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Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#3)"

2016-02-18 20:26

It's not really an issue of you doing worse - rather, since you're drawing through your boxes now, your mistakes are much, much more obvious. Many of them were still there before, but they were hidden. In a few areas, I do think you've shown a little improvement - but the more important part is that you're now able to see your mistakes, so that's the first step to correcting them.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles (version 3)"

2016-02-18 20:08

Eeeeexcellent. This is exactly what I wanted to see. You've gone beyond the detail and information, gone beyond what each object is as a single entity and have captured and constructed the individual forms within it. Each one feels solid and sturdy, and you can tell exactly how they exist within 3D space.

And that boat is simply adorable.

I noticed that in some cases you used the overall box/subdivision on limited sections of the overall vehicle and estimated the proportions on the remainder - probably not the best decision, and I think you noticed that yourself. The ones where you applied the box/subdivision techniques to the whole construction definitely came out stronger. That said, I think your sense of 3D space and your ability to estimate those proportions is improving - just don't go taking shortcuts just yet.

Anyway, like I said - fantastic work. Keep it up, and congratulations on completing the Dynamic Sketching lessons!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 3)"

2016-02-18 20:05

The biggest issue I'm seeing relates less to the lesson, and more to something you mentioned in your comment:

but sometimes my mind wandered

Your mind wandered a lot, to the point that you regularly lost track of the instructions and went off on your own way, doing your own thing. Yes, the lessons encourage you to play with simple things (like simple organic forms), and this can get dry - but the lessons are not here to entertain you. The fact of the matter is that you do not understand the concepts behind these exercises, so by rushing ahead into needlessly complicated forms, straying entirely from what's written in the lesson, you aren't actually practicing much of what I am trying to teach you.

I'm going to ask you to redo the organic forms, the dissections, the form intersections and the organic intersections. Your arrows are actually quite well done.

Now, with your organic forms, you tackle simpler forms when you deal with contour ellipses, and you don't do too bad of a job, but as soon as you jump into organic forms with contour curves, jump into these needlessly complex messes, and demonstrate to me that you don't understand what contour lines are for.

Their purpose is simple - they are lines that flow along the surface of an object, and by their very existence demonstrate how that surface bends and twists and turns through 3D space. First and foremost, it's best to keep them aligned perpendicularly to the spine that passes through the organic form - which means you need to be aware of how that spine is oriented. It's best to draw it in if you can't keep it straight in your mind (which beginners generally can't).

Next, you need to make sure that when drawing a contour curve around a rounded form (as we are doing for this exercise) that contour curve gives the impression of wrapping convincingly around that form. Yours fall short of this, it's something I talk about a lot in the lesson and in the self-critique resources for this exercise.

You drew maybe one simple form, and it didn't really hit these points - and then you jumped into all sorts of complicated bits. You need to focus on grinding on the simpler end of things, taking things one step at a time.

Next, your dissections are as you said, a mixture of some photo reference (I definitely wouldn't agree that most was done from observation) and a lot of stuff from your imagination. I don't want your mind to wander at all, because the stuff you're doing from your imagination isn't beneficial right now. If anything, it's just going to push you in the wrong direction.

As I mentioned in the lesson, this exercise is about identifying the textures and patterns present in a reference image and transferring them to a completely different, simple form. Your forms aren't simple at all, and from the looks of it, you're not entirely able to separate the idea of 'form information' (solid things with volume and mass) and 'texture information' (the visual information that wraps around these forms to give them the sense of being rough, smooth, wet, sticky, bumpy, etc. You don't want to pull out any form information, the point is to stick to a very simple form. That's why all of my examples consist of sausages - there's nothing complex about them.

Creativity is great at all, but right now it's just distracting you. Focus on photo reference, focus on pulling out texture, and focus on using simple forms. Also remember that this exercise is an extension of the previous one - before you even think about texture, you draw your form simply by following the steps of the organic form exercise. Then you'll have a form with contour curves/ellipses, and you'll be applying texture to that.

Next, your form intersections - you describe your own issues with it where you do the opposite of my instructions (focusing on the intersections, not drawing the forms) so I'm not going to get into that. All I want to stress is read my instructions and follow them. Another one you missed was the following:

For now, I strongly encourage you to avoid forms that are stretched in any one dimension. For example, long tubes, long boxes, and so on. At this point it is far better to stick to fairly "equilateral" forms. That is, forms that are roughly the same size in every dimension.

Lastly, your organic intersections are going in the right direction, they're just not quite there yet. I wouldn't generally hold you back for this, but you do need more practice, focusing on the sense of these forms sagging over each other. Right now they don't feel like they have much mass or volume to them. As you get better with the concept of contour curves and ellipses, this should improve as well.

So, like I said - redo your organic forms (with both contour ellipses and curves, make sure you draw in your spines for all of them and treat that spine as the minor axis to your ellipses/curves so they're aligned correctly), dissections, form intersections and organic intersections.

And before you do this, REREAD THE LESSON, AND REREAD EACH SECTION AGAIN JUST BEFORE DOING A RELATED EXERCISE. Trust me, it does not fill me with joy when I have to send people back to redo chunks just because they didn't follow the instructions.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#3)"

2016-02-18 19:39

I definitely see considerable improvement from the beginning to the end. You definitely would have benefitted considerably from following the tip about Drawing Through your Forms through the whole set - I noticed that you did it a little at the end, but it REALLY helps across the board to highlight your spatial inconsistencies.

Generally your corrections seem to be going in the right direction, so I think you definitely gained a lot from this exercise. Consider the challenge complete!

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 3)"

2016-02-17 21:21

Your arrows are excellent - they feel very organic and alive. Your dissections' textures are pretty good - at times you're a bit too preoccupied with the forms (like drawing an actual fish), which aren't the focus of the exercise, but I do like the U shaped thing on the left side of your first page of that exercise. The fish scales demonstrate a nice gradation from sparse to dense texture. Just try to be a little conscientious of your mark making - I do see a fair bit of sloppiness where you haven't really put a whole lot of effort into what you're drawing, like with the spine on that same form.

Your organic intersections are alright - when approaching this exercise, try to get in your mind the idea that these forms have considerable weight to them. Think of having a big sausage-shaped water balloon, and dropping it over your outstretched forearm. Think of how it would sag over either side of it, with palpable weight and volume. That sagging and tension is what you're after in that one.

Now, your organic forms with contour curves needs work - the curves do not give the impression of wrapping convincingly around the rounded form. I talk about this common issue in greater detail here: Contour Curves Do Not Wrap Around Organic Forms.

Your form intersections are also not quite there. You seem very preoccupied with drawing cleanly, but to the point where you're not giving yourself what you need to fully understand how the forms exist in 3D space. As I mentioned in the lesson, that is entirely what this exercise is about. It's not about how the forms intersect (despite the name), but rather about drawing a series of solid, convincing forms that exist together. In order to achieve this, there's a few things you need to do:

I'd like you to try and take another stab at the organic forms with contour curves and the form intersections. I noticed that in the latter you weren't drawing through all of your ellipses and that you drew one page with pencil. Don't do that.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (version 3)"

2016-02-17 21:07

Definitely going on the right track. Just remember to draw through your forms more (don't be afraid to put more lines down on the page, if they help you understand how those forms exist in 3D space). Also, remember that often simple hatching is more often than not, not going to reflect the actual texture in your reference image. We often fall back to it out of habit, but there's better kinds of marks (longer lines, stippling, repeated patterns, etc.) that can be used. Pay closer attention to your reference image to identify common visual elements.

Anyway, I'll mark this lesson as complete so feel free to move onto the next one. You'll find that lesson 4 will continue to help you develop in the areas of construction and texture/rendering.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals (version 3)"

2016-02-17 20:54

There's some good here, and there's some less so. The baby elephant on this page shows a lot of great elements. The first thing I noticed is that you've done a good job of massing in the initial head/ribcage/pelvis, and then you've connected the pelvis and ribcage into a sausage form that feels as though it sits in three dimensions, and that impression carries through to the rest of the construction. Furthermore, you're marking in the points of intersection between those forms and the other forms you add - like the legs. Towards the negative side, I'm noticing that you're not drawing through your ellipses much, and in general you're very timid when it comes to putting marks down on the page.

Once you decide to put a mark down on the page - and every single mark is led by a conscious decision, not instinct - you must draw that mark confidently, otherwise it'll wobble and waver, and won't feel solid. This will inevitably lead to a lot of lines falling on the page, as you flesh out your forms with additional contour lines, draw through forms, and so on. That's fine - afterwards you can organize them, emphasizing certain lines by adding weight to them, which in turn will cause the other lines to recede and become less noticeable. Everything is relative, after all, and it is remarkably easy for a thin line to be ignored beside a line twice as thick.

So, this confidence is definitely a major factor that is missing, and is holding you back from drawing solid forms, and therefore entirely believable constructions.

Next, your texturing often gets rather hectic. On your first page, the falcon's head is largely just a mess of scribbles. You allowed yourself to get overwhelmed by the amount of information in your reference image, and ended up drawing without thinking.

Every texture has a rhythm and a pattern to it, and almost always, it's better to draw less of it rather than more. Also, how you depict a texture - the kinds of marks you use on a small scale - are going to vary depending on what kind of texture you're drawing. Most beginners will fall back to just using short hatching lines, and this is often a major pitfall. Hatching lines tend to imply a somewhat rough texture with a lot of small individual ridges, perhaps like fabric. There are other kinds of marks one can leverage - longer lines for instance, that flow into one another can feel smoother, stippled dots can be used to imply little bumps and divets, and so on. The bigger thing to consider though is not to just draw some pattern because you think it fits - look closely at your reference image. There's all kinds of things going on in there, all kinds of visual elements and patterns unfolding, all to their own rhythm and structure. Never rely on randomness, and never just draw and hope for the best. Look closely, study, and if at the end of the day you can't pin down what's going on, you don't have to fill the area just for the sake of filling it.

For more information on texture, you can take a look at these notes.

I much prefer how you tackled your details in this page. You looked carefully at how the ridges around the eye radiate out, and you focused more on the structure and layering of feathers. Admittedly some of the feathers higher up on the wing end up being overly simplified, almost into symbols, but for the most part it's a fairly successful drawing.

When it comes to fur, you didn't do a great job. These notes may help a little. I'm planning on expanding the material available on texture, that's definitely an area where people struggle a lot - I just need to find the time to do so.

Anyway, before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to do two more pages of animals - focus on drawing confidently, DRAWING THROUGH YOUR ELLIPSES, and so on. I don't want to see timidity. Commit to your decisions. With these drawings, I'm definitely more interested in seeing your form constructions than texture/detail.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (version 3)"

2016-02-16 21:26

Looks like you haven't completed the prerequisites for this lesson (lessons 1 and 2), so you won't be receiving a critique. If you have completed them under a different account, send me a message from it. Otherwise go back to the first lesson and start there.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (version 3)"

2016-02-16 21:23

You're right - your form is reasonably done as you progress through the lesson, but your texturing definitely falls short. Thankfully it's not the focus of the lesson, but I do want to point out that when it comes to identifying textures beyond just using simple hatching lines, there aren't really any signs of attempts being made. We'll get into that later.

One issue form-wise that I'm catching is that you're jumping into complicated shapes and forms a little early in the drawing process, and tend to be looser and sketchier than you should be.

This is the approach I push for looking at leaves. I've seen some cases in your homework where you've jumped straight into complex, wavy edge detail on a leaf. Instead, you should be going from simple to complex. Start off with a simple center line, then build a simple leaf shape around it. By this point, your focus has been how that leaf flows through 3D space, pinning down the illusion that it is not simply a series of marks going across a flat page. Once this is established, you can then use that as a solid scaffolding for the remainder of your detail - in my example, I add frayed edges, spikes, or whatever else. These follow the flow of the form established in previous steps - at any given point, I'm only adding what can be supported by the visual and spatial information of the previous pass.

This page raises another issue. The main masses of that cactus are flat, but still rounded around the edges - but your contour lines do not give that impression at all. They've been drawn quite lazily, and do not properly wrap back around the form as we discussed in the previous lesson. If anything, these kinds of construction details are more important than detail and texture, because they establish the basis on which everything else rests. You want those forms to feel 3D, to feel as though they have volume and mass.

This page and this one are among your better drawings. The first thing that jumps out at me is that the flower pot/vase feel way more solid. Admittedly with the vase, I would have thrown another ellipse in the middle where its form pinches in, but it still came together quite well. The plants themselves generally don't dive into too much complexity too early (though you've got a wavy leaf in there that should have started out more simply). Still, the focus is very much on how those forms are constructed in 3D space.

Make sure you read the article I posted a couple weeks back on constructional drawing.

Now, as far as texture goes, you're just filling areas in with crosshatching and hatching. You're not actually showing any sign of looking carefully at your reference images and identifying the textures that exist there. While crosshatching does capture a specific texture, that is not a texture found in any of your plants, so it comes out looking very weird.

The first step to capturing texture is observation - looking at the visual elements that exist in your reference. At this point, we forget about organizing the detail - we just focus on seeing what is there, seeing the patterns and the overwhelming amount of detail.

Many students will stick at that phase for some time, but eventually they will then start to recognize that the details they see are in fact shadows cast by little forms - shadows that do not simply manifest as line or dots, but that can combine with one another to form larger shapes of solid black. At that point, the textures we identify are used to transition between solid black and solid white, and strategic placement of these 'transition' areas allows us a greater degree of control over our focal points and rest areas.

These notes on texture talk about this matter, but that is not something you're ready to implement just yet. What you're demonstrating here is that you have yet to really look at the texture and see what's going on. Make sure you're using high resolution photos if you're not working form life, as lower resolution photo reference won't give you much insight into texture.

Now, I am going to mark this lesson as complete, largely because I was pleased by those two pages. As you move forward, remember that form and construction is your top priority - I do not want you to sketch anything loosely, or scribble at all. Think through every mark you want to put down and consider all of your forms as though they exist in 3D space. They're not just marks across a flat page.

The following lesson will continue to deal with these kinds of issues, so you'll have plenty of opportunities to play with it further.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#3)"

2016-02-16 21:07

I like the confidence with which you're drawing your boxes, and I do notice some improvement in your sense of form by the end. There's a couple important things I want to stress however:

Anyway, consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#3)"

2016-02-16 01:52

Yup, you can move onto lesson 2 next.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#3)"

2016-02-15 22:27

I think generally there is some improvement, but you definitely would have benefited immensely from reading the material on the challenge page before actually starting the challenge - specifically the tip on Drawing Through your Forms. This helps you identify all sorts of mistakes, especially those involving your near/far plane size relationships. Definitely something to keep in mind as you continue to move forwards. There's also some material about how to best leverage line weight in your drawings that's worth a read.

It still wouldn't hurt to go back and draw through the boxes with a different coloured pen to help identify your mistakes a little better.

Anyway, congrats on drawing 250 boxes and completing the challenge.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#3)"

2016-02-15 22:17

It's good that you're experimenting with what does and doesn't work in terms of your execution, and playing with different approaches to constructing the boxes. I'd say the biggest shortcoming was that you missed some of the material included with the 250 box challenge - specifically, this: Draw Through your Forms. Drawing through your boxes would help you wrap your head around how your boxes sit in 3D space, and allow you to identify mistakes where your angles are off, or where your far/near plane size relationships are reversed. It's definitely something you should do in the future.

Anyway, you drew your 250 boxes, so congratulations on completing the challenge.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#3)"

2016-02-15 22:12

Nice work. The only thing I want to mention is that there's no need to worry about mistakes that are momentary slip-ups, like a line accidentally going way off, or overshooting, or something like that. Focus on mistakes where you thought the line you were drawing was correct, but it turns out in retrospect that it was not.

Your forms are generally very solid and well executed, though I do want to mention that it's always beneficial to Draw Through your Forms, so as to get a better understanding of how that form sits in 3D space.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (version 3)"

2016-02-15 22:03

Your observational skills, as far as putting the forms together are improving. I do however think you're not quite putting enough time and effort into really building up your constructions, and are leaving a lot of the earlier construction lines out.

For example, for the lady bug on page 4, you seem to have jumped into fairly complex shapes early on, instead of first massing them out in simple forms and then building up the complexity. Here's a demo of how I would have approached it.

Now, I have seen you do more construction in other drawings, but you still seem to be quite timid with those lines. Remember that any mark you put down should be drawn confidently. Beforehand, think about whether the mark is going to contribute to the drawing, or to your understanding of how the construction sits in 3D space. If it does contribute, the mark should be drawn, and therefore drawn with confidence. If it doesn't contribute, the mark should not be drawn at all.

Later you can add line weight to really pull lines forward and emphasize them, which in turn pushes other lines back. You will find that this will really help make your construction lines less noticeable, despite having drawn them with confidence.

So, remember - go from simple forms to complex. Never draw a form or a piece of detail that is not supported by what is already on the page.

I'd like to see you do another two pages of insects. Also you might want to look at this brief demo on identifying different textures that exist in a given piece of reference. You seem to be relying on little hatching lines a lot, there's a whole world of other kinds of patterns and textures, but you've got to look more closely.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#3)"

2016-02-15 21:39

Nice work! Your boxes definitely increase in confidence and solidity over the set, and I'm glad to see that you start drawing through them later on. Your corrections also seem to be very much on point. Keep up the great work, and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "An Ongoing Record of Homework Submissions"

2016-02-14 20:48

Looks like the lesson had the wrong link attached to it. This is the current submission thread for lesson 4: https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtFundamentals/comments/3jizw8/lesson_4_drawing_insects_and_arachnids_version_3/.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#3)"

2016-02-14 00:04

I see. Well, on the bright side I absolutely hate speaking on those videos, so there's only a couple of them. Most of the stuff I teach is via text articles or captioned videos. Never really thought about how that would benefit those with hearing impairments, but I'm glad to have realized that now.

Basically the jist of the Y method is that the central Y constructs one line from all three sets of parallel lines that exist in a box. All lines within a set that are parallel to one another will go off into the distance to some vanishing point (which for our purposes is way off the page), so when constructing the remaining lines, you just need to keep in mind that you want to converge with one of the Y's lines at some vanishing point way off in the distance.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#3)"

2016-02-13 23:54

Neither are wrong, B is the one I talk about in the how to draw a box video.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#3)"

2016-02-13 23:42

To which thread are you referring? I keep all of the links on the sidebar, and they all lead off to drawabox.com. Generally people start with lesson 1, and if I feel they need it, I recommend that they try the 250 box challenge after giving them a critique of their work.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#3)"

2016-02-13 22:29

Nice work. It looks like drawing through your boxes for the first 160 paid off - your constructions feel more solid and it seems to me like you have a much better sense of 3D space. Keep up the great work, and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (version 3)"

2016-02-13 22:27

You've got a lot of great stuff going on here, I especially love the left side of the first page, the aloe vera, and other pieces as well. In some areas though your constructions fell a little flat - which is fine, not everything works out, but I did want to bring your attention to how we can use contour lines to flesh out our volumes on some of the more substantial 3D masses. I focused on your Lophophora Williamsii, and did a quick demo of my own. Remember that the first goal is to convince yourself that you're drawing a 3D form, and contour lines can often help with that. A lot of people tend to go overboard with them, but a few here and there can work wonders to convince you of what you're drawing. Once you feel like you're drawing a form within 3D space and not just a shape across a flat page, all of the details you add subsequently will follow that trend as well.

As you continue to move forward, make sure you've read the article on constructional drawing and the new notes on interpreting and conveying texture. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#3)"

2016-02-13 21:54

Your box constructions are decent, but you definitely shot yourself in the foot by not reading/applying the material included in the 250 box challenge page - specifically the tip about Drawing Through your Forms. Doing so helps immensely with fully understanding how a for exists in 3D space, ultimately helping identify issues where your angles are off, or your far/near plane size relationships are incorrect.

I noticed that you did a little bit of this early on, though I think this may have been checking after the fact (which is also a good idea to be sure), but you should have been applying it across the board to get the most out of the exercise.

The last thing I want to mention though is that you've got a lot of boxes with particularly dramatic foreshortening/perspective applied to them - where the far end of the box is considerably smaller than the near end. You're right that this does help you wrap your head around the concepts of perspective, but remember that this kind of dramatic perspective is usually associated with very large scale objects (like a building where the far end is very far away). We use boxes for everything, so they become very important when constructing other objects - in these cases, it's important to remember that you want to use shallower foreshortening (which implies a much more relatable scale, like things you can pick up and move around with your hands).

Anyway, consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"

2016-02-13 21:11

Nice constructions. I'm glad to see the confidence with which you've drawn these cylinders. The only thing that jumps out at me is that they are all quite small, and are all very similar in size. Should definitely shake things up and add more variation. You did however vary the angles of your constructions quite a bit, so that's good.

Keep up the good work, and consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#3)"

2016-02-13 21:09

Definitely an improvement in your confidence and construction. I do want to point out though that you seem to have not read over the material included with the challenge, and as such, didn't draw through any of your boxes as mentioned in the tips section. You really, really should go and read over the material and apply the things I suggest.

Anyway, I'll mark this challenge as complete. You should be good to tackle lesson 2.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 3)"

2016-02-13 06:09

Those specific tiny details may benefit from the increased control from the wrist. Always consider however whether a line needs to benefit from very fine, brain-driven control, or muscle-driven flow.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 3)"

2016-02-11 20:54

Nice work! Your arrows and organic forms are looking pretty solid, and I'm really happy with your texture experimentation on the dissections. Your form intersections are generally looking pretty good (although watch where you start to draw through your ellipses too much, though that was only one page). I do think there is still room for growth with the form intersections, but you're heading in the right direction. This sort of thing will develop with time, so there's no need to stress over it.

Your organic intersections are looking very nice as well.

I believe you're more than ready to move onto the next lesson, so I'll mark this one as complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "With the start of a new year, comes the reopening of critiques and a bunch of updates to the website!"

2016-02-11 14:41

Regardless of your drawing experience, you should start off with lesson 1. These lessons were originally put together with self-taught artists in mind, it just so happens that what they teach applies pretty well to beginners too. Really everyone just needs to go back to their absolute basics to fill in the gaps in what they understand.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals (version 3)"

2016-02-10 20:58

I think that aversion to drawing through things implies an equal aversion to putting more construction lines down in general, which is definitely not the kind of attitude you want to approach things with. I noticed this a little bit in the middle of the album where you didn't mass out the connection of the arm/shoulder to the torso, and especially with that sitting bear where you jumped right from the initial masses into the overall construction.

While you have strong observational skills which definitely come through to help out, this does result in constructions that feel less solid and don't carry the same illusion of volume.

The camel near the end's torso definitely starts to feel more sturdy and solid, although its legs end up feeling stiff because you deal with it as a single form rather than several connected parts (upper leg, lower leg, etc). I definitely recommend adding a break at each joint and considering them both independently as well as how they relate to one another.

I especially like the toad at the end.

In general, I think you'd definitely benefit from applying the constructional aspects of the lesson and the overall drawabox approach, and setting aside your own misgivings about cluttering your drawings. After all, we're not drawing pretty illustrations - these are just more exercises to understand how forms can come together. They're exercises with cute animal faces.

Here are some additional demos I've done for others in the past to continue driving home the idea of step-by-step construction - the last one with the adult bear should help you approach the construction of snouts/muzzles:

I could ask you to do more to demonstrate an understanding of construction, but beyond this point I can't really think of what I would mention to you as further advice. I think you generally know what you're doing, and where you failed to do as directed, it was a conscious decision (the wrong decision, but you knew what you were doing). So, I do generally get the impression that you're aware of things. Beyond the extra demos, I don't think I have much else to share.

So, I'll mark this lesson as complete. I pretty much have faith that you'll be heading down the right track. Also, the next lesson will force you to think in terms of basic forms, drawing through and construction, and if you try to rely very much on detail-oriented observation, you won't get too far. So, it'll help in that department as well.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (version 3)"

2016-02-10 20:37

As you said, some went better than others. I see a lot of experimentation here, and that's definitely great for learning. You're figuring out how you feel comfortable approaching this material, and how you can go about prioritizing different concepts.

I do think early on you focus much more on texture/detail than structure and construction, which is perfectly normal, though misguided. You very much have a tendency to overuse contour lines, and often fail to draw through ellipses. Don't use contour lines as a reflex, and certainly don't use so many of them that you start building a 3D wireframe of your object. Think about what purpose they are intended to serve - they describe how a surface bends and turns through 3D space, because a contour line is really just a detail that runs along the curvature of that surface. Your first thought should be, do details like this exist already in my object, and can I leverage them to that purpose? If there aren't any, adding two or three artificial ones should be fine, but make sure you think about how you're spacing them out. Doing so evenly often implies that something is man-made, so with plants that's not what you're after.

Next, the majority of your texturing is done by using hatching and crosshatching. These represent two specific kinds of textures that one might see in the world - specifically textures you almost NEVER see in nature. Instead, people tend to use it as a generic texture when they don't actually look closely at their subject matter and try to identify what textures exist there. When I see hatching, I see laziness. You should take a look at the material I've recently posted on this subject

Now, texture and detail is not a significant priority for us right now. As far as construction goes, you definitely do go all over the place, but I want to mention that this page is very well done as far as form goes. You've progressed through multiple passes, establishing the simplest aspects of form, and gradually breaking down into more granular levels of detail and complexity, never putting down detail that cannot be supported by the structure from the previous pass. This is how drawing should be approached. Texturing here is still sloppy and lazy, but that is a secondary concern.

I do believe that you have shown growth and development through your experimentation, and I hope the above critique has outlined some of the more incorrect paths you went down, and highlighted those that should be pursued. I'm pleased with your progress, and will mark this lesson as complete. Feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#3)"

2016-02-09 23:27

Sure.

Uncomfortable in the post "How to Approach Drawing Texture"

2016-02-09 22:29

Thank you for the kind words!

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#3)"

2016-02-09 21:04

Generally nice work. Confident boxes, nice line weights, and so on. I would however recommend that you not try and round out your boxes - it undermines the general solidity of the form, and that's not something you want to throw away willy-nilly. There are times when we, as artists, choose to ignore certain facets of reality in order to communicate our agenda to our viewers. In this case, our agenda is definitely to construct forms that feel like they carry real weight. A rounded box will instead feel somewhat lighter and less substantial.

On that same topic, it's great to learn form many sources, but don't mix them up until you've fully consumed and analyzed the entirety of what any given source has to offer. In this case, I wouldn't recommend mixing up what I'm teaching with anything else until you've completed lesson 7. At that point you'll have a much fuller understanding of why I stress certain concepts over others, and you'll be able to decide for yourself what is worth keeping and what is better defined in other terms or with other techniques. Right now you simply don't understand enough about the method to make those calls.

Anyway, as I said, your boxes are generally quite good in terms of confidence and line weight. I have noticed throughout the set some boxes whose constructions aren't ideal however (some issues where your near/far plane relationships are reversed) and where some angles seem to be off considerably. For example on the last page, at a glance I see issues with 228, 246, 250, 248, 237, and others.

Definitely go back with a different coloured pen and really analyze each one to see whether or not the constructions match up with your current understanding of 3D space, or if you see some glaring errors. Then draw in the lines you now feel are more correct. This is the best way to really gain a lot from the exercise, for your own development.

Anyway, consider this challenge complete.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 6: Drawing Everyday Objects (version 3)"

2016-02-09 20:55

You've done well, especially later in the homework set where you really start to break things down into their fundamental forms and lose any sort of shyness about putting in loads of construction lines. What I usually stress for people is not to look at these objects as what they are - you're not drawing a bottle, an iron, a camera, etc. You're drawing a bunch of rudimentary forms that are arranged in such a way that they resemble those objects. Every detail you put down must be supported by solid forms that have been constructed in a previous pass, and you gradually increase your construction's complexity with subsequent steps.

You're doing well, so besides that reminder I don't have much else to offer by way of critique. Keep up the great work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 3)"

2016-02-09 20:52

Pretty nice work. Your arrows and organic forms are well done. Your dissections are also quite good, though I'd say you're making good headway into the first stage of the two-stage learning process that is wrapping your head around texture. The first stage is to acclimatize yourself to the idea that there's a lot going on in the textures you see in the world and in photographs, and to get used to drawing directly from observation without relying on memory. You're coming along with this very well, so keep up the good work.

Gradually as you become fully comfortable with this, then we start looking into how we can take all of the detail we see and organize/structure it so as to preserve focal areas and rest areas, clustering and grouping detail into solid shapes of black or white, and how to use the textural information to create interesting transitions between them. You don't need to worry about this too much right now, but if you do want to learn more about it, be sure to read the notes I posted on the topic just last week.

The only area of critique I'd like to offer is just to point out that you're not drawing through your ellipses in your form intersections. This is causing them to be uneven, and has a great impact on your spheres, which don't really read as terribly spherical.

Don't approach this exercise, or any drawing you do for my lessons, in a sort of rough phase, followed by a clean-up drawing. The clean-up drawing always ends up looking awful because the way we are driven to draw those cleaner marks works entirely contrary to how we've looked at mark-making in the previous lesson. We want to draw everything a confident pace, not slow-and-steady. Instead, we want to plan and ghost through the motion plenty beforehand, make sure that the mark we're making is valuable, and then put it down.

A clean-up pass really is intended to replace the lines underneath. Instead of that, draw your first pass with confidence, and then afterwards reinforce the existing lines that are of most value by adding more weight. This is not a matter of replacing lines, but rather making ones that are already there stand out more, which in turn pushes other lines back. When drawing those initial lines and constructions, you don't want to be worrying about keeping them faint or unnoticeable - you only want to worry about the task at hand.

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

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 3)"

2016-02-09 20:45

Thanks for catching that www. issue - it's probably been like that for ages, but I'm surprised no one else has mentioned it. An easy enough fix, but I don't doubt that it's done some damage.

Onto your homework - generally you've done quite well. There are a couple things I'd like to recommend, however.

Your lines and ellipses are well executed, and it isn't until your rough perspective boxes that I start to notice some sloppiness. Remember that assuming a box is running parallel to the ground plane (and not slanted at all), all of your horizontals will run parallel to the horizon, and all of your verticals will run perpendicular to it. Based on your drawings, I do believe you're aware of this, but you do have quite a few lines that don't quite match up with these rules. I suspect it comes from not quite applying the ghosting method to your lines as much as you should be.

For your own benefit (this doesn't need to be submitted), I think you should go over your completed rough perspective boxes with a different coloured pen or pencil as described here: Lines Not Lining Up With Vanishing Point.

Your rotated boxes are well done, though I do believe that based on your organic perpsective boxes, you need some more work in the area of constructing arbitrarily rotated boxes. This is perfectly normal, as it takes a great deal of time and practice to establish a solid grasp on 3D space.

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 over the material before beginning the challenge itself - specifically the tip about drawing through your boxes, as this should help you get a better sense of how a box exists in 3D space. This challenge should also give you the opportunity to continue practicing the application of the ghosting method to drawing forms.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#3)"

2016-02-09 20:37

There is improvement, though I'd say that your decision to either skip the material included on the challenge page, or ignore it, did not work in your favour. You would have done well to Draw Through your Forms as described on that page, it helps you identify major issues with your constructions.

Your later boxes are considerably better than your first few, but I'd say you still have plenty of room to grow. You do seem to be identifying major mistakes in your first set of boxes, but simply circling them isn't terribly useful - you should be drawing in the correct lines with your red pen, actually figuring out what went wrong and how you could correct it.

You've drawn 250 boxes, and you have made some improvement, so I'll mark this challenge as complete. You should be more mindful of the material provided to you however.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 3)"

2016-02-09 20:34

It doesn't look like you gave the lesson that careful of a reading. I can see that you skipped a few exercises (plotted perspective and rotated boxes), and there's definitely some sloppiness that you should strive to deal with.

Firstly, I am noticing a little wobbling in your super imposed lines. This is a common issue, and is discussed in greater detail here: Wobbling, Drawing Too Slowly and Carefully. The principle described there applies to all mark making - you don't want to be drawing things slowly enough that your brain has the chance to make little corrections along the way, whether you're drawing straight lines, curves, waves or ellipses.

Next, you have not drawn through most of the ellipses in your funnels and some of the ellipses in your tables of ellipses. This is something I insist you do for every single ellipse you draw for any of my lessons, without exception.

As I mentioned before, you skipped the plotted perpsective exercise, which in turn leads to some serious sloppiness and potential misunderstanding in the rough perspective boxes.

First off, you need to be ghosting through all of your lines to ensure that they are well planned and thought through, and that they are executed to the best of your ability. Simply drawing before you even finish thinking about which line you want to make will result in really sloppy boxes with very little accuracy.

First, read this: Guessing, Instead of Knowing. Next, go over your completed rough perspective boxes with a different coloured pen or pencil as described here: Lines Not Lining Up With Vanishing Point.

Now, your organic perspective boxes do need work as well, but this is not out of the ordinary. It takes time and practice to develop a solid sense of 3D space and how to construct an arbitrarily rotated box within it, and I have no expectations for students to develop it fully by this point. We'll deal with this in a bit.

Here's what I want you to do:

You can then submit that as a reply to this critique, and assuming they've improved (and they should, the majority of the mistakes you're making are due to sloppiness and rushing, or simply not understanding certain points that are clarified in the links above), I'll mark the lesson as complete.

Once the lesson is marked as complete (and no sooner), you can move onto the 250 box challenge to get extra practice with this idea of 3D space and constructing rotated boxes. Since you skipped the rotated boxes exercise, you can do them as a part of your 250 boxes. This will also give you ample chance to practice applying your ghosting method to box constructions, though you should be doing that in your redo of the rough perspective boxes as well.

Before you move onto the 250 box challenge, be sure to read the material on the challenge page, as there are many tips that will help you identify your mistakes and improve more efficiently.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 3)"

2016-02-09 14:35

In my experience, a person's first time around tends to be far less accurate, and during the second time around, your muscles respond automatically to compensate for what they did wrong the last time. The important thing is to trust your arm. That's what 'going fast' is about - it's not about actually going as fast as you can, but rather going just as fast as you need to keep your brain from interfering.

Rather than thinking of it as going fast, I usually try to use the phrase 'a confident pace'. Your focus here should be avoiding the urge to go slow-and-steady. Ghosting over the drawing motion before actually putting your pen to the page (the ghosting method applies to all mark making, not just straight lines) should help keep your accuracy in check as well.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (version 3)"

2016-02-08 21:37

Some of these are quite good. I like your surfboard beetle, your lady bug, your caterpillar and your silverfish. In fact, the silverfish are really well done, as the segmentation and forms read very well.

One thing I noticed across all of your drawings is that you appear to be starting off with a faint underdrawing for your lay-in, and then you clean up somewhat with a separate pass, replacing many of the lines. You're working intentionally to hide the underdrawing.

Don't.

We are not here to draw beautiful, pristine objects to frame or stick up on our refrigerator doors. We are trying to understand form and construction. Every step, every mark you put down, should be thought about beforehand as to whether or not it is going to contribute something to the drawing. Does it help you understand the form you are constructing? If so, it should be drawn with confidence, and you shouldn't be trying to hide it. Otherwise, it shouldn't be drawn at all.

In the end, you might end up with a drawing with a lot of lines that seem to make things confusing. At this point, you can add line weight to reinforce and emphasize some lines, bringing them forward and in turn, causing all the other lines to recede. This is very different from the process involved in a 'clean up' pass which doesn't emphasize existing lines, it outright replaces them.

The other thing I noticed is that there isn't a lot of work on the texture front here, which is absolutely fine. There is no necessity to think about texture and detail right now, as it is not nearly as important as establishing form. I did notice that you made attempts in that direction however, so I will comment on those.

Right now, you have one tool in your belt - line, specifically hatching lines. As a result, you attempt to use these to depict the majority of your textures. Unfortunately, this kind of texture doesn't actually exist often in nature. Instead, you need to really look closely at the textures that exist within your photo reference. Look closely to identify the elements that seem to repeat themselves, and then focus on the fact that the majority of what you're seeing are actually shadows cast by those little elements. These shadows don't only exist as line, and they can very easily start clustering together into large groups, creating singular shapes instead of a multitude of lines. Try to avoid just falling back to using hatching lines.

Here are some extra resources on texture, but remember that your focus is purely on form and construction. Texture can come later.

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, so go ahead and move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 3)"

2016-02-08 21:23

As per the message you sent me, I've transferred the completion badges and whatnot to this account's flair. That's basically how I keep track of who's completed what, so I can keep tabs on people trying to jump ahead.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, your work is quite well done. Arrows, organic forms, etc. are well executed. Your dissections' textures are decent, though I did notice the use of scribbling in areas like the marble - try to avoid this sort of randomness - the majority of texture that appears random actually has a rhythm or flow to it that you must identify in order to properly carry it over into your drawing.

I think your second page of dissections shows the beginnings of understanding of texture as the shadow projected by the surface quality of an object, and I can see that you're starting to get a sense of how to clump those shadows together. The next step would be to consider how to achieve a softer edge to a shadow by creating a transition from dark to light. Some edges will remain hard, but you should be able to achieve softer transitions as well. These notes on texture touch on that concept, though you may have already read them.

Your form intersections are also looking good. I'm not terribly fond of the excess of hatching, and I'd sooner recommend applying the lines length-wise to cylinders rather than wrapping them around its rounded face, but the form intersections themselves are quite well executed.

The issue you noticed with that top-right sphere on the last page is simple - it's not a circle, so it isn't reading very well as a sphere (spheres always read as perfect circles, so you've got to be able to get pretty close to that). Beyond that, it's also quite uneven because you did not draw through the ellipse as I always tell people they should.

Lastly, I noticed that you approached this drawing in two phases - an underdrawing and a clean-up pass. This specifically starts off with a more confident, fainter drawing, and then you go back and replace the lines with a cleaner drawing of those same lines.

It would be considerably better for you to draw your first pass as though it were the only pass, and forget about a clean-up. The problem with a clean-up pass is that it causes you to draw more slowly and carefully, abandoning all confidence to the wind. Instead, treat the first pass as the only pass, and then afterwards you can reinforce some of the marks with additional lineweight to bring them forward. This is different from a clean-up pass, as you are not replacing lines with new ones, but rather you are emphasizing those that already exist.

Anyway, I'm going to mark this lesson as complete so feel free to move onto the next one.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 3)"

2016-02-08 21:14

Remember that the idea of putting your all into something includes doing the work when you are in a good frame of mind and can work comfortably. Doing it while you're travelling is probably not a great idea. Keep this in mind in the future.

For the most part, you did okay. I do have a few critiques to offer but I will be marking this lesson as complete.

Secondly, it is unwise to go beyond the scope of an exercise. When you approached the rough perspective exercise, you played with different forms, slanting the boxes at various angles, etc. It would have been better had you stuck to simple boxes parallel to the ground plane, otherwise it becomes very easy to miss the point of the exercise and practice the wrong thing.

Also in relation to that exercise, your hatching lines are very sloppy. Every line you put down is of value, so you need to treat it as such. Make sure your hatching lines are parallel, consistent, and stretch from edge to edge with nothing overshooting or floating in the middle of the plane.

Lastly your organic perspective and rotated boxes are coming along nicely. It takes time to develop a solid sense of 3D space, and you're on the right track. I recommend that you give the 250 box challenge page a read. You don't have to do the challenge itself, but you might want to.

Anyway, feel free to move onto the next lesson when you feel ready.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#3)"

2016-02-08 20:48

The horizon line isn't going to help you in this situation. There's a few things a cylinder needs to be correct in perspective:

  1. Far end needs to be smaller than the near end. Doesn't need to be by a lot, but it cannot be larger, ever.

  2. Far end should have a larger degree than the near end - that is, it should be wider. An ellipse can be both smaller and wider at the same time.

  3. Both ellipses must be aligned correctly to the minor axis - the minor axis should cut through both ellipses such that they are both split into two equal halves down their narrower dimension.

Reread the notes included in the challenge (I'm assuming you've read them once already), and then persevere through the challenge. Then submit what you've got and I'll point out obvious mistakes and how you can work on them.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (version 3)"

2016-02-08 20:33

As far as construction goes, you're doing pretty well. I would give the article on constructional drawing though, especially in regards to how I deal with leaves - starting off with a simple shape, and then using that shape as a strict scaffolding on which to build up more complex information, like the waves you might see in a leaf's edge.

The bigger issue with your work is actually on texturing. This isn't abnormal, and isn't the focus of the lesson either, so it's not as big a deal as you might think.

When dealing with texture, you seem to have one tool in your belt right now - hatching lines. Unfortunately, it's not a very good tool, as this kind of approach doesn't give us much variation in actual texture, and also lends itself to generating a lot of noise and contrast within a drawing that you might not necessarily want.

Instead of using hatching, which actually doesn't appear in nature all that often, set your pen down and really look at your reference images. If you look closely (and have a high resolution image), you will notice repeating elements that exist on the surface of the object. You'll notice how these repeating elements create patterns with their shadows - these shadow patterns are what we perceive as texture, and aren't just limited to line, but can also become various shapes, and can combine together to create large swathes of pure black.

I posted these notes on texture last week, you should definitely check them out. It touches much more on the application of texture, but you should also be training your observational skills, in being able to identify the little patterns that exist.

I'll mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one, keeping what I've mentioned here in mind.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (version 3)"

2016-02-07 21:44

When you start adding the diagonal lines on those ridges, you get real sloppy. It all kind of loops into the fact that you're spending more time drawing than you are observing your subject, so you're primarily working from memory, and memory can't be trusted.

That's all you're getting out of me, now move onto the insects.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (version 3)"

2016-02-07 19:08

http://i.imgur.com/qfZGwkt.png

That's the last bit of critique I'm giving you for this lesson. I'll be marking this lesson as complete - you are falling short and you are still skipping steps, ignoring instructions, etc. but at this point there isn't much else I can tell you.

Many people do have the concept of construction click better in the next lesson, since it deals with more solid forms, but the fact that you're continuing to miss steps in constructing your leaves does bother me. Maybe you can come back to this after having progressed through the next few lessons, and we'll see if you've improved.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections (version 3)"

2016-02-07 18:53

Doesn't look like you've submitted lesson 1 for critique yet. Your work is admittedly generally quite good, but I am very strict about having students go through the lessons in order, so you'll have to have lesson 1 marked as complete first, and then you can resubmit this one.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 3)"

2016-02-07 18:18

You're right, the ones the red arrows are pointing to should be smaller, or the boxes the blue arrows point to should be larger. My diagrams get sloppy at times, I'll fix that one.. eventually.

Uncomfortable in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes (version 3)"

2016-02-07 18:14

Here's a few things to keep in mind as you move forwards:

I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, but I'd like you to move onto the 250 box challenge next. There you will get extra practice with everything I mentioned above - more practice constructing arbitrarily rotated boxes, and more practice applying the ghosting method to your lines and achieving solid, straight marks.

As a part of your 250 boxes, I recommend that you try some exercises where you have a series of boxes all connected by an imaginary string, as demonstrated on this page. This should help you develop a stronger sense of how boxes can gradually rotate as a set.

Also, be sure to read all of the content on the box challenge page, especially the tip about drawing through your boxes.

Uncomfortable in the post "250 Box Challenge (#3)"

2016-02-07 17:37

I'm glad to see that you drew through a lot of your boxes early in the process, but I do think it is something you should continue doing for all of your boxes. The only other thing I have to recommend as you move forward is to be more mindful of your individual lines and how they connect - try not to leave gaps where lines should be connecting, and watch where your lines tend to arc or curve a little. A solid box requires solid, straight lines.

As far as the forms themselves go, you do seem to be improving. You do have a few near/far plane mixups here and there, but things are improving.

Anyway, you're moving in the right direction, so keep up the good work and consider this challenge complete.