When I was trying the Mario Mushroom exercise, all my line were lost lines it was very frustrating and disheartening…

My attempt at drawing some animals.

For Miss Robot, I first used a red pencil to rough in the drawing. I think she turned out pretty well, but got a little messy. I traced over the first drawing to better see the final result. She still needs work.

This is a good way of thinking about lines. Its nice to know they all have their place.

Fantastic bonus lesson Stan…just clarified my ‘searching thoughts’ about the various introductions of the different line exercises. I just stopped spinning and started dancing!

Dang, that was helpful. Thanks. I feel like spend a lot of time and anxiety in this space.

Sketching from imagination from a velvet work & a hat. A character for my 2 yr old granddaughter to color. I worked it out on my tablet, then sketched w/ pencil

Thank you Stan for confirming the use case of lost lines! That made me not so frustrated when I drawing down a mess to get my thoughts materialized. But in another case, if I'm not very good at drawing some kinds of shapes(especially ellipse), I tend to draw down "lost lines", even I'm so clear about which shapes they should be. I just can't control my arm and shoulder. Here is a typical failure below.

Looking back through my last few days of drawings I noticed I end up with "lost" lines when I have no idea how I am suppose to translate a reference to the page. Those lines help me stay ahead of any fear from a blank page since no stroke is precious in that mess. This gives me the confidence to keep making marks until I figure things out. If I am lucky enough to feel I know what I am doing, I start on "searching" lines. Otherwise it a second pass from the "lost" line scribble with a better plan of action. I still have to search because I'm not skilled enough to make clean lines without some under drawing. "Clean" lines either come after lots of deliberation, hesitation and ghosting or are an over draw based on "searching" lines.

I just want to say thank you Stan - I was kind of fixed in my head to have as clean lines as possible (but still drawing things loosely) and I was wondering if I am missing something. I think I found the answer in this video to utilize more "searching lines" because at the end at the current stage of the course, I should be sketching and learning to do it fairly quickly, not focusing on making my sketch look like the finished work.

So just to confirm, when you do the single clean line, you use tapered lines to achieve it?

This lesson is actually very helpful. Thank you for pointing out that thought-vomiting has value. Sometimes, it's all I can do when trying to get out an idea.

Just because I’ve bern drawing so much of the lv. 1 assignment, the VR girl is turning into a character. Next I’ll add the penguin

This is what I like about drawing digitally. I can make my "tought vomiting lines" (love that term) or make some rough layout lines with a broad brush and than put that in the back with low opacity (like putting a piece of paper over it on a lighttable) and go over it with cleaner, now more confident lines. Does that make sense?

Been sick this past week and not having any energy to practice. Feeling on the way to getting better, and will catch up, though not meeting the deadline. Enjoy the course and all the feedback learning from feedback to others.

I’m definitely a ‘lost lines’ by default but it does really help to quickly express and refine ideas. One question - when moving from the neater searching lines to clean lines, would you always need to trace (light table or scan and digitize) or do clean lines come for an entire drawing with ease once you get the experience? If the default is trace how do you not lose the dynamic line quality? Nice video to show the options 👍

I like this trick. It will be really helpful for me. Greatful to see my growth.

I love this video.....very helpful! Thanks for putting in the extra tidbit.

Trying to practice the sketchy CSI the last few days have made me feel lost, going from the simplification of lines when drawing from reference felt really good then switching to using searching lines to find the image has made me feel unconfident because i felt like i could get a better image when drawing what i see instead of searching for it. But I do see the value of using sketching to draw an image so i can invent on the page. I think that maybe understanding Stans opinion of lost lines vs searching lines has given me a little bit more confidence. I think it could also just be a lack of knowledge when drawing people as well and so i'm not exactly sure what i'm searching for when drawing to begin with. I don't know.