Finally caught up with the course.

I decided to try really hard to maintain an orthogonal perspective to this exercise. I think it really forces me to focus so I can pull off consistent parallel lines with the same degree, as well as really maintaining proportion. It was not easy, as I am more used to converging lines (mistakes are easier to hide that way).

Everything around me is either books, boxes, or organic, so I had to go with something a bit different. I still need to improve at this, but at least I can do it. The hardest thing was the handle on the back, as the 3/4 version I used with the reference barely showed it, so I had to kinda make it up. Overall I think I had done stuff like this before, but in a very simple way. This time I really had time to focus on just the process of making it up, since I'm not trying to finish anything and just learning what I'm doing

I did my best hehe

Was definitely picking it up the more I did it, was having great fun with this and just no fussing about line quality. Focused more on just rotating things

I worked on this assignment a bit more here are my latest attempts

Definitely need to continue working on my line control, but in general I didn't try too hard to keep this neat or stress about how loose I worked. Here's some of my early attempts:

After doing this assignment, I decided it would be beneficial for me to take Stan Proko’s “drawing basics” class in tandem with Marshall’s class, (and learn to draw first 🤣), I’m getting the impression that you don’t want to rush thru Marshall’s class without fully grasping every step of the way, so my involvement here may be a little sporadic as I do the two courses together, but I will be “back in the room” 😉 along the way as I progress with the drawing basics course

1st attempt at a simple box with a knob. A bit wonky.

I tried

I drew a couple of the objects around me, tried to keep porptions in check, and have lines go to vanishing points.

Simple wooden box. Will revisit this assignment with a more complex object 🫡

I drew things around me (water bottle, tab mate, lens cleaner, piranha plant). I tried to not go much further than one-layer sketches, as I feel like this is where I am making foundational mistakes. My problem doesn't seem to be simplifying as much as it is drawing simple volumes in space. The bounding boxes were the hardest part, and that's not a great sign!

I drew a pipe wrench. This was pretty fun. I probably could have broken the forms down more. If anyone has any critiques for me I'd appreciate it.

Phew! Well, I'm about a million days late after taking a break from art, but I was pleased to see my skills haven't atrophied too much. This was a great exercise to start drawing again. I'm tempted to say it feels like one of the most fundamental / important exercises of them all? I feel like if all you did was this one exercise, you could eventually learn how to draw pretty much anything by working your way up to more and more complex forms. Attempt 1 (fireplace): I based this one off of real-world reference, a little model fireplace I have. I think I did a pretty good job overall, though I messed up the proportions of the fireplace in both angles (my drawing is too long / squat), plus I messed up the angles of the lines in the below shot - the lines should be getting more horizontal as they approach the horizon line, not less! I used line width and darkness to add some atmospheric perspective. Attempt 2 (bunny): This took FOREVER. I think I tried about 3 or 4 different ways of breaking the rabbit into forms, trying to hit on something that was boxy enough to replicate without being too robotic. I'm pretty happy with it overall, especially how the line weight came out. Attempt 3 (lizard): I tried 2 new things for this one: first, I didn't use an outer (containing) box, and second, I tried changing the lizard's pose for the second image, not just the viewing angle. I don't know if lizards sit like that, but whatever. This was a lot of small, narrow boxes and I don't know if I got all the angles right, but I think the overall impression is pretty effective. This also took ages... basically an entire day! Overall, this was a great exercise and I hope to revisit it again in the future once I'm caught up. I'd also like to revisit this once I've learned a little more about shading - I think this would be a good shading exercise once I know what I'm doing in that area.