I tried to keep it as loose as I could but it looked too messy so i felt I had to come back and clean up the lines for the final picture. It was especially hard for me to think about the spikes and not make them feel 2d.

First of all, thanks a lot for helping me clear my mind and fix my mindset. This is a precious lesson to me even more than teaching skills. (Those words below heavily relying on Google translation and broken manual correction. may have caused your dyslexia.)  For many years, I wanted to draw scenes from my dreams or from some inspiration, but I gave up at the draft stage. Perhaps it was too difficult for me because of my lack of relevant professional knowledge and experience. It always kills me, especially when I see some similar scenes in movies or somebody’s sketchbooks.  As I worked on the basics of art, I dreamed that one day I would be able to start working on those ideas easily. But after all these years, it looks like a delay. Share a funny story of mine. When I was a child, I drew from imagination more often than observation. After I indulged in comics, I also drew my own cartoons very poorly. No expectation, no pressure and any knowledge of drawing, but I just enjoyed and satisfied by every sketch of mine. All the way through college, I taught myself to draw, drawing a few short comic stories, even I struggled in drawing trains and cars and buildings and strange perspectives of people. But I always start with a blank sheet of paper to describe my ideas. It was not until later that I joined an art course on internet and began to learn a lot about drawing from observation. And then for many years, I only practiced in drawing from observation. Gradually I copied well, but I found that I could not spontaneously draw the things from imagination like I used to do. I forgot how to do that. Even though my job is character design, I can design again when I have a job assignment. Nothing could be  weirder! Drawing become less interesting for me. It’s more like a job.  After this lesson, I’m aware of what kind of practice I most need, even the next step. Thank you Stan! 

My attempt at the level 1s

Mixed the mushrooms in with my usual warmups. Also got some newsprint and china markers recently so I had a lot of fun with those.

Messed around a lot trying to keep my pencil on the page and pressing more firmly on some, lifting it on others. Always tried ghosting the elipses beforehand. Had some time before I had to get ready for work, so I also decided to practice some filling in. I was impressed how good some of you can shade and I want to catch up.

Thanks for this, Stan. I’ve already learned so much and I’m only 15 mins in! When it comes to shading, you mentioned shading with the “tip” of the pencil. I found that I ran into the same problem as the example you critiqued, where the texture was coming through. What I found when shading with the tip, the pencil dulls out so fast. I noticed, in your video, I was able to clearly see the lines where you shaded with the tip of the pencil - not sure if it was actually the pencil or if it was the paper quality or the technique of application. Question - would I need to constantly sharpen my pencil to avoid getting that textured look / dullness with the pencil? That is one of the things I am currently struggling with.

oops.. I did the outlining of values. Will avoid trying to cheat in the future.

Having heard how long it took you for the lay-in makes me feel much better about how long it took me to do. I think in all the level 2 took me 4 hours total.

Pff. That is a lot harder than I expected. Simplify and using geometry. I have done many drawings and portraits and a lot of life drawing but never like this. I started with lines and tried to stick to 5 values using the overhand method... very interesting but with the overhand I should have used a larger paper so it quickly became a mix... Good news is, I am getting back in a flow because I did the two drawings in a bit less than one hour. And with regard the pear and apple... It is hard to focus on the true shade and not mix in the colour. Also the photo has a different angle than my eye.. sorry, even so, the pear is probably shorter and the apple a bit wider...

I had a much harder time with the level 2 deciding where the cutoff for each value would be.

Hi! I just draw this. I would appreciate some feedback

Ordered a pencil set so I'll see what other led hardnesses feel like later. Might go touch some paper later. For now just used a standard #2 (which I think is HB) and a big and small eraser on standard printer paper.

When does the course start? Is this one hour video it?