I would like to ask a beginner level question about line quality. I have been practicing the tapered line and line weight. I need help applying it to gesture. I don’t have the fancy drawing programs. Just me and a pencil and paper. Stupid question about pencil, if there are programs with different ‘brush packs’ should I be handling the sharpness/lead softness- hardness/lead length of my pencil differently to produce a cleaner line? I feel mine just get messy, and hence I erase and my output isn’t clean. Any and all suggestions welcome.

Thank you Stan, your instruction and speaking your thought process as you draw is extremely helpful. Need to try this again with fresh perspective.

Fun assignment. It’s really challenging to keep the pose and gesture loose and dynamic when you start adding a few details. It’s amazing how rigid the drawings can start to feel. I hope that some of the movement and dynamism was captured in these.

I tried for dynamic and interesting shapes, not exact realism. I feel like I over simplified. I need to work on the sketchy gestural lines, found myself cleaning up my lines. Lots of erasing. But here they are, yes, that first one is tad round ; )

Animal Portraits Using Basic Shapes (level 1) No realism, basic shapes, No shading or details, 10 or less shapes, line quality. My line quality has a long way to go. Need better balance. I have no idea if what I did was the right approach. Fun project, Simplify!

Master Line Study: Henri Matisse; Henri De Toulouse Lautrec. I went to the library and did research, I checked out books and studied them. I’m a level one true beginner at age 52 who is here just to enjoy the process of learning and hopefully improve along the way. Self critique: proportions off, smeared lines (left-handed), medium issues, line quality needs a lot of work BUT still proud of what I did.

Hello everyone ! Any other French speaking following th course ? Here is my assignment : 1) Is the hierarchy method, made digitally 2) Is the light & shadow method, made digitally as well 3) Is an attempt with paper and pencil where I have tried to put everything together (confident line, exploring a bit and line weight) I am quite satisfied but at some point, my « lines » are so thick that it almost felt like shading with two values. I don’t know if we were supposed to push it that much but I quite like the result ! Please let me know your feedbacks ! 🙏

Exercise #2 light and shadow. Not sure I approached it correctly. Struggled with this one. Looks too similar to my #1 hierarchy. Good exercise though to think through.

Line weight - hierarchy exercise. I tried to emphasize the importance of the rhino’s feet on the ground to imply weight. And a hefty rump.

Second try at penguin after watching critique video. Those are so helpful Stan!

First exercise- pear. Values need work, must learn planes.