages 5 and 6. I'm not really sure what page 5 is (a coffee maker maybe?) but I love how solid and conscientiously constructed it is.

The only thing I wanted to point out is actually kind of a moot point since it's on your older work and I'm sure you've already moved past it. Still, I figure I'll go ahead and mention it anyway so it seems like I'm doing something helpful here. It's this chair. Basically, I would have been much boxier with the construction of the seat back and seat bottom, maintaining solid box forms much longer before adding the bulges of cloth and cushion.

In regards to the issues you were having with your shoe - I think you did a pretty good job of it. Ultimately I usually do the same thing - carving out the base of the object as though it's laying flat on the ground. At least, that's my first step - I drop in the footprint of the form, regardless of where there is contact. Then, by looking at the side orthographic views, you can see the rising of the arch, and then construct that as well. You'll actually see me doing more of that in the next lesson.

Anyway, really nice work. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete - enjoy your break, and I look forward to seeing you cry in lesson 7.

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

2016-10-16 17:31

Better. I'll mark the lesson as complete, but as you move forwards here's a few things for you to keep in mind:

• We're creating the illusion of form here - we're drawing on a 2D page, but trying to make something appear as though it is 3D. It's all a visual trick, but the most important thing is that you start to believe in the illusion. Contour lines, drawing through forms, etc. are all meant to get you to buy into it as much as it is for the other people looking at your work. Always think of these forms as sitting inside of a 3D world, consider their weight and volume, imagine picking them up and moving them around. This takes time to develop of course, so don't worry if it happens gradually, but once you start to truly believe that these objects are 3D, you will start to find subtle, subconscious changes in the way that you draw them.

• Definitely practice the organic forms with contour ellipses a lot more on your own and work on drawing smooth, even ellipses. That smoothness is more important than precision.

• Consider the degree of the ellipses/curves that you're drawing on these forms. If each ellipse is a cross-section of this form, then the ellipse's degree represents how that cross-section is oriented relative to the viewer. I talk about this more in these notes.

Also, remember that now that you're finished with lessons 1 and 2, you should be incorporating the exercises from both lessons into a warmup routine. Pick two or three from this pool of exercises each day and do them for 10-15 minutes before getting started on that day's work.

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

2016-10-15 22:35

This highlighted the problem with your understanding. Take a look at this. Those contour lines need to actually rest on the surface of the form, and deform with it. Their whole purpose is to help describe how that surface warps through 3D space to the viewer. In your drawings, the contour curves are able to fly right off the form, rather than following the curvature back around to the other side.

The one in the top left is actually not bad, but you also need to make sure you keep the contour lines reasonably snug between the edges of the form to maintain the illusion that they're actually on the object's surface.

Try another page.

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

2016-10-15 21:19

It is better, but the curvature of the contour curves still isn't really correct. This time it's describing a rounded form somewhat better, but rather than fixing the fact that your curves don't accelerate and hook around at the edge, you've made the middle section of each curve more dramatic. In my previous critique and in the notes I linked you to, I described the approach of overshooting your curves. You don't seem to have attempted to apply this to your work - please do one more page of contour curves and overshoot those curves this time. See how these curves extend beyond the edge slightly?

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

2016-10-15 17:34

Your form intersections (which are often the most difficult part of this lesson) are looking pretty solid. I do believe we need to work on your organic forms however. Right now the biggest issue there is that your contour curves aren't wrapping properly around the rounded forms. This is a common issue and arises when you don't accelerate and hook your curves around as they reach the edge of the form. One helpful technique to force yourself to think of it as being a rounded, three dimensional form, is to overshoot those curves a little after they wrap around at the edge. This forces you to think of it more like an ellipse, rather than just a line going across a flat page. There's also a video you should watch on that link.

Additionally, for your organic forms with contour ellipses, the ellipses themselves are looking a little stiff - remember that above all else, you want to be drawing everything with a confident stroke. Don't let your brain course-correct as you draw, as this will lead to stiff and wobbly linework, and in this case, ellipses that are not evenly shaped.

Your dissections are a good start, though at the moment they're a little cartoony. As you continue to move forwards with this, focus on spending far more time observing your reference - after a couple seconds of looking away, your brain's going to start throwing away a lot of the information you gathered from your observation, causing you to work much more from memory. Right now we can't trust our ability to remember large amounts of detail, so we need to force ourselves to continually look back at our reference images after only a few seconds of drawing. This will be a little tough at first, but it's a habit you will build up over time.

Also, remember that when doing this exercise you need to be starting off with an organic form with contour curves. I'm noticing here that you constructed your base forms for the dissection exercise with the cuts in mind. You should be drawing them as complete sausage forms, then add contour curves/ellipses, and then start thinking of it as a dissection exercise. At that point you'd pick two contour lines to use as your 'cut' section and start working from there.

Lastly, your organic intersections could use some work. Some of this comes from the issues with contour curves, so the notes I mentioned earlier will help with that. Additionally, I think it'd be best for you to stick to absolutely simple sausage forms - don't use wavy lines, as this added complexity will undermine the solidity of your forms. Right now we just want to focus on creating the illusion, and ultimately buying into that illusion ourselves, that we're drawing actual 3D forms, not just shapes on a 2D page.

One other thing that may help with that sense of 3D space is to start by drawing a plane or a large box, then start piling your organic sausage forms onto it one by one. Drop one form on, think about how its volume interacts with the form beneath it, where its weight is supported and where it isn't (and would therefore sag). Then when you're satisfied, drop another sausage form on and repeat the process.

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

• One more page of organic forms with contour curves

• One more page of organic intersections

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-15 00:58

I'd say in general you demonstrated some serious growth between the last lesson and this one. You were doing a decent job then, but your grasp of form and construction has been knocked up significantly, and continued to improve over the course of this homework set.

In general you're exhibiting some serious confidence, and no fear in regards to drawing through your forms and doing everything you need to in order to fully understand how those forms sit in 3D space. Beyond that, you do a great job of ultimately organizing those lines with additional line weight to really bring the drawing together in a cohesive and solid manner.

Honestly, the fat scorpion made me burst out laughing - I'm glad that you accepted your mistake and kept going forward with the drawing - the result is obviously proportionally hilarious, but in many ways it's actually believable that this scorpion is just a fatty who needs to hit the gym.

I don't really have much to offer in way of critique - you're moving in the right direction, and making great headway. Just keep doing what you're doing and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals (new 50min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-12 23:41

Looking at your drawings, I get the distinct feeling that you're reaaaaally eager to jump into detail with these ones. I'm guessing you really like animals, and are very eager to really flesh them out! Unfortunately this also means that your underlying constructions could use some work. There's some drawings that are pretty good here, but I feel that it's more your observational skills that help them stand on their own. In the case of the frog though, most of it's actually pretty good because you are starting to get a more subconscious grasp of form and 3D space - but we can't skimp on those constructional steps just yet.

The most important thing is that at every given stage of construction, you ensure that every single form you've put down on the page feels solid. As it stands, right now you're drawing loose ellipses - focus on drawing balls and solid organic masses. If at any point a form doesn't feel solid, a well planned/prepared contour line can help solidify it.

I'd like you to do four more pages of animal drawings, but this time I want you to include absolutely no detail whatsoever. Focus entirely on construction. No fur, no wrinkles, no features, nothing like that. Just focus on your forms and how they all fit together. I also recommend that you give the intro video another listen, and go through the demos again. It often can take several read throughs for this material to sink in.

Uncomfortable in the post "/r/ArtFundamentals and Drawabox.com: A New Beginning. Read this if you're new to this subreddit."

2016-10-12 22:28

Generally it is a good idea to learn more technical perspective, and digest all of the rules and techniques one can use to measure and construct objects exactly correctly within a scene.

The only thing you should be aware of is the fact that it becomes very easy at times to get overwhelmed and become paralyzed by it. It's important to understand what perspective is and how it works, and how to use it when you need to achieve a specific goal, but I generally find that when people take those rules they've learned and store them in their conscious mind, trying to figure out how to apply them fully to every little thing, they lock up and stumble. The better approach - at least in my opinion - is to tuck all of that information back into your subconscious, where you're not focusing on the importance of drawing a perfect cube when a slightly imperfect cube will do just fine. If you're fully focused on all the rules of perspective, you leave no room for observation, no room for designing, no room for actually creating something.

Like you said, if you learn your rigid, technical, measured perspective, over time you will internalize those rules. So long as you remain aware of the need for this sort of internalization (as opposed to staying hyper-aware of all the rules forever), you should be fine and come out better for having taken the time to learn it.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-10-12 01:27

Yep, that is correct. By being 'vertically aligned', I mean that they should line up to the third (vertical) VP. In the case of 2 point perspective, that'd just be straight up and down, but it would shift in 3 point.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-10-11 22:58

Your start is definitely... bumpy. I was a little worried through those first couple of pages, but by the fifth or sixth page, you started to hit your stride and the forms really started to come together, and your lines gained some much needed confidence. For the most part these cylinders feel quite solid. One thing in terms of degree to keep in mind is that more often than not, you're not going to have too great a shift from between the degree of the two ellipses. This usually would relate more to some pretty dramatic perspective distortion, so it's not a common thing you'll see in a drawing, and that's why it looks a little stranger (even if you can't quite put your finger on it at the time).

On that note though, you should definitely check out this video I posted a few weeks ago if you haven't already. It relates to the idea of what the degree should be in a particular situation, especially if you're drawing those ellipses in boxes. Also, keep in mind that drawing smaller is going to make things harder on you, since you leave yourself with much less room to think through these spatial problems. In the future, try to loosen up by drawing a little larger, rather than getting stuck in those stiff little spaces where all your lines come out feeling ten times thicker because of how fat your pen is relative to the overall size of your drawing.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals (new 50min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-11 22:53

Nice work! I do think you're starting to get a solid grasp of construction, the use of form, and so on. I'm very pleased to see that you went back and dug back into the previous lesson material, since I'd updated it. I hope those videos helped clarify some things that may not have been as clear previously.

One thing that really caught my eye was the vulture's wattle (the fleshy scrotaly thing that hangs off its neck). In your previous submission, you drew this yak, with a very saggy belly/fur/whatever area. In that drawing it felt very flat and didn't really seem to have any volume to it. Your vulture's wattle however very clearly has that sort of solidity, that sense of 3D form to it. It's little things like this that I look for that show a student is really starting to grasp the illusion of form, and that the student is actually fooling themselves with it.

You also seem to have made some headway with that difficult bird drawing, so congratulations on that.

Ultimately I think fur is still your mortal enemy at this point - you have a tendency to go overboard with it (like the ram). I'm glad to see that you fought the urge to go nuts on its torso (actually in that area the internal little bits of suggestion are well done), but along the silhouette you'll have to continue to work on keeping yourself back. Less is more, a thousand times over. Just a little tuft here, an little bit of fur poking out there, and you're done. The rest can be smooth lines. Of course, this is texture, and that's a whole other bucket of worms that everyone struggles with for quite a while.

What's important to me right now is that you're really grasping form and construction. I think you're ready to move onto the next lesson - admittedly that lesson will still be quite challenging to you, because moving from organic forms to purely geometric ones is still a leap. It's an important one though, that I think will ultimately reflect upon how you construct everything in the future. Just grit your teeth and push through it - I have no doubts that you will, and that you'll come out all the better for it, just as you have with the challenges posed in this lesson.

Keep up the great work, and consider this lesson complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-11 22:41

Definitely moving in the right direction. I'm pleased to see that you started off really slow, tackling simpler objects, just keeping your own pace and not trying to rush too far too quickly. Your forms are alright, and your use of line weight to help organize things is pretty solid.

The only thing I want to stress is that right now I'm seeing a conscious effort at keeping your initial construction lines quite light. Keep in mind that this initial phase is often the one where we are the most confident, and draw boldly. It's where we imbue our drawings with their energy. If you actively try to subdue that phase of drawing, you'll end up with forms that look stiff and overly-careful.

Notice how you went over it with a much cleaner, more belaboured stroke? This one inevitably lacks that sort of confidence, because you're focusing on matching the path that was already set out.

The trick is to draw your first pass normally, let it be about as dark as a normal stroke. Don't go out of your way to make it super thick and dark of course, but don't go to any effort to keep it faint either. Construct your entire drawing this way. Then when you come back to it to organize things, don't think about replacing existing lines. For example, if a sphere happened to be a tough too fat, or something to that effect, don't try to hide that mistake - own it. The mistake's been made, so it's often best to just incorporate it into your drawing.

As such, instead of replacing lines, you want to focus on just emphasizing lines that already exist. It's a deceptively similar concept, but it's not the same - you're not trying to hide marks that are there, you're actually trying to bring them to the forefront by giving them extra weight.

Anyway, try to keep that in mind as you move forwards - it's not the simplest of concepts, it's got a lot of subtlety and nuance to it, so it will take time for it to sink in. Just let it roll around in your mind for a while, and see what comes of it. For now though, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete so go ahead and move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-11 22:32

Secretly I put everyone through this torture because I had to go through it myself. If anyone becomes a successful artist, it won't be without the pain of staring at creepy crawlies!

Your work is generally very well done. Your forms and constructions feel quite solid, but don't fall into the trap of becoming overly stiff. Your use of line weight really helps to tie everything together. I especially liked your wolf spiders, though for some reason I can't quite put my finger on, I prefer the first attempt to the second.

The area I think you should direct a little bit more focus towards (and this is completely normal, just a little nudge in the right direction but it's something everyone struggles with) is proportion. Just keep flexing your observational muscles and consider how the different masses of a given critter relate to one another in terms of size and how far apart they are. This will improve with practice, of course.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson. Oh, and I fixed your flair - I had accidentally typoed the ds1 flair tag.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-10-11 22:26

Generally your boxes are solid and your line weights add a lot to your boxes. That said, I do think you'd have gained a lot more from this exercise had you applied the tip about drawing through your forms, as it really helps to very specifically identify areas where far planes are larger than near planes, or angles are off slightly. Ultimately it's just easier to spot things when all the lines are actually drawn in, so you get a fuller sense of how those forms sit in 3D space.

You could actually still benefit from drawing through them with your red pen in your correction phase, but ultimately that's up to you.

Anyway, like I said - your boxes do look solid, and your line weights are well done. Consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-11 21:56

There's some good here, and some less good. Your sense of construction is definitely coming along, but the general solidity of your forms is undermining the overall quality of the result. One thing that I always stress is the importance of being convinced of the solidity and volume of the forms you've got on the page before moving onto the next pass - so if you're laying in your initial masses, make sure you're convinced of their solidity before moving on. If you don't quite feel it, add a well-planned contour line or two to help reinforce that illusion.

When adding forms, especially on the initial stages, make sure that they're simple - any complexity will undermine that solidity, so you always want to build up the simplest level of detail first, then go back over it to add greater complexity. Looking at the spider legs on this page, those forms definitely got away from you. It's important to be drawing those kinds of things as very simple tubes/sausages in your first pass.

Looking at the top jumping spider's abdomen, you seem to have drawn it in a little roughly, then drawn it again a little tighter on top of that. While this does follow the process of drawing in various stages, I want you to try and avoid situations where you straight up replace a form you've already drawn. You can manipulate them by carving into them, cutting chunks away (which means being aware of the form that's being cut away, like if you were subtracting a sphere from the side of a cube, you'd understand that it was a sphere being cut out). What you can't do however is just ignore what's already been put down. In this particular case, I would have simply gone with the original form you drew, reinforced its solidity a little bit and kept going.

The only other thing I want to mention is that you're getting rather scribbly - you should be planning each mark you put down, and applying the ghosting method to ensure that you do what you can to nail it. You're jumping into your mark making a little too eagerly - you'll benefit from holding yourself back and forcing yourself to go through that all-too-necessary planning.

I've said a lot here, but I do think you should be able to move forwards to the next lesson and apply the points there. So I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "/r/ArtFundamentals and Drawabox.com: A New Beginning. Read this if you're new to this subreddit."

2016-10-11 14:49

Awesome! I really loved his course. Admittedly my lessons (past lesson 2) have definitely started to veer off into my own direction as far as my emphasis on 3D forms and construction goes, all of it is very solidly rooted in what I learned from Peter. It's a fantastic course to take, and I'm sure you'll gain a lot from it.

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

2016-10-11 14:47

It's really just a matter of looking right as far as we're concerned. Beginners have trouble with that, which is why they should generally just make sure with someone more experienced. Your own sense for what looks right and what doesn't will ultimately develop on its own, however.

The thing is, we're drawing pictures. Everything comes down to 'that looks about right'. There's a lot of areas where things can be more technically correct, but all that really matters is that something looks right to you and to everyone else who sees it.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals (new 50min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-11 14:45

Usually I'd wait until you actually pledged/donated/whatever before giving the critique but this appears to be a fairly easy one. These are looking pretty solid and reasonably well constructed. The only thing that jumps out at me is the torso of the giraffe - the final result is totally fine, but you have a big long ellipse where you've connected the pelvis and ribcage. That should be more of a sausage - an actual 3D form with weight and solidity to it, rather than just a loosely drawn shape.

As for your question, it's completely fine to do individual paypal donations (just make sure they're broken up into one each month instead of paying a lump sum). Alternatively, you could pledge now and then cancel your pledge after December 1st. Plenty of people pledge for a limited time, so that's not a problem on my end. I guess you might be worried that you might forget though. The patreon thing is generally easier for me (keeps my records more organized), but it's not a big deal either way. The paypal email address is listed on the give back page (it's also the same email that's on the bottom of every page on drawabox.com).

Uncomfortable in the post "/r/ArtFundamentals and Drawabox.com: A New Beginning. Read this if you're new to this subreddit."

2016-10-09 20:47

Send me a PM with your questions then - I'm going to be leaving that one locked until I get the new version out.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-09 19:10

Good lord these are beautiful. Your forms and constructions are solid (and while I can see you potentially skipping a step here and there, it's very clearly because you can already visualize the lines you would have drawn, leading to no decrease in solidity or overall quality, which is ultimately what we're meant to be working towards). Your proportions also demonstrate strong observational skills, and your line weights really go a long way to bring these drawings to life. I also enjoyed the light touch of texture - you didn't overdo it there, and in fact your decision to only hint at it here and there really helped bring the use of weight and value to the forefront, resulting in a lot of very interesting drawings.

Keep up the fantastic work and consider this lesson complete! Feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-09 19:07

Looking good! You've got a lot of nice stuff here - I especially like your stag beetle and your cricket. The one thing that I do want to stress though is the importance of starting off with forms that are as simple as possible, and fleshing them out as forms (so that you grasp their 3-dimensionality rather than leaving them as 2D shapes), then build up your complexity from there. For the most part you are doing this correctlym but there are a few key areas where you aren't. A good example of this is the scorpion's tail. Don't be afraid to let your simpler forms interpenetrate, as this is generally the better approach. Once you've got them interpenetrating, you can establish the actual area where they intersect (in the scorpion's case, I drew ellipses where the various sections of the tail connect). This generally helps you achieve more solid forms from the get-go, whereas starting off more complex will often result in forms that fall a little flat.

Aside from that, great work! Keep it up and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "/r/ArtFundamentals and Drawabox.com: A New Beginning. Read this if you're new to this subreddit."

2016-10-09 18:23

Hm, that does have quite a few downsides, like people freely manipulating that spreadsheet if they're given editing rights (which they'd need in this situation), an additional barrier to getting your homework reviewed, etc. Additionally, there's a few benefits to letting people post to the subreddit - it'll likely help grow /r/ArtFundamentals with the influx of posts. Ultimately I'll try and keep as much of that buried content in the sidebar as possible.

Uncomfortable in the post "/r/ArtFundamentals and Drawabox.com: A New Beginning. Read this if you're new to this subreddit."

2016-10-09 18:19

You're absolutely right. For some reason I was under the impression that I'd somehow made it default to new (which apparently isn't actually possible, I must have confused it with doing that for the comments). I've gone ahead and changed the subreddit style to include Hot/New/Top links.

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

2016-10-09 01:12

The contour ellipses look much better. Your contour forms are also considerably better, but not all the way there. Is there a reason you didn't apply the "overshooting your curves" approach mentioned in the notes I'd linked you to? You'd definitely benefit from doing that.

Either way, they're about good enough for me to mark the lesson as complete. Just make sure you apply that overshooting method in the future, and try not to skip over those kinds of recommendations in the future.

Uncomfortable in the post "/r/ArtFundamentals and Drawabox.com: A New Beginning. Read this if you're new to this subreddit."

2016-10-09 01:07

The homework is the exercises. Each part (lines, ellipses, boxes) has a homework section that outlines the number of pages of each exercises you should be doing. So jump right into doing that.

Uncomfortable in the post "/r/ArtFundamentals and Drawabox.com: A New Beginning. Read this if you're new to this subreddit."

2016-10-09 01:05

Technically speaking, you need both skills in observation and in construction. Any accepted method will technically yield results in both areas, but in my experience the more traditional approach you get in fine art drawing classes, books like Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain and so on is more often applied in such a way that students tend to focus entirely on being photocopiers - that is, a machine that diligently reproduces exactly what it sees without really understanding what is being drawn.

It's one of the reasons that when you learning from that approach, the importance of drawing from life is stressed especially strongly. It's always beneficial, but in this case it at least adds a step where you're forced to deal with 3D objects somewhere along the line, whereas directly copying a reference image means taking a 2D image and turning it into a 2D drawing.

Construction forces that 3D element by looking deeper at what you're drawing, regardless of whether it's from a photograph or from life, because the very first step is all about forcing yourself to simplify it all into basic primitive forms. The ability to identify those forms and to grasp in what proportion they relate to one another certainly relies on strong observational skills. Moreover, once you've built up from the simple form construction, you further rely upon observational skills to identify and transfer details into your drawing.

All of this ultimately contributes to your visual library - the catalogue in your brain where everything you've learned about the things in the world is stored. This relates to topics both broad and specific - how certain parts of an object fit together, what kind of textures you might find on a certain kind of object, particular anatomical traits of a specific animal, and so on. None of this is something a person just has, it's something that develops through one's experiences, and it tends to develop much more quickly by actively drawing studies of... well, everything.

In this area, again, both a strong grasp of construction and of observation play a big role. As beginners, our brains are wired in such a way that we automatically simplify the things we see and toss the majority of information relating to an object away the moment we look away from it. We don't pick up on the kinds of details that would allow us to draw them later on. By honing our observational skills, we fundamentally rewire our brains to pick up on those things, especially when we sit down to specifically study them. Where glancing at a car's engine, the average person may add a post-it note's worth of information into their visual library, someone with strong observational skills might extract a full page worth of details, while someone with strong observational skills who's taken the time to actually draw a few pages of studies might commit a solid chapter to memory.

Now, construction takes this even further. A strong sense of construction leads the person diligently doing their studies to put away a whole textbook's worth of information. Construction ultimately allows us to process that information far more efficiently - it's a matter of doing what our brains did naturally before (throwing away loads of data), but doing so in a way that actually retains the information that's useful. By understanding how to summarize that engine block into its major forms, you can tuck away and remember a great deal more than if you were fussing with all of the little superfluous details.

This is getting a bit long in the tooth. The short of it is this: both methods teach you how to draw (from observation and from your imagination), if you apply them correctly. Both deal in observation and construction in different proportions. It is really a question of how a given student decides to apply that information. Due to my lessons' firm structure, there's a lot less room for personal interpretation, and therefore a lot less room to apply the lessons incorrectly. You certainly can do all kinds of things incorrectly, but since things tend to be broken down into smaller steps, it's more difficult than the more "feel-your-way-around" approach you find in certain other methods.

The last thing you mentioned was this approach being 'slow moving' and potentially discouraging. Absolutely this approach can be discouraging. People want to learn to draw to make pretty pictures, not to draw a bunch of boxes because some faceless pseudo-instructor on the internet told them to. I don't agree however with the notion that one's progress is slower. I can't speak to how they compare in terms of speed, but I can tell you that over the last two years, I've had countless students tell me that these lessons took them much farther, much faster, than other approaches did. The reason for this is of course a personal one - this method simply made more sense to them on a logical level, required fewer leaps of faith, and had fewer concepts that simply had to 'click' before one could move forwards.

Uncomfortable in the post "/r/ArtFundamentals and Drawabox.com: A New Beginning. Read this if you're new to this subreddit."

2016-10-08 22:14

Haha, that's very kind of you.

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

2016-10-08 21:36

There's a few hiccups that we'll have to iron out for sure, but there's definitely some considerable improvement over this set. Your biggest areas of strength here are your form intersections, which started off somewhat weak but the solidity of your forms improves considerably. Note that I'm talking more about how you've maintained cohesion between the different forms occupying the same space, rather than the actual intersections between the forms (which aren't the focus of this exercise despite the name).

I do want to point out a few areas though where you didn't quite follow the instructions properly.

• For the form intersections, I asked that you not use forms that have been stretched too much in one dimension (like long tubes, of which I see a handful here), as they tend to involve far too much perspective distortion/foreshortening, making an already challenging exercise more complicated.

• For your organic forms with contour ellipses, you did not draw through your ellipses. I expect you to draw through each and every ellipse you draw for my lessons. It's kind of difficult to tell because the image is a little blurry, but it does seem like you overlapped your lines slightly - what I want is for you to do two full rounds of the elliptical shape before lifting your pen, allowing you to draw the whole ellipse with much more confidence. This in turn keeps the shape more even.

• You left the central minor axis lines out from the organic forms with contour curves - just as with the contour ellipses, they serve the same purpose here, helping you to align your curves. The curves themselves are just the visible portion of larger ellipses, so they work the same way and are just as important.

I'd like you to try the organic forms with contour ellipses, and the organic forms with contour curves once again (one page each). The contour ellipses aren't that bad, but I think you'd benefit from doing them again, giving you the opportunity to loosen up with those slightly stiff ellipses. Try to keep your forms very simple - hell, just using basic sausage forms with no branching is probably your best bet here. This allows you to focus entirely on taking a 2D organic shape and giving it the illusion of volume and form.

For your organic forms with contour curves, those curves aren't quite wrapping around the forms correctly. Part of this is at times the alignment with the absentee-minor-axis, but generally it's a matter of your curves not quite hooking back around the rounded form as they reach the edges. This is a very common issue which I explain in detail here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms. Be sure to read those notes and to watch that video before you redo those two pages.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-10-08 21:27

You definitely had a rough start with this, but you definitely started to hit your stride around the 100 box mark. From that point, the general sense of solidity and confidence, and your use of line weight all improved considerably. There's still plenty of room for growth of course - primarily with your use of the ghosting method (your lines do waver and arc slightly, so keep working on nailing those smooth, straight strokes. Don't forget to go over the whole set to identify mistakes (any issues with angles, or where your far planes come out larger than your near planes) and to mark in the correct lines with a different coloured pen. I see that you started to do it with your first few boxes, and then you seem to have forgotten.

Anyway, aside from that, keep up the great work and consider this lesson complete.

Oh, one other thing - it seems you've turned off your flair on this subreddit (the checkbox near the top of the sidebar that says 'Show my flair on this subreddit'). I'd really appreciate it if you turned it back on - I use it to keep track of both who's completed which lessons, and also so I know who is eligible for critiques, now that they're limited to patreon supporters like you. If you've got the flair turned off, I have to check my records which is kind of a pain.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-10-08 21:21

The thing about visible improvement is that you tend to see more of it if you're actually really bad at what you're doing. You're beyond that point - your cylinders started off pretty strong to begin with, and you seemed to grasp the concepts of what it takes to construct them. From here on in, at least in this area, your improvements will be more subtle.

On the topic of balancing fluidity and accuracy, I'd recommend leaning towards fluidity. I do see some of your ellipses still coming out a little bit stiffly, and I believe that given time and practice, it's easier to fix inaccuracy than it is to do away with an unconfident stroke. Of course, that's within reason - just try to loosen up a smidge and push on forwards and see how it goes.

There's only one other thing I'd like to point out - make sure that you're placing your ellipses such that the minor axis passes through them completely. Placing them with their centre sitting on the end point of your minor axis sure looks nice, but it's going to make it more difficult to really nail that alignment.

Anyway, like I said - you're doing great, so it's just a matter of mileage at this point. Keep up the great work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-10-08 21:02

Pretty nice work! My only criticism at this point is that you are being just a little too timid with the rear lines of your boxes (the ones made by "drawing through" your forms). It's important not to become preoccupied with what marks you want to hide, and which ones you want to show, while actually constructing your forms, as it's going to undermine the confidence with which you draw those marks. You can always push the line weights just a little bit more to compensate.

Aside from that, you're doing quite well, and are constructed fairly solid boxes. You do have some room to improve of course, and I can see a few mistakes that you didn't quite catch (for example, 235's rear plane is at an odd angle), but generally you're heading in the right direction.

Keep it up and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-08 20:57

Reaaaaally nice work. The first page or so was kind of uncertain, but things really picked up almost immediately. Your sense of form and how each mass relates to the others, how they connect, and how they can be built upon really comes through with these drawings. Your flies and mosquitos are especially well done, but really your beetles, ladybugs, scorpions.. hell, it's all really well done. I'd say the grasshoppers at the end is a little bit on the weaker side, but I don't doubt that you were likely just getting tired, and that given a little more time to push through that, you'd nail them too.

You're absolutely moving in the right track, and I sadly don't really have anything more to offer other than my blessing to move onto the next lesson. Keep up the fantastic work.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-08 20:54

I'm glad you're a fan of constructional drawing - it really is the core of all of my dynamic sketching lessons. Each one explores how the same principles can be applied to different kinds of challenges.

Overall, you are moving in the right direction. There's definitely some issues that will go away with time and practice (for example, your stems right now are a little stiff, where you're connecting your ellipses with fairly straight lines, rather than loosening up and allowing them to flow more organically.

I really liked the object on page 6 - the step isn't great, but the main mass of it demonstrates a really solid use of construction, where you're wrapping these petals around an underlying mass. I do want to point out though that your contour curves here are rather sloppy and somewhat overused. A few really well planned and executed curves will have a much stronger impact than dozens just quickly thrown at the drawing. After all, they have a specific job to do (describing the distortion of a surface in 3D space), and if they're not actually doing that job, they aren't contributing anything to the overall result.

Your (upside down) cactus on page 8 does highlight a few issues, specifically with the pot's cylinder. You can read more about constructing cylinders on the 250 cylinder challenge page, but here's two major things that would help:

• Never leave a form cut off in that manner, with its ends left open. Always cap it off, so in the case of a cylinder, with an ellipse. This applies even if the form goes on way off the page - the cap will help it maintain its solidity and form.

• All cylinders should be constructed around a minor axis

• From what I can see, you drew an ellipse or two which were somewhat loose, and then went back on top of them with a 'cleaner' stroke. The problem with this clean-up approach is that it results in a much more carefully (and therefore stiffer, more wobbly and less confident) mark. Instead, take your time to plan and ghost through your drawing motion before executing your mark the first time. Do what you can to keep your ellipses tight while maintaining their confidence. This won't come out perfectly initially, but keep pushing yourself to do that. Then later on you can come back to reinforce line weight in certain key places, but never outright replace a mark with a new, cleaner one. Just emphasize that which already exists.

Anyway, you're definitely making some progress. 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 (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-08 20:45

Very nice work! Your organic constructions are coming along great, and they generally feel quite alive. The only thing I have to mention is that it's important that you not jump into some of the higher levels of complexity with your leaves too early - make sure you build up to that instead, like this: http://i.imgur.com/2taOj1Y.png. This allows you to deal with one problem at a time (for example, first establishing the basic flow of your leaf through 3D space, then dealing with how the individual little bits flow independently of that, and so on. Most of your leaves are fine, but these were more complex than most so I felt it was an important thing to point out.

Anyway, keep up the good work and consider this lesson complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-08 20:37

You're making some solid progress through the set, and seem to be developing a solid grasp of the use of construction in this context. I'm especially pleased with this page where you've clearly established the underlying forms and then wrapped new, separate, equally solid forms on top for the shell and so on. Where the part of the carapace that rests on top of the head/thorax and leads into that upper horn-thing though, keep in mind that you should flesh out the form of the transition between the shell and that cylinder. Your drawing seems to flatten out a bit in that area, because when you went about connecting those forms, your brain went back to thinking of it as more 2D shapes rather than three dimensional forms.

I think the very last page was a particularly good place to throw in a quick little demo in regards to wrapping forms around your initial masses (which you did well with that beetle, but not so much here) and also the importance of defining how forms connect to one another: http://i.imgur.com/vN8cZQv.png. Anyway, I'll mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.

And no, bunnies are goddamn terrifying. They're not just cute like everybody supposes. They've got them floppy ears, and twitchy little noses. And what's with all the carrots? What do they need such good eye sight for anyway?!

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-10-08 19:47

Coming along well! My only concern is that your foreshortening is extremely shallow, leaning towards isometric perspective (where lines that are parallel in 3D space are also parallel when drawn in 2D, rather than converging towards a vanishing point). I definitely encourage people to stick to the shallow end of things, as dramatic foreshortening tends to be less useful in most cases, but you're taking it a little too far here. The danger is that it's very easy to slip into those lines separating rather than converging or remaining parallel, leading to a lot of very slight far-planes-larger-than-near-planes issues. Please keep that in mind as you continue to move forwards.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark the lesson as complete. Despite that issue, your line quality is quite confident and your boxes feel fairly solid, so keep up the good work.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-08 17:49

The orange button leads to this thread, so you posted it in the right place. I'm going to get to your critique in a bit, but could you send me a screenshot of the top part of the lesson 4 page? I want to see what you see, and make sure that the orange button is actually there.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-10-07 23:15

These boxes aren't bad, all things considered, but you do have a point about perhaps keeping your boxes' foreshortening a bit too shallow. A little bit more foreshortening would have been ideal, and likely felt very natural and solid. As it stands, your boxes do feel pretty solid, and your use of line weight is pretty good, just try not to keep the lines quite so parallel in the future.

You're doing reasonably well though, so keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-07 20:22

Your general sense of construction and the patience with which you draw your plants does improve a fair bit over the set. Early on though you tend to be a little too quick and loose with your leaf constructions, leading to a lot of forms that feel flimsy and unconvincing. It's important to be patient and to think through your marks before you draw them - consider the purpose and goal of each mark beforehand, ghost through the mark and then execute it with a single confident stroke. Then move onto the next one. For much of this lesson, you were still very much thinking on the page, rather than thinking in your head and drawing the result.

Fundamentally aside from this over-eagerness, your constructions are well done. For the Winter Aconite though, I do believe you could have broken up those leaves into simpler forms, but I do understand that they were a rather special case.

Lastly, whenever thinking about applying texture, leave simple lines as your last resort. Hatching and other line-based textures are often the path of least resistance, so often times students will go down that road before considering what other alternatives may have been available to them. Often times there are opportunities to play with stippling or other more complex and interesting textures, and if you immediately jump to hatching, this can be easily overlooked.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete. I do want to mention though - it's great that you're continuing to carry on with the lesson 1 material as warmups, but it's not necessary to include them in your homework submission. Tends to make things a little easier for me if the album focuses on the work done for this lesson alone.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 6: Drawing Everyday Objects (new 30min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-07 20:06

You're right, these do still need work, and ultimately you're still not really applying a lot of the principles I talk about in the newer content for this lesson. Checking out the content for the next lesson would also probably be helpful, but I wouldn't consider this lesson complete yet.

• First off, your utensils are just drawings strictly from observation. Admittedly spoons and knives aren't the best choice for this lesson (although the concepts I cover in the lesson can still be applied to them), but you still didn't really attempt to break them down into simpler forms. For example, you drew the entire spoon as a single object, rather than separating the bowl end of it from the handle.

• Across all of your constructions, you don't draw through any of your boxes, giving you no real sense of the opposite side of the form.

• The left side of page 3's not badly done, and in general it's a solid attempt at that object. Still, you're not drawing through your forms - you should have drawn each ellipse going all the way down the form. Your glasses also suffer from your not drawing all of the ellipses present in their entirety, resulting in cylinders that don't really feel rounded.

• We only really start to see any use of subdivision techniques near the end, showing very little regard for proportion and symmetry.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-07 19:59

Admittedly, I struggle with it when I approach more complex forms myself, so I slipped up there as well. Ultimately it's about being aware of the chunk you're cutting away, and therefore understanding the new form in relation to the old one, rather than simply drawing a new one altogether.

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

2016-10-07 19:56

Technically the 250 cylinder challenge doesn't really fit into the same stream so it's fine to submit both.

Your cylinders are looking pretty decent - keep working on tightening up those ellipses (for the ones you drew through) and don't skimp on drawing through the others. I know it feels awkward when they're loose, but as you practice them more, the lines will come together and your shapes will become more precise and even. Also, make sure you put a little more effort into keeping your minor axes straight and solid. They're generally okay, but I am seeing a liiiiittle bit of arcing to them at times.

Pretty decent work on lesson 2 as well. Your organic forms with contour lines and contour curves are solid, but don't forget about the importance of the central minor axis line, to which all of your ellipses and curves align. Additionally, for your dissections, don't forget that this exercise is meant to start off as just another organic form with contour lines - this is meant to reinforce the volume so you have a nice, solid form to apply texture to. You should not be skimping on the contour curves here just to give yourself a cleaner surface to add detail to, as this will lead to an overall flatter result.

Your form intersections are okay, but they're an area you'll want to continue working on as you move forwards. Admittedly, filling in your intersection areas as you have kinda has some sloppy-looking results, and ultimately it draws your attention away from the real core of the exercise, which is not about the intersections themselves. It's about the cohesiveness of having multiple forms present together within the same scene and space. You did okay at this of course, but tightening up your ellipses, avoiding overly stretched forms (like long tubes) and so on will help.

Your organic intersections are pretty nice, and demonstrate a solid grasp of how those forms exist together in the same space, and how they sag against one another in a convincing way.

Overall, decent work. I'll mark this lesson as complete, so go ahead and move onto the next one. Keep in mind that you should from now on pick two or three exercises from the first two lessons each day to do as a warmup before you start that day's work. This will keep you current and keep sharpening your skills, while keeping the exercises themselves on a cycle so none of them ever get left behind and abandoned.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-07 19:35

How do you think I feel? PEOPLE KEEP SENDING ME DRAWINGS OF SPIDERS D:

So your work is coming along decently. I especially like the house fly and the dragon fly, and the spider at the end is quite nice as well. I do have one concern I'd like to mention however - I'm noticing that you lay in your initial forms as being more loose shapes rather than solid forms, which you then go on to largely ignore. This isn't inherently wrong, but I do want to stress the importance of thinking as though each mark you put down isn't defining a shape, but rather a solid form. It's like you're building up masses of clay, and so these forms actually need to be carved in order to be adjusted. Can't simply ignore the previous mark and replace it with a new one. For example, look at the spider in the end - its abdomen was adjusted, but in a way that didn't really carve the initial lay-in so much as replace it.

Aside from that, nice work! Keep it up, and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

No wait DRAW MORE SPIDERS!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-07 05:09

While free critiques are open (for one more day), you're missing the prerequisites for this lesson. In order to submit homework for this one, you must have already had lessons 1 and 2 marked as complete, in order to weed out more of the basic mistakes. Unfortunately I do not allow people to jump in half-way, as the problems that are much more apparent in earlier lessons have a tendency to get more hidden in later ones, making them more difficult to diagnose.

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

2016-10-06 21:54

The lessons are structured such that each one is designed to highlight certain kind of issues. If they're not dealt with, they tend to get covered up, and it becomes considerably more difficult for me to identify them if they come up in later ones. For that reason, I require people to submit homework in order, waiting for a lesson to be marked as complete before starting the next lesson's work.

I frequently ask students to redo chunks of work, and every now and then I'll come across a student who just rushed through or didn't read half the lesson, so I'll usually send them back to read more carefully. I've never come across a situation where a student put their all into following the instructions who had to redo the whole thing, though many need a little advice and adjustment.

As for the videos, that is something people have asked for in the past. For the time being I don't have any plans to do it - mostly because I don't have the hardware for it, and it'd be massively more time consuming. I might change my mind about that in the future, but not for a while.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-06 16:40

You'll have to be a little more specific than that if you want clarification. That said, if you haven't completed the lessons prior to this one, it would be unwise to jump in here. There's a lot of gradual exploration of various concepts that lead up to this point, so skipping on that makes confusion inevitable.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 6: Drawing Everyday Objects (new 30min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-05 22:02

Honestly, for the most part you're not really applying the principles covered in the lesson. I'm not seeing any subdivision to measure your proportions more accurately, you rarely draw through your boxes and you don't apply the concepts of the minor axis to your cylinders. This also relates to the fact that you haven't completed the 250 box challenge nor the 250 cylinder challenge, as recommended at the beginning of the lesson.

There's a lot of content in the lesson - in the intro video and across all three demonstrations - that you're just not applying. For most of these, you start off with a box and then draw the rest purely from observation, rather than constructing it. You really should go through it again and take another shot at this.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-10-05 19:17

Your boxes do improve considerably over the set, and feel much more solid by the end. Your use of hatching is preeeetty terrible though, and that diminishes the overall the result. In the future, stick to tight, consistent parallel lines that stretch all the way from edge to edge. No scribbling, nothing floating in the middle of a plane. Also, you don't have to fill each front-facing plane with hatching - just filling in one of these faces will help distinguish and separate all of the front-facing planes from the rear ones.

As for corrections - you're supposed to do it at the very end, not while you draw. And you're right, you're being overly emotional - calling yourself stupid isn't going to help at all, and neither is being overly critical. You did a pretty solid job aside from the hatching, which ultimately wasn't the focus of this exercise.

Keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge"

2016-10-05 19:08

You definitely seem to be improving. Keep working on reducing that overshooting, of course, and on achieving straight lines. This will come with time and practice, so you're on the right track. Additionally, it'd be worth while in the future to spend some time on applying additional line weight - there are notes on how to use it effectively to emphasize the solidity of a form in the challenge page.

I'll mark this challenge as complete. Keep up the good work.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 6: Drawing Everyday Objects (new 30min intro video, 3 new demos)"

2016-10-05 18:11

To be honest it's hard to understand what you're saying, but if I had to guess, I'd say you were asking about drawing lines so they converge at a consistent location. The best practice for this - and it is largely a matter of practice - is drawing boxes. Boxes have three sets of parallel lines, each going to a different vanishing point, with four lines in each set. The better you get at drawing boxes, the more capable you will be in visualizing where a vanishing point is and whether or not your lines converge in roughly the same area.

If you're getting disoriented, then you're probably trying to draw objects that are too complex - try to approach simpler things that have very clear configurations of basic forms, and flesh everything out as a box initially.