I love Aaron Blaise. His courses on his site are excellent. Traditional and Digital classes. Doing a watercolour with him. Super fun. And this was super helpful. Why simple shapes are important.

Not too sure if I pushed them far enough

Good Times. That buffalo tho... had to square it up. Couldn't get simple shapes without doing it.

Stan, that's a chimpanzee. Not an an accurate monkey. Very inaccurate. But designed well? I'm torn.

My key takeaways: - Line can be a tool of design or as an indicator: what you want to show versus what needs to be shown to represent the thing you are drawing in a readable way - Draw Under the value you see, you can always kick it up - When it comes to the aesthetics of drawing, that is about interpretation, and that's where the artist's point of view, the way they design, comes to the fore -The process of drawing is active: Look at what you're drawing, think about what you are trying to draw, interpret what you see, think about how to draw it, draw it, decide if it's the 'right' line (more thinking), repeat - When observing, soft edges recede and hard edges come forward, meaning, a softer edge close to a hard edge will look further back. - it's not just about the local line quality and decisions. It has to work on entire forms, and on the entire piece in order not to break the illusion. This is true of any style.

For my Master, I chose Josh Hunter Black, (he has an anatomy course on Proko now!), someone whose line I have admired for a few years. He creates amazing gestures and designs super clean. I reached out to him on Instagram to ask some questions about his method and he was kind enough to answer them for me. I previously purchased a tutorial of his from GumRoad, and I could see how he moved his brush in Photoshop, and other important nuances. Here is my effort at understanding his style. He uses softer lines for edges perpendicular to the light rays from the source, and harder edges for those parallel. Further, he darkens his lines when he wants to show a t-overlap, to indicate which is wrapping, as well as for perspective - those objects closer will be thicker and darker than those behind.

Pierre Noire is charcoal? hurr Of course it is Josh. 😬 I also appreciate how Stan chose some funky shoes so a lot of y'all drew the same shoes or found your own shoes! But I have to say, you are not solving your own problems! (I know! It's kinda scary!) You are learning to solve problems the way Stan solves them. But what about you? what are YOUR decisions? Your choices? That's what matters. Sure copying masters is a great practice, but you need to develop your own sensibilities and your own way to solve these problems. Watch the demo to understand. Draw along, But then do your own subjects! Make it fun for yourself! Hate shoes? Like elves? Draw an elf instead! Love fashion design? Sketch an outfit! But do you! Sanctimonious, unsolicited advice done.

My line weight exercises. Level one Hierarchy of Importance. I should be doing level 2 as well, but this week is jammed with stuff. I will work on something later.

Here's a post that attempts to TLDW what Stan himself says might be confusing: Key Concepts: Line Weight: Value, edge, thickness Contrast: The (visual) tension Interplay between parts within the whole, in particular the between: 1) the subject and parts of itself, for example the contrast of the light and dark right at the edge of the rhino's jaw, or 2) between the subject and the background, mid ground, and foreground it is situated in. eg. The high contrast between the horn in shadow and the horn on the light side and the sky. On the shadow side there is much more contrast along the edge, while on the light side, there is very little contrast between the value of the horn and the value of the sky NB: Because we aren't necessarily going to draw the environment here, we can kind of assume the whole page is like the sky and there is no dark midground full of bushes, and so decide how we will present those lines that are in shadow, like the screen left side of the nose would be high contrast, and those that are in light such as very back end of the rhino along the horizon line. As Stan works his way around the reference, you'll notice he isn't focusing on say the contour and finishing that. Each area is being treated relative to the ones nearby and to the completed parts of the whole, going in and thickening or lightening lines as needed. What may be confusing: contrasting whatnow? Contrast is working on multiple levels. Contrast of edge, value, thickness relative to the subject, AND relative to the environment the rhino is in. So you're going to need to keep shifting perspectives from light to shadow, and thinking in terms of contrast to design your rhino. Making Decisions: Talk to yourself like you're explaining it to a child This part is exhausting as Stan demonstrates and he is the teacher so don't feel like you're not getting it. It's difficult and takes effort, as do all worthwhile things. But listen to how he interrogates the reference: "This area is dark but is in the light, and there is less contrast here than here so we're going to use this kind of line." He does this again and again and gives a nice slow introduction with the horn, in particular. But he does this again and again, explaining his decisions and choices, trying to keep them consistent throughout. Take Away: - Talk to yourself about decisions you are making: ask questions and don't be afraid of making a mistake, you can always erase or do it again but don't be precious about it. - Remember this is about creating depth and all the parts of line will help with this when thinking about them in terms of light and shadow. - It's up to you how you what you want to emphasize and all parts of line and contrast will support your decisions but just be consistent! Hope this helps.

I think this is the single most important exercise I never did until now.