I decided to have a go at the portrait as well before moving on. I had some trouble getting proportions right - and it did also seem more obvious when I got things wrong on the face compared to the pear. It was an interesting exercise to try out a more complex drawing. I think I'm starting to get a bit of an idea of where I struggle the most. :)

Definitely felt a lot more confident after getting some feedback and watching the demo. Still plenty to work on, but I think I felt okay with the basic idea in these. :)

I haven't been drawing for a fair while, and I felt like I had a lot of trouble with this. I've included my three recent attempts. By the third attempt I felt like I was starting to get a bit of actual structure in the fruit, instead of just lines, but the structure still didn't match the fruit very well. I also had trouble getting 5 distinct shades on the page. Last picture was a more 'normal' drawing attempt for a comparison (spent a similar amount of time but didn't try to simplify). I feel like when trying to simplify the structure, I was struggling more to get features in the right place. I'm still very novice, so if anyone has any pointers for what I can work on, I'd appreciate it. :) Gonna try to stick with the course this time, and see if I can progress a bit!

Tried playing around with an HB to start with. Sharpened with a standard sharpener first (like I’ve done in past), then tried out sharpening with a blade and exposing more graphite (2nd two pages). I felt like I had more control transitioning from thin to fat lines, and the graphite was sturdier than I expected. I forgot to get sandpaper though, so I found it a little uneven. But it felt good to draw with!

Gonna get started on this course now, keen to learn lots and get better with the bits I do know! Here’s some sketches and warmups from the last few nights as a benchmark. Very excited!

Ok ok, I've been having a bit of a crack at the 30s and 2m gestures for a little bit now, and think I could use some feedback (2 pages of 30s, 2pages of 2min). I'm pretty new to drawing overall, so my line-work's definitely still iffy. I also don't think I've got great intuition yet for human proportion and stuffs, which I think is coming across. For some more particular things I'm struggling with at the moment; the connection between the hips and outer-thighs is something I don't really understand. Unless there's already a strong curve in the figure, I keep just getting an undefined bulge around there which doesn't really help the form or the gesture. Kind-of losing the butt as well as the flow. I'm also still a bit confused about when to simplify the contours vs. drawing through the figure. I know Stan says not to draw the contours, but I feel like most of his gesture lines are still drawn *along* the existing contours (but simplified to just grab the action). This point hasn't fully clicked for me yet. If anyone has any tips for me, or criticisms or anything, I'd really appreciate it!