Hey Guy, I tried the boot exercice…. Very hard as you can see, after 2h30 I stopped on the 1st boot and just practiced the CSI all arround 🤓because it seems very hard to get proper lines.

Camel & Nike Collab / Captain Skull Did this after doing the level 1 drawings and watching the critique video of those. Tried to draw my lines more confidently, focusing on longer and nicer strokes, not copying the contours, but instead trying to simplify them and to put lines more gracefully. After finishing the level 2 drawings, I watched the previous lesson with level 2 demonstration and found out I could have spent like 10 times less time on them, not concentrating on vertebrae (compared to which the shoelaces of the boots were actually a breeze). Loved how easy Stan is with his mistakes and doesn't pay much attention to anything but the core task of the lesson. Great inspiration to counter my perfectionism and focus on the task instead, will keep it in mind for the next lessons. Thanks, Stan!

Week #2

About 15 minutes for the snail, and more than two hours for the boots. I couldn't help shading here and there even though Stan said no to do it. The laces are definitely the most tricky and time and attention consuming part. Lots of patience, mostly a spiritual practice. Not sure about the proportions of the shoe on the right (the left one), maybe the toe part should be different. Overall I enjoyed it and happy with the practice.

Ironically, it was the shoes that I was slower than a snail for! This one was tough, but it was a good challenge trying to keep myself from using a bunch of short hairy lines! The folds in the laces were especially tough for me. I wasn’t quite sure how much detail we needed for line work, so I tried adding a few contours here and there to both serve as reference points and give a little depth (especially to the snail shell)!

Honestly this was a challenge, having a tough time with the boots. I kept getting proportions wrong and gave up, feel like it will take me awhile longer than its suppose to for this assignment. I will upload once I'm able to get it done. Update: Got one of the boots done which is good enough for me.

Going through the lessons I missed. I'll post Level 2 drawings later!

Great warmup excercises. I noticed that I am getting a bit anxious before approaching drawing drills or projects for the lack of confidence in how well I actually control my hand. At first tried to draw the shrums in the park, on my knees, but found out that bad drawing habits might build up without a proper support of the elbow. So after the first page I moved to the table and experimented with different hand support positons (wrist, elbow , no support). Confidence grows a bit with each iteration. The bigest challenge for me is the biggest circle of the Mushroom head: if it is not ery small, it is impossible to draw it resting an elbow on the table, so I have to practice this "free hand" movement. Which is ultimately fun.

 Watched the critique video today and attempted the pear the third time, this time with a life pear I bought in a store. Followed advice of Stan to be more careful and patient with pencil shading using a tip of the pen, and also tried to explain the form with shadows as if they were plates. Experimentally played a bit with cast shadows. Seeing values from a life object is even more challenging than from a picture where you can adjust the contrast.