If you want to develop your hand skills to meet your brain skills, here's a challenge (do this without rotating your sketchbook):
Drawing Circles and Bisecting Lines
Draw a circle with a compass.
Bisect it through the center with a horizontal line, then a vertical line.
Know this, it's not easy. If you do it badly a few hundred times but tolerate that because you want to rely less on tools, or even for personal reasons like proving your pluck, you'll gradually gain control of your lines and move beyond theory to practice.
Now, try bisecting a quadrant by drawing a 45-degree angle. Pull it all the way through and then do the same for its neighboring quadrant.
Estimate thirds all around and continue pulling lines all the way through.
Practice Makes Perfect
I warn you: if you are new to this, you will suck at it, like I do at jokes. But if you keep trying, not settling for theory that tingles your brain but leaves your lines limp, and practice this five to ten minutes a day through this course hundreds of times, even on templates (like the one in the downloads tab), your hand skills can rise to your brain skills.
Deadline - submit by Dec 04, 2024 for a chance to be in the critique video!
Finally submitted the assignment before the deadline! This was way harder than Peter's straight-line practice! I’ve noticed that when I focus less on the tip of my pencil and more on the overall path of the line, the result tends to be straighter and smoother. Interestingly, my second attempt (on the right) looks worse than my first attempt (on the left). This also happens with Peter's straight-line practice, and I’m not sure why. It can be a bit discouraging to see things getting worse instead of improving lol.
I enjoy using spare graph paper to practice straight lines, it’s almost meditative. A self critique; I need to remind myself to extend my forearm on longer strokes, I’m too used to working small and therefore putting pressure on my wrist and elbow joints.
1 down 999 to go 😜 this took about 30 min. While waiting for my kiddo’s music lesson.
I will use a compass in the future.
I struggled with my first few attempts at the illusions, but will keep trying and hopefully my brain will start to accept how to dissect them.
take care and I am uncomfortably enjoying this class and I am looking forward to see the growth in my understanding of perspective.
This assignment has me feeling like the kid in the back of the class who asks the teacher "Did you collect the homework for today?". Luckily I feel like I'm in a classroom with other students excited to draw lines and circles!
Thanks for the advise and challenge, Marshall. Here's a few attempts I made: some lines were accurate, most not. Regardless, I had fun practicing. I am starting to see what Peter Han said about correcting a line that isn't quite right.
My biggest takeaways:
I tried to stop resting my elbow/forearm on a hard surface when drawing lines. Resting on my chair's arm or the table gives me a lot of stabilization, but I do want to get better at drawing lines regardless of my environment.
Pulling towards my body almost always resulted in a cleaner line, while pushing away resulted in a more gestural line, which I found interesting.
Using a Helix circle is hard when you haven't tried it before! I started to get the hang of it, but definitely need more practice.
Circles are my favorite shape. They are just so beautiful!
"Time is a flat circle" - Rust Cohle
I’ve been working on it, and honestly, it’s harder than I expected. My lines are still wobbly, and it’s frustrating not to see the improvement I hoped for. But I can feel my hand getting a bit more steady with each try. This exercise is definitely helping, so I think I’ll keep using it as a warm-up before drawing. Thanks Marshall!
I can see where I need to improve on my lines for this assignment. I did the giant circle first and then the smaller circles. By the last circle (the one with blue lines), I began getting the hang of things a bit more.
Question: I noticed that you did not really ghost your lines during the demo. Does eyeballing a point on the circle rather than ghosting to that point better connect your brain and hand(s)?
I didn't ghost on those lines, but ghosting is good!
Try everything. Slow, fast, ghosted, direct, eyeballing a point... Try different surfaces, different tools. Some of the best straight-liners have different ways to get lines straight. Use this to find your favorite technique.
Wow, I need this exercise! Between keeping my eyes focused on where I'm pulling the line AND my wrist habitually curving, this was a challenge. I'll be using this more in my warm ups.
I always rotate the paper when drawing straight lines!
In other words, I'm in much need of this exercise.
Some observations / thoughts during my first attempt:
○ Drawing the lines without rotating the page was less uncomfortable than I was expecting - I definitely need the practice though!
○ If the first few lines don't quite go through the centre, it throws all the other lines off.
○ I have a habit of bending lines to meet a specific point if my initial direction is off.
○ If I instead lock my line in and aim for the centre, continuing the motion through the other side, then I'm finding the measurements I place around the circumference to be off. This means the direction I choose to draw the line (from one point or the one on the other side) would show a different amount of error compared to the angle I'm trying to create.
Self-critique:
○ Try to get the lines to cross more neatly through the centre.
○ Take my time and double-check the angles that I'm marking on the circumference (maybe trying to see the circle as a whole).
○ Ghost each line from both directions as a test of the angles I've marked.
I'll definitely be adding this as a warmup exercise - I think it'll help me gain more control over my lines and seeing / marking consistent spaces / angles.
Second attempt - similar thoughts and self-critique as yesterday.
I need to be careful with my line weight - another lack of control identified!
It would also probably be useful to try and evaluate which lines are off before using the template to compare.
Bad habits are hard to brake. I rotate my paper. I found an angle that allows me to draw a fairly long straight line. so I stick with it. I tried not moving my paper and it did not go well. the amount of wavy and crooked lines that came out of my hand was discouraging. had to stop for today.
I will give it another go tomorrow. Will post those attempts. the good, the bad and the ugly...
Earlier today was still playing with another illusion. not an original. I found it through Pinterest. don't know who did this one originally. I somewhat figured the measurements that fit the page and ran with it. (took me about 5 tries to get it right). My T-square skills are very rusty and I kept letting it get off the side, making my lines crooked. so nothing would match up and I would have to start all over. but in the end. got it to work.
Same for me. My 135 degrees lines are great. Others not so much. I have to constantly battle my habits. Even my whole body tries to change position around the paper and the table.
45 degrees is the most challenging for me. If I do it starting from top left I don't see the end point and can't draw. Bottom right start seems to position pencil tip awkwardly in the direction of the motion. So I crook my hand around so that my pencil would point at 315 degrees, but this is not really comfortable for my wrist.
Dandelions. Combining Overlaps and Diminution. Not all dividing went right, but I found that drawing the next line 90 degr on the former made it easier.
And not looking at the pencil, but focusing on the center point + end point made the hand follow better. The first cross is the hardest. Once you get into a flow it’s nice. Need to do this more, obviously.
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Developing Hand Skills
If you want to develop your hand skills to meet your brain skills, here's a challenge (do this without rotating your sketchbook):
Drawing Circles and Bisecting Lines
Know this, it's not easy. If you do it badly a few hundred times but tolerate that because you want to rely less on tools, or even for personal reasons like proving your pluck, you'll gradually gain control of your lines and move beyond theory to practice.
Practice Makes Perfect
I warn you: if you are new to this, you will suck at it, like I do at jokes. But if you keep trying, not settling for theory that tingles your brain but leaves your lines limp, and practice this five to ten minutes a day through this course hundreds of times, even on templates (like the one in the downloads tab), your hand skills can rise to your brain skills.
Deadline - submit by Dec 04, 2024 for a chance to be in the critique video!