I tried this exercise for the first time and it was so much harder than i thought. And while drawing the shoes, i hadnt thought through and didnt have enough space to finish the entire shoe. Would love some some feedback on this. Thanks!

Before demo and after. Whew. I tried to go too detailed which, obviously, I'm not ready for, and proportions where wonky, but not totally unhappy with thr original contour. Definitely improved after watching the demo. Trying to do too much too fast.

How can I maintain accurate proportions in a drawing when using only freehand lines?

I really struggled with this one. I had a few tries on my own and wasn’t happy with them. After watching the demo videos, I tried again and was a little happier with the results, but I see all of these other submissions and they’re SO good that I get discouraged. I’ve always wanted to draw better, but it has always eluded me.

Third attempt

This is before the demo

These were really fun. I think the hardest by far was the laces on the boots, so easy to get stuck on details but then properly simplifying is tricky

Snail 1

The first snail and first left boot I did before watching the demo. Got a bit overwhelmed with the laces and wanted to do draw the right one as a comparison after watching. I think they look decent proportionally but I definitely wasn’t doing as confident lines as I’d like to so the first right boot was that attempt. I wanted to put in a little more time here and not try to move on too quickly so I decided to draw them bigger using a whole page for each to see if that would help my lines. For the second two the proportions definitely suffered but I was mainly focusing on confident lines even though it may not look like. They were confidently drawn, just not executed. Lol Gotta get my hand/arm more trained.

Any and all feedback is welcome! This was hard. For the snail I planned it out in pencil then went over with a fineliner, but I wondered if that was missing the point of the exercise, so I tried to do the boots in just 1 take. I did still draw some guidelines and even then ended up being quite messy though. Edit: to be clear I did allow myself to erase. I just didn't draw with the assumption that I'd follow up with a clean pass.

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!