I had amazing images in my mind that I would create, but these ended up looking so ugly! I guess that is why I am taking this course 🤣

I wanted to do a study of my teacher's drawings like Stan's study of his teacher because I also admire my drawing teacher's work, but there isn't much of his work online, and I thought it would be a bit awkward to bother him with a reference request just for an exercise. My second choice was Sargent, so I decided to do two studies of his drawings.

Level 2 version. I've had great fun with lines drawing these, and I kept wondering what I can potentially achieve with more knowledge and practice! The possibilities look breathtaking, and at the same time I can't believe how much I have improved already, only just with the very basic knowledge about lines that I learned in this course.

My "day job" is currently so much fun that in the evenings I am torn between doing the fun things for my job and learning art. Today the job won, been hacking at my current work project the whole day, until it was 10pm on Friday and started to feel a bit sick because of the tiredness. Just yesterday I watched that Draftsmen podcast where they were talking about spreading yourself too thin and how to balance things - I really don't know how to do that, there are so many interesting things to do!

Here goes my rhino, off to level 2! I don't have access to a printer currently, so traced the rhino with a marker using my tablet as a light table - it was rather awkward, as the tablet responds to the touch even through paper, so I had to keep my fingers away from the screen. I am sure there are apps that can disable the touch, but I thought I am better off using the time I had on the actual drawing rather than on researching apps. I tried to trace the rhino digitally using a tablet first, but this felt like too many challenges at once - I don't really have enough experience with digital drawing to be able to draw clean lines of correct thickness! These digital brushes, pens and pencils are beautifully designed though, and I also noticed that when I lean the stylus, the digital pencil changes to a soft broad stroke, almost like a real pencil. This is so cool, I didn't know my tablet could do such things.

I find it very hard to get myself into the 'gesture mode', perhaps because I have done a lot of life drawing without properly focusing on gesture, and now need to consciously break the bad habits that I have inadvertently acquired. These drawings are 30 seconds, 1 and 2 mins from tonight's life drawing session at the University of Waterloo.

This assignment was going to be great fun, but I found it exceptionally challenging in the end. I guess something to think about and try again.

I have been a fan of Proko for quite a few years, but haven't followed any of the courses until a couple of weeks ago when I started the Drawing Basics course. This has already had such an enormous impact on my drawing skills - I just can't believe the improvements I made in these two weeks. I am not learning any new 'theory' as such - I have an excellent drawing teacher, who went over all of these fundamentals many times over in the short courses that I've been taking with him. I think what makes this so good for me is this self-paced format, when I can focus on one single topic, and deeply engage with one single skill, spotting my own errors and misconceptions, as I watch the next demo and redraw the project. This blog feature is really great. I guess I can just write my thoughts here and use it as a diary?

I'm sorry for the little rant I'm about to leave here, you're content is excellent and out of any question, I absolutely love it, but the website and media player is making watching the videos way more painful than it should, at least in an android phone with Firefox. It freezes, jumps randomly, crashes... I don't know if there's something anyone can do to make this better or if this is the place to complain, but man... I want to learn but sometimes I can't because of this, and it's frustrating 😭😭😭 please let me know if this message doesn't belong here and I have to make it go though another channel 🙏🏼

I first tried to do each one myself, then watched the explanations. Ended up redrawing the penguin and the hand. I tend to focus too much on getting the proportions right and miss gesture and form, so it is very helpful to watch the demonstrations and then immediately do the exercises again, focussing on what I missed the previous time! I am sure I have misunderstood a bunch of things again, but I also feel like I am learning a lot and making a lot of progress in a very short time.

Did all of them one by one, before watching each of the demos. It is so helpful to see a detailed demonstration! And also good to watch how Stan resolves the challenges, after trying it myself.

The hardest thing is to be consistent and give time to drawing every day. IT IS REALLY HARD. Many factors are obstacles. Having full time job does not help too. I find myself constantly blaming myself for being lazy and not drawing. But in fact, I am just dead tired every day. So hard to keep balance and dedicate time to drawing. The only trick I found working for me is to make a slot of time just after the breakfast when I get up early. But even that trick does not always work. But sometimes I just do not want to draw in the morning, especially when I had a blast with drawing at evening before. There is some kind of battery of motivation to make art in me and it is very small battery, unfortunately.

So, I first drew a pear, then watched the project video. Realised that I wasn't supposed to preselect the tones. Drew another pear. Watched the pear demo, learned some new things. Then drew the portrait. Then watched the portrait demo and realised I misunderstood a lot of things earlier. So then I drew another portrait (reference photo by Andrea Piacquadio). Now I see that I still missed some important things, like double checking the proportions!

perar#1. The first attempt

I don't understand how to 'see' where one value ends and another one begins.