I had a hard time loosing up with the robot girl compared to the organic lines of the penguin. I was way too focused on the clean outlines of the robot girl. One made pre demo and a second attend after watching the demo

It’s been great looking at everyone’s homework for this. Lots of great work, and very helpful to see the range of different subjects and approaches. Anyway, I followed Marshall’s advice and just focused on very simple things. Baby steps, I guess. Aaaahhh! Posted this in the blob lesson by accident, but, meant it to go here. Sorry for double posting.

Had some long overdue home DIY before I could start this project. Fixing a leaky bathroom tap led to a cosmic resignation that the replacement valve cartridge was as good as anything to draw. Pretty dry subject matter (sorry). Studied it for a few minutes then copied Peter Han process in demo of steam train and started with an ortho to eyeball up the proportions of different sections. Then simplified to 4 forms, then a blob. Next, drew a load of blobs in different orientations. Cross contours were used as markers for the tops of each different form as a rough proportion guide. Thought about different degrees of foreshortening whilst blobbing these out. Converted to boxes with a messy pencil phase, then stuck some tracing paper over and inked with some line weight variation. Finished with some ellipses in boxes practice from the Drawing Basics course to create the lowermost form (1). Learned a few things… i) Overlapping forms create an appearance of offset from centre. Saw Peter Han do this with the cow guard of the steam train, I understood why, but only once I saw him do it. I’d never have done that if I’d been drawing cos I would not have known to. Constructing forces it to happen. ii) After drawing the ortho and simplifying to four boxes, there was zero need to revert back to the object itself - which was both revelatory and practical…cos it’s round and does not sit still on my sloping desk. Again, constructing means you just needed to draw some boxes. iii) I used a fat, blunt, soft lead mechanical pencil for the messy blob to boxes part. At first I thought I should switch to a hard, fine point pencil due to the smudgey mess…but actually the blunt soft lead meant I felt much looser and the lines were more forgiving so it was way easier to construct. iv) some viewing angles produce boring drawings! v) Hard to be perfectly consistent with proportions for all orientations done free hand but guess that is not the point here. After I finished the blobs, I could not be sure that they were gonna be at all useful but they actually were. Trust the blobs! (But ignore the bits that don’t perfectly match the subject)

Much to learn...

First attempts. I think I’ll watch the demo for these, and then attempt the camel and skull.

That was enlightening. I did both assignments, because I figured more is better when it comes to intentional practice. My first attempt, followed by a second go after watching Stan’s demos. I think the pear went well, however, my first attempt at the portrait looks like I was channeling Braque, or Picasso, and not in a good way! lol! Anyway, the second portrait is much improved, although I still see plenty of issues with it in specific areas, especially the nostrils. That was a struggle, and I definitely overworked the paper there. I may change paper, as I don’t much like the texture of what I used for this project. Also photo 4 is just to show the smudging that takes place once a spiral sketch pad is closed. Happens with all graphite, I know, but it seems worse with spiral bound books because there’s more movement. I found the demonstrations to be extremely helpful, especially helping me to define the values, and see relationships. Also, I loved that Stan talked about time, correcting and adjusting, and making choices throughout the drawing. Really excellent lesson! Very happy for any feedback folks would like to offer

The struggle is real. I’m into lesson three of Drawabox, and the advice there is to constantly turn your paper to line up the stroke. (I’ve put that on hold while I do this.) So…I found it strange to maintain the paper in one position and draw various angles. Not sure if this is a lefty thing, but it also took a bit of figuring out to determine which direction to go, push or pull, or maybe toward or away from my body, and finding an angle to draw that let me see the endpoint of the stroke without my hand or arm obscuring it. Marshall, thanks for this, I really enjoy your teaching, and especially the reality checks that this is going to be a lifelong journey with no effortless MAGIC drawing excellence. There’s already too much of that out there in the world. Oh! I also started the Drawing Basics course, so thanks for reminding me of that. I’m enjoying that as well. Working to get the solid drawing foundation that I didn’t get in art school.