Here's my final assignment. A little peaceful moment when my son encountered a frog and a ladybug at the same time down by the lake. I'm all ears to hear anything that you think can enhance this drawing. I just want to improve. One thing I know for sure is that I want to add more minimal pools of color, but since this is a line weight course I didn't do anything with color more than the ladybug.

Here is my first final assignment, it's kind of a mix between the robot and line weight courses. I think I will come back review the lessons in a few month and do the projects once again to see the progression. But overall I'm happy with it, I couldn't do a drawing like this before this course (even if there is a huge room for improvement). I think a great addition to the course would be 15~20min videos of masters studies ! When I've done the Bill Waterson study I learned things but was wondering why he was doing this or that and, to see your study and point of view after doing mine would be really interesting. A video on Bill waterson, another one on moebius etc, alike lessons. Anyway thank-you for this course.

Digital ink of an old sketch - thought this one would be a good one to practice textures and tones. It’s tough! I need to have a bash in real inks too - it feels as though building up the textures may be easier in real ink (although no undo 😬). Still feels a bit unnatural - need to practice!

Alright, I tried to digest as most as possible all those videos. There was a lot of great advice, so much that it's hard to think of them all while drawing. From a pencil rough I tried both digital and traditional inking ! I tried to put here and there the different type of lines. I see now that hatching is quite a science that I don't master yet... I think the hardest thing for me is the balance of contrast. Add details in the background so that it's not blank, but not too much to loose the focal point. A fine balance... In traditional I feel like it is especially daunting to put big black shapes as if there was nothing you could do about it if it sucks ^^' Anyway, I would appreciate any feed-back on this assignment ! I had a great time following the lectures, thank you a lot ! It made me want to focus more on line-art and I'll definitely keep working on that ! I will also keep in mind the mantra "The good line is the one you don't draw" ;)

Could it be better? Absolutely, but I feel pretty good about it. It's an improvement from the beginning of the course. I'm more comfortable using ink and drawing lines with intention. I know I have lots of space for growth, but I'm looking forward to practicing and learning. Thanks for the class.

I think I'll go ahead and submit this for my final, though I think it's more of a sketch than a finished piece of art at this point... But at least it has some of the things we've covered including line weight, character of line, hatching, and some open lines. This is a ballpoint sketch of a tarot Hanged Man original art design - I want to do a more finished dip-pen version in the future after I work out a few rendering details.

Working on my final assignment - not quite there yet, but one thing that sidetracked me was rendering a tree trunk with pen and ink in a way that shows texture of the bark (roughly based on a giant Sequoia) and also shows overall tree form with a cylindrical shadow pattern around the trunk. These are the studies I've done - I think the last one is getting close to what I want to go for in the final project. The first picture excerpt is from a ballpoint draft of my final project, the studies are in dip pen which I'll also use for the final. I think the approach I'm preferring is to use contour shadows along each 'rib' of the trunk, and just make those shadows longer as the ribs wrap around the cylinder away from the light. Then use vertical texture markings to add 'woodiness' in a way that doesn't compete with the shadow contours. This seems to work better than using some overall hatching over the top of the trunk texture - looks too arbitrary - or over-contouring everything which loses the unity of the trunk. Still need to tweak but suggestions, hints, critiques most welcome on this element!

I feel that I'm struggling to find the balance between hatching and contour lines, also a lack of economy ? Know when to leave it white when the subject is dark is challenging me. I tried to let lines out but I guess that's not natural yet, I'm fighting myself but I feel the beauty of it now ! Thanks for the course it is great value I've improved already and I'll keep practicing it's a real pleasure.

This is my (unfinished) final project. I am still working on it, but wanted to post it in case any of you have any suggestions. The background is barely sketched out (I'm going to place a massive tree and attempt simulating the texture of tree bark :O I think I'm going to add some more fur on the chipmunk and a little more texture on the bird, but I am kinda clueless about how to jazz up the frog. I could add spots. I feel like I am missing an opportunity to show more texture, highlights or shading. I am open to any suggestions!! Thanks