Here are my attempts to convert head boxes to more realistic portraits. Rather than erase the underlying boxes I left them in place, to some extent. This assignment turned out to be harder than I anticipated, perhaps because Stan in his demo made it look so easy. I did ##1, 6, 7 and 14.

My goal is to make something that, a hundred years from now, someone, somewhere, might really enjoy looking at. I hope this doesn't sound pretentious.

It sure would be helpful to have a written recipe for doing the Procreate accuracy check at the end. That really flew by me.

Critique #2 is actually a woodcut, so it is a step removed from Dürer's presumed line drawing made first, then cut into a woodblock either by himself or by a master cutter. If you are cutting a block it is obviously difficult or impossible to get very fine lines, tapering lines, soft edge lines, etc., the focus of this assignment.

I chose one of my all-time favorite drawings, Albrecht Dürer's portrait of his mother, Barbara Hofer, at age 63, two months before she died. The drawing shows both the ravages of age and of childbearing--she had 14 children, only two of whom made it to adulthood--and Dürer's tender feelings towards her. As with all of Dürer's drawings, the subject is closely observed. Thanks to this assignment I now see this charcoal drawing with new eyes. In terms of line it has everything: very fine lines, heavy contour lines, firm vs. wavering lines, light vs. dark lines. In the few places where I felt Dürer had used blending, I omitted since this exercise is limited to lines. I didn't try to make a "perfect" copy, but I do regret now that I missed the tilt of the face, which gives the original such interest. Another case of the brain telling the hand and eye what to do!

Here is my attempt to sketch out, from imagination, a character. I started with the praying mantis, which to begin with is some crazy combination of weird, frightening, and comical. Then I gave him a preacher's lectern, a pair of glasses which I imagined could belong to some 17th century New England divine, and the little lace rabat perhaps worn by an 18th century French curé. The appendage up in the air is making a kind of pointing "you sinners!" gesture.

My rendition of the robogirl started to bug me. Even though as a rendition of the assignment it is okay, In part because I had done the two others on the sheet and was trying to squeeze the robogirl into the remaining space, I started to feel that I had missed the spirit of the assignment, which was to use longer, more exploratory lines. I did that here and there, but in more bitsy areas like the hands I got more hung up on the details. So I did it again. The drawing isn't necessarily "better," but I feel better about myself. I started off finding the longest lines I could. There is a long C curve from her right elbow to her left hand. There is another straightish line from that elbow on through her body and down to her left knee. The two legs make a sharp C curve, and so forth. The proportions are a bit off, but I think that's okay since accuracy is not the main goal here. After I got started I realized I was doing this on newsprint, and I wish I had done it on a decent paper so the photo would be better.

Here are my three sketches from observation, trying to keep my strokes free and exploratory until I feel I have the "right" line. I think the penguin is the easiest, the robogirl the hardest. (I know, hands are supposed to be the ruination of every artist.) All these done with pencil on (cheap) drawing paper. Now, on to the drawing from imagination!

Here are my two attempts at the camel and Skelly. Now that Our Instructor has come out with the demo I see that I misinterpreted the assignment somewhat. What I took away was the instruction to use confident lines, so I tried to just put down a C, S, or I line confidently--in other words, a "one and done" sort of approach. I also took away that we should not spend a lot of time on either, and I did both of these quickly. I see that I put the peak of Skelly's hat far too high, and I suppose that if I wanted accuracy I would go in and correct it. Looking at Stan's demo, I see that even though he uses confident lines he nevertheless does quite a lot of "seeking," putting down multiple strokes until the "right" line is achieved--confident-looking but still the result of numerous tentative lines. It seemed to me that the camel's head was interpretable by light and shadow, and I put in too many lines trying to indicate light and shade; this was more a contour exercise. Next time . . .

Here is my attempt at the portrait. This picture seems to scream out to be done in charcoal, but I used graphite, on cheap paper, to try to comply with the restrictions of the assignment. Looking at light and dark areas, I sort of forgot that I was drawing a "face," and maybe that explains how, miraculously, I arrived at a fair likeness. At least I hope you think so.

It looks as if Stan is doing his underdrawing in a bright red, perhaps alizarin. Is this his usual practice, or is the color perhaps related to the brightish color scheme he is going to use in the painting?