From reference

yo~~

Second attempt at drawing those Seals as I rewatched Stan. Trying to adapt the mindset of energy and gesture in these drawings. I know it will take more practice.

It was really fun :)

Personally I find it quite hard to focus on the gesture alone and run with the flow. Keep getting distracted by the outline. However, once I started to put down more sketchy guide lines it became a whole lot easier to build gesture lines on top.

Seals photos 1-10 for the second time and I am happy with the improvement.

Hi, The demo was very helpful. What stood out to me the most was the note about the supporting gesture, which really gave me a lot to think about. I'm sharing some sketches I made after watching the demo. Any feedback is more than welcome 😊

Drawing Basics- Shapes- Dynamic Shapes from Reference-Seals Demo: HaHa- Well, when I submitted drawings under the previous lesson: Project-Dynamic Shapes, I used photos from a 45 year-old "Book of Sea Mammals" because I didn't realize there was a whole pack of seal reference photos included in the lesson! So I drew these while Stan was Demo'ing this lesson. I'll draw more tomorrow, and then try some from memory/imagination. FYI- Sea lions have the big, flexible, dynamic front flippers and external ears. Think- "The circus has performing lions and sea lions."

This time I started with a more fluid gesture, refined the structure, then tried to exaggerate or alter certain lines to make them more interesting. I’m not sure how successful I was, but I think I’m starting to understand this exercise a little better.

Here’s another one. I tried to be mindful of how the viewer’s eye moves through the form but I’m not sure whether it actually makes sense or I’ve just been staring at it for too long, LOL! I’m still having a hard time designing the shapes in a way that’s different from what I’m seeing in the reference.

I’m finding it challenging to sketch without cleaning up my lines! I’m going to try a few without allowing myself to erase anything.

Second attempt after watching the demo. tried not to clean my lines up too much to stop myself from trying to be too perfect

Second try, I always like the betta fish, and I think they fins are full of dynamic shapes!

if anyone can give any suggestions please.

it Was hard, specially at the beginning, but it was really fun, I will keep trying! n.n

I took a lot of time to get to the "after demo" set after I was done with the initial pre-demo part of the project. All in all, I feel like I forgot a lot during the skip, and my quality is wildly swinging from okay to awful. But oh well, at least the exercise and the subject matter was fun :D I'll have to come back to dynamic shapes anyway in the future, I feel it's my worst skill area so far.

Hello here are my practice sessions for this morning. Very fun to do

So satisfying to draw em, but still is hard when foreshortening is strong

I know there are a lot of comments mentioning that this is a nice break from the proportion project, but it is the opposite for me. At least in the proportion project, I felt an underlying sense of how well it was going and had a proper vision of what I wanted to draw—even if the final result wasn’t fully accurate. Capturing the energy of the shape, forgetting about the outline, finding the gesture line, etc.—all of this feels way harder. Initially, I started in my standard-size sketchbook, but after a while, I found it really frustrating to draw on a small page, so I switched to my bigger drawing pad (11x14 inches). That size felt way more comfortable than my sketchbook. I spent weeks on this project, mostly due to frustration that I was not getting it. I did some studies on the gesture bean to try to "get it". I still feel like I don’t get it. But I have to move on to the next project. I absolutely fell for the snowman trap for seal #30. I love the comparison between the two attempts. P.S - all of the "post" drawings are after watching the demo and the critique videos.

This time I tried for actual shapes instead of just gestural lines. This definitely takes actual practice to get my hand to go where my mind wants it to go.