Hi Erik and Meadow, I am a big fan of your art and the Watt's Atelier online lessons. How should someone learn to draw to a professional standard when time is a limiting factor as they are full-time employed in something unrelated to art? - I spend 10-20 hours a week still on art so time management isn't the issue. Also, If knowing that I am doing the right type of learning is the problem, would mentoring be the only way to ensure you are learning the right thing? PS. Kristian or whoever reads this question is a bae!

I love this lesson and have come back to it many times now. I keep struggling with the ellipse and getting it to look in perspective. If anyone has any good tips on how they work on getting ellipses correct then I would love to know.

Hi Steven, I draw for fun and don't plan to do it for money, but recently I have gotten so into learning and improving that I don't 'draw for fun' but I still have fun practicing...is this wrong? Do I need to also have my own project? I don't feel I have enough time to really commit to both practice and play. Also, I have time anxiety because I am 24, started learning to draw in January and want to get good before I have kids. I am scared.

Hi Irshad, do you think it is more important to progress through classes and not stay stuck on each one for too long or getting to grips with a topic before moving on? and why? It also applies to learning the figure since I struggle to move on from gesture but I have decided to progress anyway and just keep coming back to it.

Hi Siqi, I feel the same as a lot of people here and have found that trying to do too much has given me 'time anxiety' where I see every minute I am not doing something as being wasted. I got serious with my art practice in January and since then trying to fit it into my 55 hour work week (food industry) resulted in me spending all my free time drawing or thinking about drawing. I would recommend try to catch yourself early if you start worrying about every minute going by and just try to enjoy the learning process without too much thinking about whether you are doing enough. Also, I feel I am better at giving this advice than listening to it because it has been a struggle to deal with the stress but find what works for you. In terms of art goals, I also think since your practice time is limited, the best thing to do is establish what you most enjoy about art and other artists and what you want to do with it... You won't be able to learn everything because you'll likely become meh at all of it rather than really good at the one thing you actually enjoy. Again that is easier said than done, I still want to do everything perfectly but I am going to just accept I am not going to have time to draw perfect city scenery in perspective because my focus is faces and figures. I am not going to learn concept art because I just want to draw for fun not for a living..etc. Once you figure out a goal it will hopefully be easier to make big steps towards them without getting distracted by everything else around you, which will in turn save you probably years in the long run. Sorry to ramble, hope it makes sense and don't get time anxiety like me!

Tried applying the lesson to a similar shape - changed it some to see whether I understood the concepts. All feedback is welcome.

The first one i drew along the video. Couldn't get the values right because i only have 2b mechanical pencils :( Feedback/Critiques would be greatly appreciated!

Nice studies Uku! As you said the first one looks a bit off, specially the forehead shadow, wich is too vertical and straight, as well as the shadow on the neck wich feels unatural maybe because of the "inserstion" you made it in the jaw. The 3rd photo looks fantastic apart from some perspective issues like Steve pointed out, and the ear seems small compared to the rest of the facial features, this can be avoided by drawing a line between the eyebrow and the nose, to place the ear. The 4th photo is also very nice, but the shadow of the cheekbone is pushed too far right, I don't have the reference models you were using but I belive it should be closer left. Keep up the great work!

Hey Uku, these are awesome! you have some good skills. The forth drawing is really nice! I did have some thought on the first and third drawings that I hope could help you. I did a draw over to show you what I was thinking. Keep up the drawing, these are really good :)

Sheesh! I have never seen such a clean value before :o

Love the first lesson, nice simple ways to practice getting accuracy right. I have previously tried the Bargue method and I found it a completely mind-blowingly boring way to practice accuracy since it took over 2 weeks on stage 1 to get the lines accurate enough (like you said all measurements can be mm off at a time) and all I was doing was constant measuring. Has anybody found any fun ways to put these methods into practice? I know to get better at accuracy you can't just move on when it looks wrong and I am happy to put the work in but rather do it while not burning out. Or is the Bargue method popular because you can always tell quite easily when you haven't been accurate enough? PS: The pictures attached are not 100% accurate because I am working on it still.

While this is a cool idea, I think it does a bit of 'now draw the rest of the f***ing owl.' If someone new to shading followed this they would likely end up with something like I've attached and wonder what went wrong, because your final drawing adds in a lot of elements that the shaded bar doesn't bring (reflected light, highlight, cast shadow). Also, on a sphere the shading doesn't transition linearly from dark to light (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vapw6n6FyU). I like the premise but I think it needs a few more steps in between three and four for beginners to understand that transition.

Hi Uku! To get uniform light with lamps is super difficult. For that, photographers use diffusers, but you can try from a corner of a light painted room, and point the lamps to the walls, so your drawing will get reflected light. To correct some difficult gradient, you can use an aluminum film, the kind that is used for cooking, those can be used to reflect the reflected light.  Regarding your quick sketches, they are clear and clean, with good proportions and alive. So, I believe that you should try to use a less analytical mindset if you are interested in gesture practice. I mean, you are conveying a lot of information about the volume and anatomy. Most teachers do not consider gesture drawing what you are doing, though they have good gestures. Gesture is about using the fewer lines possible to convey the pose, so you can add details to it in the following stage. You are drawing the next stage and doing the gesture in your mind, which is an advanced skill. Did you try to do that with more complex poses? Probably in those situations, you will have difficulties seeing the gesture in your mind and you will have to find it on the page by using the fewer lines possibles, long CSI lines, and wrapping auxiliary lines (ellipses) to indicate the direction of the volumes. I have some examples in my profile, and a lot on my IG. (Sorry for my English!) All the best!

Hi Grace, the gestures look great, read well and feel natural, well done! I am struggling with gesture drawings myself but what is helping me is drawing the same pose several times. For example if you draw a pose 3 times you are more likely to see common mistakes or work on correcting the mistakes on each one. I notice that the gesture on my 1st try is usually stiffer and the last try is more dynamic and natural looking. When you draw a pose and notice mistakes just try fixing them on the next try until you get the pose down how you like it. Hope this helps. I like your gesture drawings though and not the right person to critique them, sorry. I have attached examples of how I go about it.

Hey there! Wonderful linework I love it :) I problem I noticed is that I feel like you squish or stretch the proportions of the figures a bit too much, and it makes them appear unnatural. To combat that I recommend using bounding boxes, use the negative shapes to find out how much space the figure actually takes, and then you can avoid making the body too thin or too wide. Also, I feel like your calves and feet are too small on most of the drawings, I think you should study it a bit more. I hope I could help. Keep up the good work! :)

I didn’t do a strict time limit on these since I’m pretty new to gesture. I used some Force methods in this since that clicks a bit better for me.

I got one of those ring lamps for video calls; they don't cost much, they have a clip that allows you to place them on the edge of the table, and they can be oriented so that they cast a fairly even light on the sheet.

Hi @Uku Kivisild . About the lighting, I am thinking that may be two lamps as a bigger source could be better... But Im not in that situation. About gesture: It is not about the information you get under less minutes, it is about how you aproach each different amount of time in order to take benefit of the practice; it is not to worn out trying to get all what you know and see. For example, in a 30 seconds you can't do too much. So you go for the general flow and may be some land marks to show more the pose in itself. But not more. However, it depends on what you can get in each different amount of time. Which vary on your level, if you get or not fast the visual information needed, which also depends on the pose, if it is hard to read or not. Just remember that "gesture" in not "anatomy". But a quick sketch can be used for everything. It is up on your goal of the practice. If you wants to use it for anatomy, take care of not try too hard to get the most quantity of information - do it calm, reading the figure without the stress of time going to stop. Just make it until wherever you get. It wil improve with time. Hope it helps you. Good luck and good practice! PS: Really nice your work. If you come from the anatomy course, gesture is more about abstraction of the form instead its concrete form as you read it. It is hard but just keep practicing both (separately). If you practice to much one you will see an strugle when going for the other. It needs time to get them