Thank you so much for this lesson, Jeff and Stan! It's a gem. In addition to being educational, this was very encouraging and, yes, very inspiring as well. I feel like the lesson could alternatively be titled as "Jeff Watts Goes Fast & Furious on Line Quality". He says so many things, that feel important to me, just one after another and they keep coming, that I forgot or didn't have time to take notes! I'm going to watch the lesson again, pausing it several times to just stop and think and properly take it all in - what you're teaching us to do when drawing, it occurs to me as I write this :). Anyways, thank you!

Wow, and superb. This seems like an opportunity I definitely don't want to miss. 💫

Heya! After watching both of the demos I have gathered some thoughts on line master studies that I'd want to share! As a beginner it might be complicated to see various things at once when doing a master study, even when trying to focus on lines! Why? Because lines show contours, edges, textures, highlight points of interest, delineate shapes in space! So if you don't think of WHY a line was used in a certain way at a certain point, you might also not learn anything about how the master uses them! There were examples in critiques where lines were used to draw the shape of the hair and put a highlight to show it's bulk (Gibson example), so if the person drawing it doesn't put consideration into it, it wouldn't be a complete master study! Or not understanding how master's lines either conform to edge or rhythm of the picture, making them work as a whole, or even any of the compositional purpose of line weight! But the course haven't touched on any of the topics of rhythm or edge yet, so it would be wise to focus on technique more and then come back to line master studies later! And just like Stan showed, you can create your own warmups that you should probably do to absorb how exactly the master places the strokes, or at least do it in your own way that achieves the same effect! You can do simple exercises like hatching a plane like the master, then tilting that plane and hatching, or hatching a whole cube in space with the technique until you're familiar with it, try to pull a single stroke into abstract shapes if the master does that e.t.c. Try to do it in different ways, find the most effective one for you! Then after you do this a bunch either come back to studying the master you learned that from now with the proper muscle memory OR apply it in your own projects! Do what's most fun for you! The warmups you create are very important because you are going to focus exclusively on technique before you focus on applying it with complex elements of shape design and forms in space! Hope any of you found this helpful. Remember, applying learned principals in your own work is a skill of it's own so don't forget to practice it! Ok, bye!

Again, so much useful and valuable information, so many tips, so much inspiration. I'm itching to go and draw and put on paper the energy I get from these critique videos. Thank you Stan! :)

Here's my second Master Study, after John Singer Sargent. I'm including my "planning page" just to share how I've been approaching the task and getting a little feel of what I'm going to do. It's so much fun to look back at these notes and, after completing the actual study, compare the two and see if I missed something, analyze and critique myself. Notes also serve me as a checklist of what I'm learning, and sure they are (occasionally) amusing as well :). I also wished to share my experience with this study in particular. I wasn't familiar with Sargent's art before joining Proko. His name came up in several of the Draftsmen podcast episodes, so I was taught by listening to someone else talk about Sargent that his line work is masterful or beyond. When I looked up Sargent's work, I could see what the talk was about, and he gained a place in the same pool I've placed other masterly artists I find worth admiration in. Not more special than the other. Now then! Some unexpected magic happened when I immerced in this study. I forgot time and became oblivious to the fact that I was studying and learning. I was holding and using my pencil in these kind of weird (unfamiliar to me at least) ways, just feeling out every line. And with each line my awe grew, of this incredible line work in Sargent's drawing. How every single nuance, be it thickness or value or taper of the line, has a meaning. I don't realy have the words to describe it, but it feels like I slowly realized this drawing, and the mastery of the line work took my breath away. So this had a strong, emotional effect on me. I had completed my study and was just sitting there staring at this Sargent drawing on my screen, when my husband walked in and asked me why I look like I'm about to cry. Drawing was supposed to be fun? All I could do was to gesture at Sargent's drawing and utter that the lines are so beautiful that it touches me this deeply. How wonderful is that? Thank you for letting me share to anyone who might read this rambling, I'm off to another hour of Sargent-gazing :D.

Are there any charakteristics you would recommend for reference pictures? In this exercise we were supposed to study line quality and you chose a picture with very expressive lines that still had some sketchlines, mistakes, construction, etc. intact and even required different grips, pencil and so on. Most more "finished" drawings don't have that many clues about how they were made anymore (especially when they were done digitally). I feel like that makes them harder to study? Or maybe I just focused too much on the wrong thing during the exercise like copy everything 1:1 bit by bit rather than looking at the bigger picture to understand what does what in the image and why? I mean I did analyze what the lines did for the image and where they drew attention, became thicker and thinner and so on, but that was more of a process before and after the drawing. While I was at it it felt more like I focused on copying the final lines line for line 1:1 without thinking about the "why". Is there a remedy for this? Do certain images just lend themselves better to studying specific things? Or is it more about me and constantly reminding myself that my goal is to analyze, rather than to create a copy. For me the two won't really mix at the moment. Either I stop and think about what does what (then I could just stare at the image instead of drawing it) or I become a human copy machine. Is it just quantity and repeating such studies? Do I need to simplify the reference like you did with the shoe thumbnails? I probably miss the obvious solution at the moment so if anybody has an idea I'd appreciate a bit of help with that =/ Edit: And then the next line in the video was about using the right tool and how a regular pencil could be used to create the same look, but it wouldn't teach me about the technique used. Maybe that was a big part of the issue since I did everything with a 0.5mm marker and basically drew small shapes that I filled to vary line width… 🤔

For my first study I chose Terryl Whitlatch since she is by far my biggest art hero. I first stumbled upon her work in 1995 while playing the Dig with my brothers. But the 10 - year old me had no idea. It was only later once I discovered her books that I Googled her up and holy moly there it was. I remember being SO obsessed about the creatures in the game. At first glance her drawings just look really scientific but when you look closer, the drawings feel so alive. I recently watched her Draftsmen - interview where she talked about the importance of considering the character that the animal has. How they aren't just objects out there but living creatures with feelings. You can definitely see that in her work when you start looking closer. I chose a couple of her more cartoony illustrations from the book Animals Real and Imagined. I'm posting cropped scans from the book since I don't want to post full pages, obviously. There's a lot of gesture going on and she applies a lot of animation principles especially to her more cartoony work. The use of curves vs. straights is absolutely beautiful. And the details aren't there just for the sake of detail. I really liked how the little kangaroo turned out, the monkey not so much. I seem to have some problems with capturing the facial expressions.

J.M. Flagg and Norman Rockwell, H. Kley, D. Gibson, and Gary Gianni

Here’s my process of Master Study after Jean-Louis Sauvat. I chose this one because the colours and the drawing style captivated me on the instant I first saw it. I love the way hierarchy of importance is displayed: the irrelevant rider almost completely faded into the background, and the horse closest to the viewer drawn with great detail with sharp and thin lines, while the other horse has these really thick and soft lines. Even the postures of both horses suggest that one is starring the main role, and the other one is more like a sidekick. I think it’s just brilliant. I saw so many different types of lines used in it, that I thought studying this would really bring together everything I’ve been learning about lines on this course. And it did. There was a sense of purpose for every line (which was a great expecience), and it was the first time I used overhand grip to explore line thickness and softness. I discovered a couple of neat things I can do with a pencil, what comes to technique. For example for the horizontal lines across the front horse’s neck I used a kind of stabbing motion, noticed that wow, that worked well and looks cool – and in my excitement ended up overusing it and kind of ruining it for myself… but didn’t fix it because it’s a study, so it can well look like a learning session. Overall I’m very happy with how this study turned out. There are some things I’m proud of, too, such as the hoof-shapes and my lines on the legs. Looking at these four pictures, I like the third one most (my first actual line study), it's better than the final drawing :D. Line value is one thing I’m going to be training next. I’m definitely going to draw this a couple of times more, redo, repeat and try some different things. What a great assignment and learning experience! This was my first master study ever, and I have a feeling I’m going to do many more in the future.

When drawing from observation is getting the correct line you observe just pure intuition ? If you are not measuring. I feel like i have been really overthinking drawing from observation lately. Are you guys focusing hard on the line you are seeing on your subject and going line by line until your done. Or do you interpret the shape of your subject more and try to copy ? I hope this made any sense. I feel like the awnser is that you guys dont really think about it and just pull your line and im overthinking it.

It looks so effortless when Picasso does it! I love the clean lines and that Picasso captures the essence of the bull with just a few loose strokes. Which are very hard to emulate. The next one I want to do is much more complicated and messy but I don't think I can face it right now.

If anybody is still looking for references there is a series on Youtube called The Sketchbook Series by Trojan Horse Was A Unicorn, lots of great artist showing their sketchbooks and opinions, and at the end of the interview they do a quick sketch so you can actually see their masterful use of line in action 👌

Thank you, excellent critique video again. I feel like I get so many tools to put in my toolbox from these. And thank you also for all those great submissions, again, everyone, I love learning from you as well. Master studies next week? O-ou... and wow. I've rarely felt this nervous and excited at the same time.

I'm not sure if this is the right thread to post this one, but since it was a "learn to sketch from imagination" project for me, I guess this will do :). I did practise line weight here too, and simplifying, so it's a fusion of what I've learned on this course so far. Truthfully I just really wanted to share this work with you guys because accomplishing it made me so happy! My original plan was to imagine and then sketch just as gorgeous a headdress as I could. Little, precise details are usually very tedious for me, though, so I tossed decoration and decided on a head instead. I had chosen a rich colour pallette for painting, which I was very excited to get to use on this, but then this black and white, kinda "dark and stormy night" simplicity appealed to me, so colours have to wait for another day. I also had planned to emphasize his eyes and wanted to try giving him some very intense full-of-feeling-gaze. I was going to work on the eyes last, but once I got to that point, I thought the white eyeballs alone actually looked cool and gave the drawing a sense of a ghostly being or spirit or... something :D. What I feel proud of here is that this is the first time I made every decision based on how I feel about it and what looks good to me. It has been a challenge for me to let myself loose and not think about "correct" and "perfect" so much. I wanted to do it this way, so I did it this way, and now feel awesome about it. But most of all, I looked at my drawings from last year, compared them to what I've drawn during this course, and I could see a real difference. I have really learned stuff! It's not only that I can now draw lines of little better quality than before (long way to go with that still), but the overall approach to drawing anything is different. And... I'm able to do more now than I was before! I can actually execute some of my visions with the knowledge I've gained. And that makes me so happy! And motivated! And... I love it! This got long enough (again), so: 1st picture is the first, exploring sketch / 2nd picture is sketch cleaned up / 3rd picture is what it turned out to be. Thank you for sharing!

🦏🦏🦏🦏🦏 I understood the concepts but went all over the place on execution because I understood the concepts, what variable of edge is defined by what variable of line? 🤯 I guess you can only get better with practice 🦏🦏🦏🦏🦏

Here are my rhinos, first one is hierarchy of importance and the second one attempting shadow - light direction. Then I got super inspired by totems and symbolism, drew this little sketch from imagination and tried applying hierarchy of importance on the first one with black lines, and light direction on the second one with blue lines. I drew both on top of the same sketch, but apparently scaled the first one somewhat in the process... I kind of like it that the two pictures aren't identical, though. I found this assignment very challenging, but loved the process, especially discovering how much difference I can make just by using line weight. I think the biggest challenge for me was switching to digital, though, I spent a ridiculous amount of time choosing the brush and this and that, and stuff. A self-created problem that results in self-created frustration! I also find drawing confident lines much more difficult digitally than with a pencil. It's like having to learn all hand movements twice. Much of pleasant work ahead :).

After a few weeks of rather dutiful line exercising, I decided to start a digital sketchbook for... practising sketching! I was missing colour and just the feeling of getting something done that pleases my eye and makes me happy about my work. I plan to have one sketchbook for sketching from observation and another for sketching from imagination. Today I completed page one 'from obsevation', using giraffe as reference. I saw a video on YouTube about a technique where they first paint colours (from reference) on a page with water colours, and after the page is dry they draw linework on it. It was very inspiring and I wanted to try it, but I have no experience in water colours so thought I'd try it digitally. There were guiding lines beneath the eye study, but that was my first try using this technique so I did everything on one layer. With the head, I first drew a rough sketch. 2nd layer, I chose a colour pallette and painted in the shapes. 3rd layer, I drew my lines over the painted shapes, and combining the two I had the finished sketch. After I had my linework done, I could switch between the two layers, add colour, refine shapes, adjust lines and so on. The head at the left bottom corner is the finished paint after I've added details, I started the colouring with very light opacity and forgot to capture this part of the process. I'll remember next time :). But this was awesome! I sure fell in love with this process. I can use this for practising my linework, and better yet, I feel like this type of sketching is the direction I want to steer my style toward.

I did it! It took me a LONG time, but finally I drew a character from imagination! It took me several practice sketches and it didn't turn out exactly as I wanted, but at least I drew something without looking at a reference! Now I can finally move on and catch up.

I've been sketching from observation for the past two weeks, wanting to make my lines more loose and confident. For several days I felt like no improvement was happening and some frustration crept in. I decided to simplify my references, thinking perhaps I get stiff and stuck because in photos there are a billion details for me to observe. Perhaps my eye is not yet trained enough to pick just the significant ones, and I get distracted. So, by simplifying the reference I wanted to eliminate all unnecessary distractions and have my brain tuned in to ony one focus, which would be lines. ... I think it kinda worked. I used Disney characters as reference, and with these I could only observe the outlines. It was really fun! I could just feel how drawing became more loose. I Also noticed that I wasn't minding the proportions at all, only shapes, and this is what made me feel more relaxed. Today I tried sketching this bear and horse with a goal of using more gestural and flowy lines, more dynamic. There's still a lot of practising to do for me, but I was very happy about how these two turned out. Drawing felt different. I didn't go to details, yay me. The lesson I learned today is that when I draw a great line, don't start tweaking it. I have a bad habit to start darkening or somehow enhacing a good line, and all that does is ruin it. Let it be, and don't fix it if it's not broken!

Gave it a try again but Im nit sure I ended up super frustrated and unable to find any direction