Hello! These drawings look great. You seem to have the right idea and understand the concept of designing simplified value shapes that represent plane changes on an object. One small critique I have is that some of your shapes, particularly in the lighter value range, aren't as well defined as the darker value shapes. They feel more like render than simplified shapes, making it challenging to judge them as shapes in the context of the assignment. I think I notice this the most in the portrait, so I'm excited to see your second attempt with that one. It looks like your paper has some tooth to it, which gives it that texture and might be making it difficult to smudge. I like using printer paper for sketching with pencil, it's cheap. readily available and really smooth. If you're trying to smudge with your fingers instead of a blending stump, the oils on your fingertip might be getting in the way as well.

Oh wow, the portrait is lovely! There's huge improvement in the shading between the portrait and the pear. I think with the portrait, I'd want to see if I could darken all the values on the right side of the face (the side in shadow, our right). There's a really nice dark value shape that you included on the left side around the eye that feels a bit out of place being darker than the value shapes on the side of the face in shadow. Darkening those value shapes will help reinforce that those planes are turned further away from the light source.