This was the best exercise for me so far! Really cool to actually study other people's amazing artwork, and try to understand their decisions. All the original artwork is by Ignatius Tan, if you want you can check him out here! https://www.artstation.com/muju

Proportions are so off. LOL. But I had so much fun doing this!

In this case, I am studying the art of Jose Garcia, one of my favorite contemporary illustrators. I chose him because I am very attracted by his use of lines, which I think is perfect for this exercise. I tried to be as clean as possible while keeping everything learned in the rest of this course. PS - I struggle with taking pictures of my sketchbook. I usually take it under my desk lamp, and I find it challenging to get the correct illumination (sometimes too bright when the light hits directly, or in shadow cast by the phone, etc.) Do you have any advice?

Hey, @Canyon Braff! I agree with @sharksidian, drawing from life is often a great practice for most artists. But, since you objectively mentioned you want to improve your skill of drawing from imagination, I’m afraid that just sight copying images should not get you as far as you’d like. While copying is a great way to practice our skills of observation (and that is a valid goal as well), I believe that the best practice we can invest in to improve on drawing without reference is… to practice drawing without reference. For example, let’s say you want to spend a few minutes practicing drawing a female figure wearing a dress. Instead of just grabbing a photo and copying what you see, you could try this: imagine the pose, sketch the gesture and basic forms of the figure, then try to construct the dress on top of it, figuring out how things would work regarding form, weight, tension, wrinkles, compressions, gravity, texture, overlaps, folds… and then, when you find yourself stuck in some part of the drawing, you can take a peek at photo references to get a visual clue of that specific part - but, then, keep on working as independently as possible from copying the reference. In other words, see if you can use references as a “cheat-sheet” to help you solve drawing problems more so than something to just mimic entirely. Of course, for this kind of imagination/memory practice to turn out successful, “theory” and previous knowledge of the fundamentals serve as a solid ground to stand on. In the example I described above, it would be essential to be familiar with the basics of figure drawing (gesture, the Bean, the mannequin, balance, proportions, a bit of perspective and anatomy) and the basics of how drapery works (tension points, gravity, folds, wrinkles, materials). But don’t worry if this sounds like too much right now - since you mention you’re on a “beginner/intermediate” level, perhaps you haven’t studied all those topics yet, and it might be too soon to expect your practice of drawing from imagination to rely on so many different bits of information. So, if that’s the case, just be patient and keep studying and doing exercises and free practices while also remaining aware that, as you progress in your journey and get more confident with your basic skills, you might want to gradually experiment letting go of copying in order to head towards your goal of being able to draw from imagination. Hope this helps!

Very interesting in how dull, thick light lines still feel so much lighter than sharp, thick dark lines. The difference in perception is more noticeable than I thought, great video!

Since I don't have a printer, I did the assignment digitally and I have to say that I miss the adrenaline rush of being able to undo mistakes with digital work. I found the assignment quite challenging especially in terms of defining the shadows especially at the bottom.

Before and after demo After demo tried to make a focus on internal details, but I don't feel that it turned out good

I had a great time with this….helped me really focus on drawing and creating and gave me the push I always seem to need to finish and not give up when it seems daunting to me.

Sloths are hilarious, so I really enjoyed studying more about them. Loved to hear some feedback on where to improve even more!

Lost the original reference I had for the rhino, but tried to do this again, this time with the knowledge learnt from the critique. Worried less about proportions, and tried to be more loose and confident with the lines, I quite liked the result!

Hi community! After watching Stan's demo and critique I wanted to try sketching again to try to put into practice what he mentions in the videos, especially the thinking of forms instead of contours and trying to find some rhythm and flow which I struggled a bit during the project. Any advice or feedback is very much appreciated. Thanks!

I think this was one of the best lessons of the entire course so far! The importance of the mindset of making mistakes is so critical, and studying with exploration in mind is something I haven't done in a long time. I'll do the whole two lessons projects again, with different images, and apply what I learned from this!

Tried doing an entirely different pose from the references. Inspiration comes from my cat being a dork with a string on her tail. Images are of a river otter!

Did this one off of my pet Guinea pig.

What to say ... Drawing by imagination is a huge weakness for me. I find it insanely hard. I had tried to draw some monkeys with references before the cats, but that was catastrophic, lol. I need to work on that.

Here's my attempt! First image is just small thumbnails trying to get some dynamic interesting poses, and then the second image is the final sketch, with the original thumbnail. Still ended up changing quite a bit in terms of posing and proportion, which leads me to believe I've rushed the initial sketching step a bit. I also feel like I should have spent more time thinking about the proportions first, using straighter lines, and then passing to the final curves. Overall this was quite challenging, especially because of the amount of fur in the animal. I think I should have went something with more easily readable shapes. Appreciate a critique if anyone is interested in providing!

Here are my attempts at the three drawings. I would really like some feedback here, specifically about line weight. I feel like I'm being either too uniform, or not intentional enough about which lines to highlight. Still this was great fun!

I think my searching lines got a bit too messy on these—as evidenced by how I basically drew the hand twice, one on top of the other. I think that messiness largely stems from making my lines too dark too early. I'd put down a light line, realize it was wrong, and then, in going to correct it, put down a dark line that was also wrong. I'm definitely going to redo these, but I figured I should post them for the sake of faithfully documenting my only pre-demo attempt.