My daughter (turning 3 next month) and I took some time to draw yesterday. She finished one and said, "I drew a guy jumping!" and drew another and said, "I drew a face!" The rest of the time she drew like a line or two and said, "what does that look like?" I couldn't say anything so I just said something supportive like, "looks like a broom" and then she'd add broomy bits. I'm absolutely blown away. perhaps it's normal for an almost 3 year old, but i couldn't be more proud. Drawing has been a great thing to practice with my daughter. I draw 3d letters and tell her what letter it is... I draw the earth. etc etc. I'm really not good, but she and I will be drawing together every day from here on out. :)

I have been sketching every day since the new year and trying to use readily available tools. I liked the advice not to be too precious with our sketchbook. It is liberating!

This is SlipMop, aka ‘Slip’, the lead air guitarist of Rubber Maiden. A long time janitor, he can often be found dancing with his shadow in the halls late at night, listening to music that only he can hear…

Some beans I did following along with the tilt & lean video. Sometimes struggling to see where the forms overlap.

Hi guys, This is a digital materials related post. Since starting the course, I have been experimenting with the default charcoal brush set on Procreate. I have a few charcoal pencils at home, but for the sake of portability, convenience, and lack of a mess (along with a one year old baby), I found this to be the most appealing medium for now. This piece was done entirely with the 2B and 4B compressed charcoal brushes and an eraser. The lay-in/ preliminary sketch was done with the 2B compressed on roughly 50% opacity and 5-10% size, to keep the lines nice and light. Once the features were established, I realized the face was too wide so I erased it down and redrew it. Same for the mouth, which was initially placed a little low. This is something I’m always struggling with. From there I switched to the 4B brush for the rest of the piece. This was at 100% opacity and varied in size between 2-10%. Values were controlled with applied pressure with the Apple Pencil, just like an actual pencil. Generally I tried to work for large to small. And tried to simplify at first (which is also something I struggle with greatly). I started by blocking in the shadow family of the face. Then half tones and progressively refining from there. I then framed his face with a large blocked in dark area for the hair. There were several tweaks needed to get his face shape corrected. The hair was blocked in with solid medium/dark value and I then found the next biggest, darker, general shapes, progressing to medium and smaller sizes. Then it was really all eraser from there. I used a standard round brush eraser at 25% opacity. I find that this gives me the most simulated feel to an actual eraser and I can control it with my hand pressure. Same idea as before, just inverted. I found larger to medium light areas, then progressively added lighter forms and highlights. I just wanted to share. I love seeing all the various posts and mediums used and am very excited to start working on whatever assignments come next. It’s such an awesome community and I’m looking forward to learning and growing with everyone.

Today was a struggle. I'll draw again tonight and come up with a plan for tomorrow in case the next beginner's proko lesson is another tools introduction. (I'm not criticizing the lessons. But I need to draw every day if I'm going to improve and if the lesson is information, which is valuable, but there's limited instruction/direction then I'll need to have a plan for myself to keep the habit going. today's lesson talked about papers. Good to know info. super glad it's included... but I'm still trying to build a habit. "draw lines" and "feel the difference in papers were the main instructions.

Day two focused on circles since my day 1 circles were my roughest shape. I took a few liberties to goof around.

Starting from Sketch... hiyuk hiyuk. Took one class freshman year (~15 years ago) and now I'm committed to drawing every day. 30 minutes here. 15 minutes there. I'm happy with doing exercises and technique before I tackle projects. I feel like a good guinea pig. lol!

Anxious for the lessons to start. I've been drawing anyway... just shapes and rotating 3d shapes on paper for now. Not even shading right now. I figure frequent sketching of what I know are basic fundamentals will be good in the meantime. AH! I got to the line part in this lesson. MEAT!!! lol I'll do that