# Drawabox course

Date: 2021-10-22 13:53:45 +08:00Date modified: 2021-11-07 00:33:58 +08:00

- a good roam:Illustration course for absolute beginners; though, this is not a good course if you're exclusively following this; I advice to mix other course

# Lesson 0

- this is a chapter that is quite more insightful than I thought

- it mainly preps you up on expectations, attitudes, and prerequisites needed to tackle the course more effectively

- among them is the separation between fun and training (e.g., 50% rule)

- it is an interesting point that training and drawing for the sake of drawing (e.g., for fun) should be separated

- it also sets the expectation of the author to their audience; for example, the course itself is set for absolute beginners and self-taught artists (that hopefully realized how little they know about things); the course also expects students to follow the instructions to the letter and emphasizes how exercises should be used

- grinding and mastery over the exercises is discouraged mostly because it is a waste of time that could've been used somewhere else; the focus is to build a foundation similar to Start small and improve later

- do some warm ups before taking on the exercises

# Lesson 1

- since writing and drawing both involves the pen, there are some habits that we bring when starting to draw; one of the most common form is our grip;

- we mostly use only our wrist which is suitable for creating precise and finer detailed lines; this is perfectly fine for letters but not for lines that come in a variety of length

- beyond our wrist, we can use our whole arm and shoulder; this enables to easily create longer lines with confidence

- this course also enforces to draw with the whole arm; the way to do this is to simply glide and practice with the following exercises

- if you're familiar with or have seen figure drawing videos, there are some certain beliefs to grip the "correct way" with the backhand grip; just like in Programming where people insists the best way to code with different paradigms to the point of dogma, there is a resemblance when it comes to arguing the best way to hold; it is best to know however that things apply differently in different context (i.e., the backhand grip is only applicable to pencils, not pens)

## Exercise comments

- Superimposed lines - this is an exercise enforcing to draw with your arm; it is a straightforward exercise so far

- Ghosted Lines - this is where the ghosting method is introduced which is essential as more exercises will build upon this technique; it is an interesting exercise especially for me having some hand-eye coordination issues ;p

- Ghosted Planes - this is "Ghosted Lines" exercise but on steroids; enforces the ghosting method even more

- Tables of Ellipses - this is where I have problems with creating smooth ellipses; I eventually realized my problem is how I grip and how it fall backs to creating ellipses with my wrist instead of my arm; it's harder than I thought to draw circles with a pen; it's a disaster; this is a habitual problem and will work out on this; I'm very tempted to restart this exercise but as the course says "No grinding and attempts at mastery before moving to each exercise"

- Ellipses in Planes - I've done a little warm up with creating ellipses with the ghosting method and it indeed improve my ellipses unlike the previous disastrous result; most of the ellipses appear to be confident but not much in accuracy; that's the next thing to be worked on the upcoming warm ups, I guess

## Backlinks

- Time spent on learning a skill should equally spend time for applying said skill
- Journals: Learning how to draw