I'm an abstract landscape painter and collage artist who (after decades) finally decided to get serious about learning to draw. This was SO HARD for me! I tried the snail first—stopped when I caught myself automatically filling in areas with shading. Then I moved on to the boots. Which made me imagine Egon Schiele, frantically trying to make more drawings in the days before his death from influenza at the age of 28, saying... "I will never have time to finish these shoelaces!" Not sure I have the right temperament for drawing, but I'm determined to persevere.

A very fun project! I wasn't completely sure what level of detail would be considered the contour, so I attached a couple of photos from along the way. I think I was most happy with the work from the 1st or 2nd progress picture. I tried to use some of the ideas of the "gesture" or "rhythm" lines that Stan was talking about. In the very first picture, I started from having 1 very large C curve from the top of the boots and 2 straight lines for the back of the foot down to the heel and then through the sole. This helped with getting the proportions pretty accurate to start with and I think the final drawing does hold onto the flow from the original outline more. I also added 1 "rhythm" line at the start in the boot on our right (I think), where it felt like there was a connection between the line from the back of the boot up along the part where the zipper connects the two pieces of fabric. I'm excited to see how Stan solved this problem and to go throught the critques. I might do another one tonight, or if I see something interesting today, maybe I'll take a photo of it and try drawing that. - Andrew

Jeeeeeeeaaaaan

Camel attempt, skull will be next.

I am unable to download. I'm hoping this is temporary. (access denied) EDIT: Nevermind. I can download fine - just not from my iPad.

Nice exercises! The boots were really hard to do tho. Curious to see what's the way to approach it in the next videos cause

1st attempts I definitely had trouble with the cross contour lines and the shadow areas

Drew one image per day. At first, I wasn't sure how much I should add, but going into the level 2 reference images I felt pretty confident. I still need to get better control over my hand/arm movement but otherwise I am pretty happy with how they turned out. The boots felt the most difficult, and I'm going to give it another shot tomorrow. Thanks in advance for any feedback!

Actually, thought it would be easier... But seems I need just some practice. Made 3 attempts: 1. Seems was so impressed by this snail's curiosity, and wished to reflect that in the picture, that noticed that painted it too low on the paper when it was too late to change anything. 2. When paining the second one, understood that it was challenge for me to paint with the whole arm, so made one more attempt - third one. 3. Actually, it's a bit fat and not enough curly, and looks a bit like a finger and not a curious snail head😀 Guess the best attempt from the available is number 2?

Attempted captain skully twice. First attempt was in blue. I realized I missed the point on this one after watching the demo and critique. I think I was so lost on how to start this one that the hairy lines were an inevitability. Second attempt was in pencil, I really tried to do the lines with single, confident and clean pulls. I did use some 'hairy' searching lines in place of ghosting to figure out where I wanted to place the line and then executed it and erased the hairs lol. I think it turned out much better. Would love some feedback 😁 thanks in advance!

Phew, I spent quite a bit of time on this task. When it came to the boots, I tried several approaches but kept getting stuck with the laces. All the erasing caused me to lose the CSI method during the process as well. That's why I worked on the right boot (red pencil) more quickly and without erasing. Unfortunately, I completely missed the proportions on both heels. The snail was much easier—I barely had to erase anything here.

My work before the demo. The boots were so much more difficult. Especially the lace which got me so frustrated. I feel that my line are more confident for the snail.

Two pairs of boots, before and after watching the demo. As you can see, the first one is only partially finished--I got really really frustrated with relative placement because I didn't flesh out the whole contour of the big structures of the boot in a way I was happy with before I jumped straight into working at the laces, which I found very intimidating (lol). I was less careful about proportions in the second image, but finished it and put down lines way faster & with much more confidence. First image took me ~5-6 hours; start to finish work on the second was about an hour.

Snail was fun. Got half way through my first attempt at the boots and thought "Stan can't mean us to draw the laces, surely? This is just the contours of the boots?" Then watched the demo - hmmm - yes, we are supposed to do the laces! So second attempt includes the laces - but I got the proportions of the boots wrong - only noticed once I started doing the laces - the boots are too tall. But I like the shape of them, so I stuck with what I had drawn. When you look at the laces as a collection of shapes and edges, they don't seem too bad .... I guess that's the point of the lesson?

Here are my attempts for project 2 level 1. Criticism welcome. For the snail, I realized I spent way too much time on it and will probably redo it ignoring the spirals on the shells and spending more time focusing just on the form of the snail. With the boots, the laces were very challenging and i also struggled to capture how the right boot fits in a 3d space.

Felt pretty confident about the Snail. Definitely lost that confidence in the boots. 😂 All feedback is welcome please and thank you! 🙏

Hello, My attempt with the snail. Advices and feedback are welcome, Have a nice day :)

All feedback are welcome !! My mind stumbled on the shoe laces, help ! Thanks