This was very helpful in shedding light on HOW to do a proper master study. It was something I had been mulling over while I get ready to start studying my "Art Parents".

This was very insightful, and fun to watch. I learned much, and has me thinking. Such a joy to see the variety of entries from my fellow classmates.

I had a solid practice session today, and with the sun finally out and about here in Portland, OR, I feel pretty energized.

Here is my submission for review/critique. I excitedly await studied guidance to improve my still-rough discipline. My background: I'm 40 years old. I started teaching myself how to draw in January of 2020. I had not drawn anything serious since I was 16 up until that point. I could barely manage passable stick figures. However, after stumbling across the Proko youtube channel, as well as the Draftsmen Podcast, I knew I needed to push past my fear of failure, and finally develop the skills I had always wanted. To be a skilled draftsman is my dream, and goal. I'm a disabled Veteran, and drawing has become an essential and treasured means of therapy. I one day hope to reach a level where I can impart what I have learned to others effectively. The level 2 project: I tried to just approach the subject with the Bargue Method as I think that has helped me break things down into simplified shapes in the past, and building from there. Values are a major weak point of mine. The fear of going too dark, and then trying to rebalance the shadows is real. I hope to better understand shading this year. My eye is obviously still developing, which accounts for lack of likeness accuracy, but I know that comes with time and consistent practice.

Charcoal & Graphite pencils are freshly sharpened, and ready to draw. This was some simple gesture/form practice while also experimenting with values to see what I would come up with, and how it feels.

There’s another way

Doing some values practice today. One of my weak points I really want to smooth out this year. I'm keeping with the spirit of each lesson released so as to not get too ahead of myself. Patience is key here. I am looking forward to the lesson assignments in the coming weeks.

2023/1/10. Good morning everybody. Here’s my today’s warming up exercise (from 30 seconds to 10 minutes poses). Thanks.

In the Week_0 of this course, I am going with showing a past portrait I drew in September (the four progress tiles), and a sketch in my smaller sketchbook that goes with me basically everywhere. My goal by the end of this course is to further establish good foundations, and build on what I have gleaned over the last 2 1/2 years of self teaching. I truly want to become a good draftsman. My art parents: Kim Jung Gi, H.R. Giger, Gustav Dore, and Kintaro Miura I love to work in graphite, and charcoal.

Hi guys, This is a digital materials related post. Since starting the course, I have been experimenting with the default charcoal brush set on Procreate. I have a few charcoal pencils at home, but for the sake of portability, convenience, and lack of a mess (along with a one year old baby), I found this to be the most appealing medium for now. This piece was done entirely with the 2B and 4B compressed charcoal brushes and an eraser. The lay-in/ preliminary sketch was done with the 2B compressed on roughly 50% opacity and 5-10% size, to keep the lines nice and light. Once the features were established, I realized the face was too wide so I erased it down and redrew it. Same for the mouth, which was initially placed a little low. This is something I’m always struggling with. From there I switched to the 4B brush for the rest of the piece. This was at 100% opacity and varied in size between 2-10%. Values were controlled with applied pressure with the Apple Pencil, just like an actual pencil. Generally I tried to work for large to small. And tried to simplify at first (which is also something I struggle with greatly). I started by blocking in the shadow family of the face. Then half tones and progressively refining from there. I then framed his face with a large blocked in dark area for the hair. There were several tweaks needed to get his face shape corrected. The hair was blocked in with solid medium/dark value and I then found the next biggest, darker, general shapes, progressing to medium and smaller sizes. Then it was really all eraser from there. I used a standard round brush eraser at 25% opacity. I find that this gives me the most simulated feel to an actual eraser and I can control it with my hand pressure. Same idea as before, just inverted. I found larger to medium light areas, then progressively added lighter forms and highlights. I just wanted to share. I love seeing all the various posts and mediums used and am very excited to start working on whatever assignments come next. It’s such an awesome community and I’m looking forward to learning and growing with everyone.