My third page/day doing this. I think I prefer doing this exercise with a 4B or 6B since I can get darker lines without pressing too hard. With the HB I need to press down more which makes me tense up too much. I don't know if it's "against the rules" of the exercise, but I found drawing a vertical center line good for finding where the apex of my curve should be. It helped turn those lopsided ellipses into more symmetrical ones. Also, does anyone else find it easier to draw ellipses with the overhand way of holding the pencil rather than the traditional way?

I drew the second pear. It's a lot better than the first attempt earlier this week (first image). It's a lot more interesting and almost feels like a painting even though it's just graphite. I've never really taken this approach to drawing before but it's cool. During yesterday's lunchbreak I really tried to figure out how my pencils worked and studied how Stan explained them. The concept that each pencil has a range is so useful and changed my perspective on how they work. Any critique is welcome!

First pic is my most recent attempt, the second drawing was my first try 4 months ago. Between then and now I also took a beginner drawing course at my community college so I got a lot of practice with using pencils to shade a bunch of still lifes. Patience with shading is definitely my weakness but I think I improved. The latest took about 2 hours (with a break because I got frustrated and impatient) while the old one probably took 45min or less. I think I oversimplified in some areas though. Stan's was simple but included more detailed/intentional shapes. Plus I forgot to shade the rest of the stem I only did the cast shadow. Also I didn't realize until it was too late but I used 50lb. paper so the paper was very delicate. I had to be careful with the dark areas to avoid deeply scarring the page.

1st try and 2nd try following Stan's demo. I think I might be rushing a bit. Any critique is welcome!

Practice

I practiced for about 2 hours filling up 3 of those large newsprint papers back to back with 30 sec and 2 minute poses. Out of them all these are my favorites. Arms are really tough for me to simplify and to get the proportions right. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Here are some 30 sec and 2 min gesture practices. I've been using a graphite stick to try and mimic proko's pencil and I think it really helps prevent me from focusing too much on little details. Although I do still feel a bit under confident so I end up making five lines where there should only be one. Any critique is appreciated!

This isn't my very first time doing gesture drawing but this is my first time doing it with some guidance. I didn't time myself for these since I didn't want to stress myself out and end up blanking on all the stuff I just learned. But I think most of these are about 2 minutes or less. Any critique is much appreciated.