Dear @Stan Prokopenko and @Mike Mattesi I have learned so much from you, and I can usually get ok-ish gesture drawings thanks to your lessons, but I have an incredibly hard time trying to draw people in relaxed poses: people sitting at a café, waiting for the bus, eating at a restaurant or just casually walking. Do you have any tips to be able to draw this poses were nothing really stands out and I just can't see many rhythms or force to draw an interesting shape? I really like urban sketching, and of course people are not doing any stretching or weird movements, and I find my drawings all stiff and with no interesting shapes. Any tips to improve my drawings of people not really moving? Thank you so much for your help!

@Mike Mattesi this made a lot of sense put this way. I also didn’t really connect with this idea. Really great stuff. But contextualizing the emotions we are ascribing helped. I suspect that there is also an important cultural component between cultures. Surely someone has looked at this. Anyone have any insights?

Great video! Thanks for posting. So, angles create energy. That must mean the positive and negative spaces. Sure wish he spent a bit more time on them. Loved it. ❤️

@Mike Mattesi @Proko so, now I wanna know, the seals exercise… was that inspired by this or are seals a well known tool for teaching shape and gesture?

Hello, @Mike Mattesi , I've been a huge fan of your first book for a long time, and I'm very glad to see your contribution to this course. There's one idea I've struggled with a bit, in regards to the "straight-to-curve" concept (or the related "CSI" line formations): It seems often a "straight" can actually be a slight curve, or perhaps a few small curves might be treated together as a larger straight. Am I being too literal or is it possible to view a particular line differently depending on context or what we're comparing it against?

I have a pretty philosophical question. I've been keeping up with the assignments. And i know proko has spoken on length about how the lessons are not so we can draw a good (pear, seal, apple, etc) but we're practicing the fundamental of the subject, But how do we get from here, drawing seals etc, to there, drawing our figure, or face, or masterpiece. I want to be able to draw really good action poses, or beautiful scenes with people smiling looking at each other. But at times i feel insecure that me drilling the practice doesn't get me closer to my goal. I assume it comes with applying the principle to other things. But then when i draw something for me, I don't accomplish anything near what i want to do. Sorry, this message just comes from a place of discouragement as I am not trying to not compare my self to other artists that started at the same time as me, but appear to be making tons more progress then me, but without this amazing course. As an artist my greatest weakness my whole life is fighting the feelings of insecurity that come along with feeling i'm not good enough or that I will never be good enough to be a masterful artist. Unlike something like a physical sport like baseball, i have a hard time seeing the ball being hit by the bat as progress when it comes to art.

Mike Mattesi, thank you. These lessons on shapes are packed with information that comes at me fast - at first I thought I wouldn't comprehend it or be able to process it at one sitting - but the examples are fantastic and made me realize so many things. I'm itching to go practise now, this is awesome :D.

I have no idea if you read these @Mike Mattesi but you speak to my soul!!! The moment I saw your work, it was like...coming home somehow. I've always wanted to draw flesh with force, I just didn't know how to express it, or how to find resources that fully encapsulated what I had in my mind, that mix of graceful gestural fluidity combined with the solidity of flesh, of meat. Thank you for your invaluable work, I got your book from our library and if I do ok with it I will for sure purchase your courses. <3