Hi :). Here is my assignment. I drew in my 9 x 12 sketchbook. I would love to try a bigger surface.

Drawing Basics- Shapes- Measuring Proportions. Well, 2nd ever human portrait. I made his face too round- looks more like Jon Voight than Kevin Bacon guant.

Drawing Basics- Simple Animal Portraits- Level 2-- Not quite daring enough to completely transform the horse, but I tried to follow Melanie's advice (thanks!) about considering the complete shape: I drew a general "shapes" horse, deconstructed it to make sure there were actual shapes, then reconstructed it and detailed it up a bit. Then I also tried the 3 sushi-chef shapes: circular, triangular, rectangular.

General poll: Do you tend to make your circles clockwise? counter-clockwise? And are you right or left handed? I haven't discovered a strong disposition toward making clockwise circles (I usually start at the bottom) or counter-clockwise (then I usually start at the top). I'm generally stronger on my left, but write & draw with my right hand (I'm old enough that being left-handed wasn't "allowed")

Apropos of nothing, but I love Proko! In 5 weeks I can't believe how much I've improved! Kept the pages from my daughter's 2023 page-a-day calendar of horses. I drew this while watching this livestream (sorry-I couldn't just sit watching 2hrs of monkey head shapes). I won't include the horror of how poorly I was sketching a year ago when I was watching Draftsmen and trying to summon the courage to sign up for Proko, but I'm SO glad I did. Can't wait to compare in another couple of months. Jeff Watts is right- 10 years goes by quickly. You can be 10 years older, or 10 years older AND a better artist!

I stuck to mainly level 1 - this was even harder than the CSI lines, imo. I went over the 10 shapes limit a couple of times. Ref list outside of the ones given in the assignment: Unsplash: - Wolf by Milo Weiler - Cobra by Asad Ys - Owl by Sonder Quest - Leopard by Gwen Weustink Cat and Young seagull photos by me

This is what I did first, I'd like to get some feedback because I feel like I'm struggling a lot with breaking everything down into 2D shapes (because I tend to make them 3D). I'll keep practicing until I feel comfortable!

Drawing Basics- Shapes- Simple Animal Portraits. Materials Fail- Thought I'd try the "red pencil" technique for my background shapes- but after I shaped out the water buffalo on the left, I discovered my "colored pencil" is really a "wax pencil" for marking glass, metal etc. So my red lines are WAY too dark, which made it challenging to control pencil line quality and still have it show up over the red. Off to the dollar store tomorrow for colored pencils. I re-drew what my "basic shapes" were off to the right of each pencil sketch. I still feel like I'm never confident what exactly we're supposed to do for the assignments. I don't like to "cheat", so I just submit my projects and THEN watch the Demo (and mutter, "Oh NOW I get it.").

Master Study - Karl Kopinski Karls lines appear chaotic and searching which adds a lot of charm but, after studying his work, they’re purposeful and demonstrate intuitive understanding of line weight, perspective and anatomy. Attempting to emulate the “wobbly” lines I began to understand that they all denote something. Whether it’s a fold in clothes, wrinkles in skin or fur on a creature. I came away from this study really appreciating all the years of work it must have taken to get to this level of understanding. During the study I began to step back from just copying the line direction and weight to look at what I’m drawing and ask “where is this line going” “how does it contribute to the image” and in general why am I drawing the line in the first place. If nothing else, it’s helped me examine line as I’m working to better understand its importance in the image. I would love to hear anyone else thoughts and criticisms on my study.

The first one and the one I’m probably proudest of is from A. Shipwright. (Support them here! https://a_shipwright.artstation.com) It was mostly hierarchy, so it was simple but it had so many lines so that made it hard. Second is a panel by Shinoa from Watashi no Angela. The use of line weight to separate texture from soft to hard surfaces (feather, dress, mattress to the body contours of the subject) and also to indicate the lit area from the shadows was really great, and I wanted to replicate this. Third one was a sketch from RitaLau (https://x.com/RitaLau14/status/1732827663893733576) Realized I don’t have enough variety in art parents, so I’ll practice more portraits from other established artists! :D