$159
Bundle discount Each additional course part in your cart adds 3% off all courses, up to 15% off.
Full course
You’ll learn the most important foundational concepts for drawing anything and soon you’ll be drawing pictures out of your imagination or from reference.
$159
Give a gift
Give a gift card for art students to use on anything in the Proko store.
Or gift this course:
Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
LESSON NOTES
Here’s a clip taken from the premium critique of the drawing basics course.
The assignment was to simplify a pear or a portrait down to its shapes, values, and edges. In this critique, I break down some of the common issues I saw students have with their shape design. I’ll give you advice and talk about proportion, asymmetry, and improving your shadow shape design. If you enjoy this critique and would like more be sure to check out the full course.
DOWNLOADS
critique-simplify-pear-from-observation.mp4
3 GB
critique-simplify-pear-from-observation-transcripts-english.txt
65 kB
critique-simplify-pear-from-observation-transcripts-spanish.txt
67 kB
critique-simplify-pear-from-observation-captions-english.srt
113 kB
critique-simplify-pear-from-observation-captions-spanish.srt
115 kB
COMMENTS![]()
![Stan Prokopenko]()
![]()
![@lucyadair]()
![]()
![Ben Kraske]()
![]()
![@lucyadair]()
![]()
![Ben Kraske]()
![]()
![Tati]()
![]()
![@skibidivan]()
![]()
![Sebastian Rivera]()
![]()
![Vic Guzman]()
![]()
![@dylanbeaton]()
![]()
![Liza]()
![]()
![ross chapman]()
![]()
![@appletree]()
![]()
![Usagi D. Soma]()
![]()
![Nickdulis]()
![]()
![@bluepanda]()
![]()
![Noah Denney]()
![]()
![Vergil Senpai]()
![]()
![K Town]()
![]()
![Charlotte]()
Pear Critiques are here!
Critique for the portraits coming Thursday, but I recommend level 2 students watch this critique video too. I give advice and demonstrate things that should be useful to both levels.
I tried doing this exercise with the banana reference photo used in the video. Any suggestions are welcome!
•
3d
Ooh, a banana is a great fruit choice for this exercise! Nice work dividing the planes of the fruit and designing the shapes for the values.
I tried to do this project with cup of coffee photo as my reference. Any suggestions are welcome!
•
3d
This looks great! All I would say is to take notice of the edges of shapes, the ones on the cup are a bit darker than the values around them. You'll want to make sure they match the value they're next to so the cut off isn't as harsh! Keep it up!
Hello, Im not a professional at all but I think you can try to focusing more on making sharp shapes instead of complex/organic ones.
My progress before the demo, after the demo, and after reviewing the critique.
Before and after watching the critique video. I’m excited to continue to build on the skills I’m learning already.
My shading needs practice. I did this on 9 x 12 so maybe I need to start smaller?
My dark half-tone is super close to light shadow. Next time will try to distinguish them more.
this was my initial attempt. I was surprised that stans example places the highlight within the shadow as a much lighter value than my eyes are identifying it.
3rd try after watching the critiques. Tried to simplify it a lot and have clear planes
8/7/2026
Finished a few sets of pears, even though i wasn’t meant to be doing this task, it’s just more of a warm-up before I start covering the L I N E S section for the course.
After watching demos I can see I messed up some of my proportions. I also struggled with simplification. I didnt know how much I should push it for the assignment and so you can see part where I simplified more and parts where I simplified less.
Another thing in the portrait, I grouped up hair and didnt bother with hair highlight (thought we were supposed to do that and dont go into such detail). Same with the eye, just grouped it so its gone. Messed up the jaw - shape and proportion wise.
My main struggle was to actually draw straight and have better dexterity when working. I did choose digital because I need more mileage (Been using it on and off for over a decade but I cant seem to improve much - any advice on this please?). Things would be far more comfortable if I did assignments on paper but the glossiness and overall getting used to digital tools is part of the challenge I want to overcome with this course. Line quality will probably be the biggest challenge, at least while drawing in digital. Its one of the main things that I need to figure out in order to draw my manga.
Is there something I miss that I should work on improving? Do you have any advice on the already aforementioned problems/mistakes?
PS: I am still watching through the critiques, might add something to the list of things to improve.
PSS: I am also looking for a group of people to study together. On roughly similar level to keep each other accountable and to push one another.
PSSS: Thank you for your time :)
I wouldn't! I think you're moving in a great direction, as somebody who's also coming into this feeling behind haha.
The first one was my attempt before watching th demo. The second after. I struggled with making sharp edges. The tones always smudged together. But i am quite happy with my second attempt. If anyone has some words of advice for me it would make me even happier 😂
Third attempt after watching critique video and trying it on my own. Trying to slow down and use the tip for shading.
Hello!
I’m really excited to be doing this course and learning all the different elements of drawing - quite nervous posting on here for the first time haha.
First two are project assignments done before watching the demos/critiques, and the apple was done after watching the pear critique video. Feedback would be appreciated!
