Looks great

These look very very nice! You seem like you're starting with a lot of good skills already! :). But I would agree that I think you probably could have simplified the edges of the value group a bit more. There's a quote Stan says in one of his demo videos that I will plagiarize here that for a lot of the projects "we're not trying to draw a beautiful [pear], we're trying to practice skills so you can draw a beautiful anything." The quote sometimes helps to keep me focused on the purpose of the project. In this case I think you drew a very beautiful pear and very good man but failed to simplify the regions of different values. These drawings are probably "better looking" because you didn't simplify them as much but the goal for these isn't make a good looking drawing. It will probably be good to watch Stan's demo and critique video and then give these another try.

This seems like a great first attempt! I can see quite well where you are trying to define the different borders of value. I think you're getting a very good dark range of values but are maybe under-utilizing the lighter end of values? For youre lightest value you could even pick using no added value and just using the white of the page. It would probably be good to see also what is the lightest value you can make with the HB pencil, currently you're lightest pencil marks on the highlights of the pear are pretty close to some of the lightest spots on the shadow of the pear. Good idea to try another after you watch the demo, that's been my strategy through the whole course as well. Give you a lot of course correction as you go!

Heck yeah! Keep it up 👍

Nice references! Also good simplified shapes! I think you can definitely get some more value out of your pencil, keep layering to achieve a fuller darkest value. That will give you more of a value range to work with :)

It looks like you have a very good understanding of simplification, shapes and values. This is advanced work. It's cool to see your progress as well, thanks for sharing! Something that might help you is to squint at the image. It helps reduce the subtle value shifts so you can see and interpret the major shapes. Your pear drawing looks great when you squint at it. The portrait looks good overall, but the shadow shape under the cheekbone sticks out to me a bit more than it does in the reference image. I made that shape a bit bigger and put a gaussian blur filter on it to see the overall effect. You may see other things you want to adjust using this technique. Hope that is helpful to you!

@Michael, this is a good pear 👍 I wouldn't have known you were an absolute beginner if you hadn't mentioned it. I wanted to share this image of the properties of light with you, since I think something you can work on is improving the design of your value shapes. There is a whole section later on that covers value and light & shadow, but this is a very simple introduction that hopefully helps you design with more information. Specifically, I think the core shadow will be more successful as a simple shape instead of spots on the pear. I included a draw over of what I mean. Overall, really great job with this project!

Your shading is more consistent in this one. Great job with the hard edges. Definitely a win, nicely done.

I think your portrait looks excellent! Those aren't the model's proportions, but in terms of the assignment it's perfect. I personally think it has great style. The pears are well done also. On the second pear you used a darker value for the bruising on the pear; you just want to focus on the plane changes for this exercise. Even though it is a darker value than the rest of the skin of the pear, there's no need to include it. It's a detail that isn't important to the structure of the pear, which is what we are trying to capture here. Overall, very nice work 👍

i hope the foto reply makes sense. i can see that any problem that you're having here, will be taught later in the course!