Well...It took way more than 14 days, but I did 14 sketches from around the house. Meh

After watching this, I went back and added the laces to my boots (I think I'd oversimplified by leaving those out) and then tried a couple more.

That was fun and remarkably difficult

Looking at everyone else's I think I may have oversimplified. That being said I did each one digitally and then with graphite on paper

Here are my lvl 2 drawings. any thoughts?

i found this image and thought it would make a great reference for this project. I had a really hard time mapping out the proper proportions and then I started getting lost when trying to create 5 clear values. I’m proud of myself for finishing but I very clearly struggled

Here’s my second attempt after watching the demo by stan .. p.s i prefered not to draw in the eyes just gave a hint of the right eye

Having done this a couple of times in graphite, I wanted to try it digitally. I'm glad I did. Having a pre-determined value scale to work from forced me to commit to the value. With the graphite, I was trying for only 4 values, but I think I made many more.

Did the project with all of the images in the downloads. Had a lot of fun with the pears. I really liked my portrait but once I started adding values I really started to struggle with the simplification of it. Still happy with how it all came out

"Imagine the fruit to be sculpted out of wood with a big chisel."

I like my second attempts better, but I find it a struggle to determine the values and create them with graphite. I paint and can do it more easily with color; which does seem a bit backwards, but I've had a lot more practice with paint, where I never use graphite.

Very informative, especially for beginners. Thank you, Stan. I have found it beneficial to practice drawing basic shapes while waiting for more complex assignments. It can get boring, so I tried using some warmups from Peter Han's "Dynamic Bible" to make things interesting.

Morning sketch

An old sketchbook from the 90s I haven't finished yet and the world's cheapest pencil :)

I think the face is too broad and the ear is too big. What do you think?

Can't wait to start!!!

I enrolled, bingewatched and did some drawing and even posted but i believe in the wrong spot. We post under the lesson... I did the pears with fun, left and right hand without reference and 3rd pear from the reference. 2 minutes snd 3 minutes. The portrait started with 2 minutes added 5 minutes added another 10 minutes and then i just continued and forgot to take a photo before i used the kneadable eraser on the right eye. Big mistake because my paper is flimsy and it took me much longer to try and repair that... lesson i better not erase.... I always try to look for things i could do better and i see a few but do not dare to erase... so will give him another try msybe with another material.

I did all these in one sitting a couple of days ago. I'm realizing now, that I quit on the portrait too soon. I need to build up some sitting and drawing stamina. Up next tools!

I think you've done something quite fabulous here. You have great color unity. You've well described so many different textures: the reflective glassiness of the wings, the shiny body, the matte smooth leaf and then my favorite is the fuzziness of the cocoon. If your concern is that the cocoon is distracting, it is a dominant element: You have the highest contrast in values (brightest light, near darkest dark) and it takes up a significant portion of the image. If you don't want it to be a dominant element, it probably would be difficult to recompose at this point without losing parts of the wasp, but you could make all the values on the cocoon more mid range, and increase the difference in values on the wasp where you want people to look (maybe brighten the highlights on the abdomen right next to the dark rings (ridges? I don't know wasp anatomy. Sorry) All that said: I like it! You're good with wasps. What's your medium?