I am so very tired of drawing cubes. I don’t think I can articulate how fed up I am with cubes. I’ve drawn more cubes in the last six weeks than in my entire life. I know how important it is to have a solid understanding of the primitives, but wow I am tired of cubes. Thankfully, we have just progressed past cubes in Drawing I. You can see from my notes that we’ve taken on spheres, cones, cylinders, and the elusive torus.

Our first assignment incorporating all of these shapes is a 14×17 inch drawing. We are required to use at least of of each primitive. They are all required to be transparent. At least one form has to be outside the sheet boundary, one must be below the horizon, one above, and one spanning the horizon line. We were told that the most important part of this assignment is the composition we chose.

I started by drawing thumbnails of a few possible compositions. After settling on one composition, I took sketch paper and drew out the shapes in sharpie, just to make sure that I liked the composition. Seeing it on a larger scale, I was sure that I met all of the requirements of the assignment and that the composition was “happy,” as Michael Massey puts it.

I’m now in the process of completing this project. Over the next couple days, I’ll carefully draw the details of each shape, like I’ve already done for the cone. Before turning in the piece, I’ll sign and date it and cover it with tracing paper, as per my professor’s specifications.

What is the strongest aspect of this work?

I think that the composition of this work is very strong. I really like how I chose to place the primitives. They lend to a sense of continuity moving from the bottom left to the top right.

What is the weakest aspect? 

I think the weakest aspect of this piece is going to be keeping the primitives true in form. I’m not very good yet at showing the ellipses on these primitives to give them form.

How can the composition or form be improved?

I would love to add color, but sadly, that’s not up to me. I really like using color as a compositional element. However, I think it’s really good practice to have to do it with just line, as difficult as it is proving.

How can the project be strengthened conceptually?

There isn’t much to this piece conceptually. The requirements of the assignment were pretty straightforward and didn’t really leave much room for individual concepts or branching out.

How can the project be strengthened technically?

I think that the technical strengths, especially in a piece that is so intensely technical can only come with practice. It’s definitely difficult to draw primitives accurately and I’m aware that there are a lot of small inaccuracies in my piece.