Hi! Please critique and guide me. I know it’s a lot, but answering even one question would already help me a lot :) a) Can the *highlight be next to the *dark half tone? In the lemon, one of the three highlights is between the light half tone and the DHT. In my beginner mind, it makes sense that a highlight would only be within an LHT, as a light point would brighten its surroundings. b) How can I keep the paper clean? I was going to erase around the fruits, but I decided to leave it so it would be easier for you to see and understand the "mess." Do I really need to erase everything after every drawing? I tried using a tissue under my hand, but the paper still got smudged—only now it had the texture of the tissue on top of the graphite smudges. c) How do I know I’m ready to move on to the next lesson? I drew the pear several times until I realized I wasn’t training my eye anymore; I had memorized the shapes and values from the reference image and was just copying the way I drew previous versions. Worse, I was doing it without really thinking or learning. So, I tried drawing a different fruit, but I struggled to see the value differences as clearly as in the exercise. I thought about drawing multiple fruits, but I don’t like working without a demo, like the one for the pear. If there were more models for this exercise, I could try first and compare later. (That led me to the idea of continuing to study even without clearly seeing the values, knowing there’s a whole section on values much later in the course. But how do I know if I’m ready to move on? I don’t want to rush ahead, but I’m not sure if this ability to see values clearly needs to be well-established now.) Regarding the drawing itself, it was really fun to work slowly. I like the process of filling and controlling pencil pressure. It’s hard as a beginner, but enjoyable to practice and improve. My main issue was *where* and *with what value* to fill. I spent six 1.5-hour sessions (9 hours total) working on this—so I was serious about taking my time. While the time was great for focusing on precision, I also had plenty of room to overthink. I erased and altered some shapes repeatedly. I got stuck trying to understand what I was seeing, especially since I was seeing a lot, but the idea of *simplifying* shapes left me even more confused about "what should I choose to put on paper?" - The shadow seems wrong to me. I don’t know if I distributed the values correctly, as there wasn’t much left after I used almost only in the overlapping shadows. - The orange’s dark accent looks messy. I struggled a lot with simplifying it. Did I do it wrong? - The rectangles on top of the orange: was I right to include them? They don’t seem to say much about the fruit’s form. Thank you in advance for any guidance!