What's up y'all?! I started playing with this figure study yesterday. But as usual, I was too excited to play with ideas and didn't do any thumbnailing. I think I'll scan it into procreate and play with some ideas. I'd like to do some sort of abstract background thing. Anybody have any techniques or know of any resources for developing abstract stuff in graphite. Is there like graphite powder or something that I could brush on? Bristle brush I assume? Probably could erase into it... Am I on the right track? Other ideas to play with? Thank you!

These are sketches I've been doing quite a bit and I'm wondering how effective are they in improving my work cause I don't see myself improving. Drawing from imagination of studies. I still struggle with hair despite the studies I've of JC Leyndecker. I wondering what you'd guys suggest to accelerate improvement.

First drawing ever I really struggled with getting the values right and found myself pressing way too hard on the paper to achieve the darker shades and spots. Open to any feedback or suggestions

Saw so many draw their pear, I thought I'd try a loose sketch as well. It's a triangle made up of a small ball with a flag on top of a bigger ball. Critiques are welcomed, since I'm always eager to learn from others.

Hi again! I recently made a 'Beginner Drawing Club' on Discord, currently there are four of us in the group and we're looking for a few more interested beginners who just started (or are about to start) Proko's Drawing Basics course. If you would like to join, just let me know and I will send you the link. Bye 🙂

I created this after studying anatomy, foreshortening, form, and how to manipulate them again, while also starting to paint, trying to understand how brushes work, and doing my very best. I made this self-portrait for a project a humorous, encouraging artwork with a meaning. I had fun with it and learnt a crazy amount, but I’m wondering what you guys think. Any critiques? Improvements? Tips?! Thank you so much!

I was never any good at drawing, and only drew as a recreational activity, never for pay. I realize "daily" is the objective here, but sometimes life gets in the way. Here are some rough sketches I did between October 12 and 29 this year. I will add them as "sketch dumps" instead of individual sketches per day. I don't follow any Proko tutorials, since they are beyond my skill level. I tried constructing the head several times, but it just doesn't click, it's too technical. I need more down-to-earth tutorials, that don't presume any fancy drawing skills. Think drawing stick figures, or something more elaborate, but not much more. I can't imagine what's on the side I don't see, probably because of some form of aphantasia. I tried to do so for many years (read: 30 years), but I made no progress in that department. I seem only to be able to draw what I see, badly, and no more. If that makes me a bad artist, so be it. Asking me to draw from visual imagination is much like asking a blind person to see.

I did my first pear before seeing the video. I did some things differently and made some errors. For example, I think I didn't do enough blacks to make the image balance properly. I saw the shadow as darkest and nothing else like it at the time, but can now see some more of it at the bottom area of the pear. I did my values sketches in advance and stuck to them. I've got too much contour as well, I think. One think I noticed was that I used a 4B pencil for the dark shadow but had to press quite hard and this made the shadow look shiny under direct light so will be moving to 6B in the future. Please let me know if you spot anything that doesn't look right. Thanks!

Been taking a couple in person classes. I actually got a scholarship to take a portraits in oil class for free. Probably thanks to @Morgan Weistling and the little time I've had to spend on his course. Gonna take a break from in person stuff to dig back in here over the winter. Miss y'all. Here's a graphite portrait I made of my wife that I'm going to exhibit in the student show. Thank you to everyone who has encouraged and helped me this year. Special mention to @Melanie Scearce and @Patrick Bosworth!

Hello, it's been a bit (a couple of years). I haven't posted because I haven't been doing gesture. I think I've gotten to a point in drawing where proportion, gesture, perspective, and light are natural to me (about D range in a A-F grade scale). Attached is the first figure drawing I've done in a long time. Feel free to critique. Refs are from the free pack from Grafit, shoutout to them. But the main point of me post is this: how do I continue learning without getting burnt out? I only got to the bones of the arms on Proko before entirely quitting drawing for 3 months, and I don't want this to happen again (this was 2ish years ago luckily). I do want to learn arm and leg anatomy, but I'm scare that I'll hate drawing again. These past 2 years has been me just having fun, drawing whatever I like. But I feel the need to grow, and I'm not convinced that I can grow without conscious and purposeful learning. Let me know what you think, of any of this, and thanks.

Hi All, there's a few things I don't like about this drawing but I don't know how to fix. I'd appreciate any advice (I'm not going to mention what I don't like up front). Thanks for looking

I tried asking for a critique in the painting category a while ago, but got no answers so I thought I’d ask here (here seems more active). I had a hard time getting rid of the glare/distortion, so I have two pictures of it. I’m basically looking for any suggestions to improve it. Specifically, I’ve struggled with the faces a lot and am not sure how to nail them down. Do the overall shapes and proportions of them seem okay? I’m not sure if his head is quite the right size or in the right spot. Also, how is the background feeling? I’m not sure how much I should render it and how much I can leave it a bit loose/painterly. Any other glaring issues or other suggestions?

I really don't know how to draw hair. When I search on YouTube or any website for how to do it, they give a quick, superficial explanation, and I don't understand anything. For example, they say to draw the hair like a ribbon starting from a certain point, but when I do it, it doesn't look nice, even though I try to make gravity btw I really like Mai's style, but I can't find anyone who explains the method well.

Thank you for comments and advice!

I'm currently enrolled in the fundamentals of drawing course, and I've also been listening to the podcast, and Stan and Marshall have mentioned many times the importance of adopting an art family. Personally, I couldn't agree more. I think it's a fantastic idea to choose artistic role models that inspire you. I was wondering what the Proko community thought about being able to create artistic family trees right here in Proko? Wouldn't that be cool? In my mind, not only could your family tree consist of famous artists, but also other Proko community members. And we would be able to navigate this tree and see our art parents, cousins, children, etc. What does the Proko community think about this?

Hello everyone, These are some of my recent drawings, I have kind of been stuck at this level for a while now. Does anyone have any recommendations on what i should study to improve, seeing my art for the first time, like anatomy or perspective or specific courses? It would help a lot to progress beyond this stage.

I had never drawn before this moment. Thanks for the lesson!

I'm still trying to work on gesture with some quick study forms. I've only been giving myself 3 minutes on each, which may not be enough given how new I still am to drawing. Some of them end up unfinished due to running out of time. I'd really appreciate feedback on 1. my lines, 2. the form itself, 3. how best to improve as a novice, 4. how to potentially self-critique (this may be hard given my inexperience and lack of knowledge, particularly with anatomy). I'd like to be able to self-critique to some extent so I can get quick feedback and try to improve rather than mindlessly repeating the exercise. The second one, I kind of mindlessly scribbled over after time was up and while I was watching TV, so that's why some lines are quite heavy. The clothed one made it hard to actually do any form, but it came up in a random selection of images.

Took a couple of attempts at both the pear and portrait, as realised I was approaching the shape simplification in the wrong way. Any feedback is much appreciated!

This is my gesture Proportions and box study , critiques are appreciated.