Level 2 attempt.

Thinking of portraits as blobs makes it easier to imagine how light would hit the forms. Drawing a simplified egg as a lighting reference seems to make shading more complicated forms easier as well. I struggled a lot with where to put halftones and how light/dark they should be, but following along with Stan's thought process during the demos resolved a bit of the confusion. During this assignment I felt that there's an acceptable margin of error for shading organic forms, that makes them feel 'believable' despite not being completely accurate. So I got less stuck up on trying to make the shadow shapes 100% accurate as I did more blob heads, and I felt a lot more comfortable/confident with lighting them from imagination. I primarily used airbrushes to create soft edges for the first few blob heads, then afterwards used the hard round brush to practice controlling edges with pen pressure/opacity jitter.

Values and edges will be the end of me

Here are my level 1 and 2 assignments. Every new assignment I'm getting a greater appreciation for how much can be achieved with subtle difference. I'm going to keep focusing on improving my used of mid-tones

This version of this exercise made me realize that I am unsure of how to properly shade rounded forms. I also need to practice more with shading gradations.

I find the exercise one of the most difficult from the entire course. It's also the first time when i try charcoal creyons and charcoal paper. Any suggestions on how i can befriend this material?

This was harder that I thought! Simplifying it makes it easier and also a bit harder because I'm making my own decisions and not literally reproducing it exactly. That is what I want to learn, but it still proves quite difficult. I'm not sure if my edges and shadows are correctly done, feedback is welcome! But I'll also check all the demo's of course.

Another one... trying to improve the rendering of values and edges but still looks messy...

Im happy with the final result... As far as my knowledge goes this is a some what good representation of the lighting of the portrait and the edges. But then again, I might be very wrong... any feedback is welcome.

Constructive criticism is invited. Used the airbrush (Krita) for these drawings, with only 4 values.

I finally started working with charcoal on newsprint paper, and I’m really enjoying the process. I have one question: should I add core shadows on the face even when there isn’t a nearby surface to create reflected light? If yes, where would the core shadows be placed?

Please please please some harsh criticism, I want to get better. Thank you

Some of my practices

Blobby heads. I had really no clue when I started, got somewhat better towards the last sheet, I think. I did these before watching the demo - after the demo I see it's pretty apparent that there are too many places where the shapes are not fully contained. >.<