I've been doing a lot in the perspective part of the course which has been quite difficult for me so I've been slowing down a fair bit in terms of new stuff. So I wanted to return to a project that I had a lot of fun with. I did my best to apply some of my new knowledge of perspective to this portrait. It was actually a fairly easy example as the the strands of hair appear roughly to be equal lengths and so they create a face plane to use as reference. As usual I had the proportions of the brow line higher than it was in the reference but less so than I had before. I also seem to have issues laying in the position of the ears, but in this case I did get the hight of the ear correctly. I then decided to do a very rough lay in of value. I started in a lot of value on the right side of the face but I didn't like where it was going so I stopped there. It actually created an interesting contrast to the portrait which I've come to like. I'm excited to to get to the shading portion of the course but doing my best to appreciate all the perspective portion. Also I should add that the image was sourced from Proko's "Portraits and Expressions Reference Bundle." I decided to get it as I was struggling to find high quality images with camera angles and expressions that I find interesting. There are many examples of extremely emotive faces which I have also tried but at the moment didn't do a great job of doing correctly. I think I'm finding that the more extreme the expression is the more important small deviations are. Whereas in a portrait like this that is in a resting face I think that a small deviation say in the width of the mouth may just make it appear as if the model is smirking for instance. But a small deviation in the mouth in an already exaggerated expression can take the portrait to looking unphysical.

Firs attempt at the pear yesterday, haven’t watched the demo yet, but did this in a HB pencil, I need to find my other pencils but just wanted to get stuck in and have ago , will try again once I find my pencils so that I can get a better range of values. will watch the demo and draw again to see what I’ve learned. feedback is appreciated !

Hi ! I finaly decied to start this course. Here are my work on the two level projetcs. Please feel free to comment or advice :) Personally, I think I didn't manage to simplify as much as was required in the exercise.

This was one of the first projects that just didn't vibe with me or interest me at all, but I think I just picked too boring of a subject. I just picked an office space because that's where I was sitting at the time. Seeing Stan's demo really peaked my interest however. Reminded me the importance of picking interesting things to draw!

Haha really fun project! I can definitely see the importance of doing longer sessions with these. I think at the start they were very contour heavy. I noticed at some point for a couple of drawings that I really did feel like I was "flowing" through the pose. But then once I noticed it I kind of lost it and went back to seeing contours. I'll have to keep working on more of these to try and get better at switching modes. I noticed some obvious ideas I had wrong too during the demo and hopefully enough other people made the same mistakes during the demo that I can learn from :). Maybe I'll do this set again or try one of the "tool" packs? Cheers, Andrew P.S. I really cant seem to get my lines to come through darkly when I take a photo. I'm using a pixel 8a which I thought had a decent camera but yes everything seems very low contrast. P.P.S when I moved the files over to my phone the order got scrambled so I will leave it to you to figure out the order they were drawn in, haha.

Twas a lot of fun. Shocked how far off I got though :D I guess this one will take some more practice.I think I really messed up the width of the side of the head (ears and right edge of hat) and esspecially the highs. I moved those babies up like a whole inch. Left shoulder I put in kind of by eye and also trying to match it with a point on the scarf I thought I identified well but I guess I was off. Oh well, onto the next, haha.

It cracked me up realizing how much of a visceral reaction I felt when he started erasing so much over half way through :D but all the changes Mr. Prokopenko made were correct so I guess I need to build up that confidence haha :'D

Just a clarifying question. I did the exercise and saw as i made more attempts at the same simplification they improved but simplifying was really a struggle in general. Should I stay on this lesson and really drill it until I'm comfortable or move on to other lessons and just practice this in the background. Really appreciate any advice!

Okay, so that was super fun! I found a Dave Malan drawing that I loved. There are some super clean lines in the face and some very heavy rough lines in the hair and forearms. I definitely need to do more of these. It was really cool identifying things we have learned and seeing how they were likely being considered when the pro was making the original. As always, proportions are off but fortunately,y since the original had the proportions of a child it kind of made mine just seem like an adult, haha. There's a lot I'm happy with in this :) First thing I noticed, too is that I got the value of the lines in the hair quite a bit off. Probably could have pulled out a darker pencil for those lines. I think I was working with a 4b if I remember correctly.

Made a quick little drawing while watching. It was just a little bunny (attached) and I wanted to try and indicate the speed through the line weight. My thought was that I would indicate the parts of the motion which were in tight/stretched/pressure with a think line and the parts that I see as being relaxed were lighter. Not sure i'm 100% happy with it but atleast 70%. If anyone wants to try and make their own running rabbit I'd love to see how you tackle the speed aspect :) Edited a quick overlay of reference and drawing. My only excuse is that I I intentionally gave the front weight bearing paw an big curve to try and cue that its weight bearing. The rest is my generally messing up proportions. I think the ears I should have been able to get right as I realize my angle on the ears are just generally too much.