Before and after demo. Would appreciate critique!

First 2 of the other pear photos. Third one is my first attempt before watching the video. Definitely cleaner than the first two. Last one is after watching the video. Biggest takeaway for me was organizing my values better. Fill in the whole shadow area with a single tone and then go back and darken it where i want that 5th value. Same with the light areas.

I only had time to do one 25 minute drawing but hopefully I’m not too late!!

I have a couple ideas! Gesture drawing used to really stress me out too. I guess it kinda all depends what you think is causing the mental block, like you mentioned that you know they aren’t supposed to look like a finished drawing. I would amend that by saying they don’t “have” to look like a finished drawing. My first tip since you said your really like copying other artists is to do just that. Play to your strengths. Find artists whose style of gesture drawing your really like and copy them. I personally really like the aesthetic of artists like Mike Mattesi, Diego Lucia and Ryan Woodward. Ryan Woodward in particular has a great little book that you can buy as a pdf that talks about his approach and his gesture drawings are absolutely beautiful. Secondly, shut off the timer for now. I think most would agree the time recommendation at least at first is more to try and help you get mileage with the process and to stop you from zoning in too much on the details. I struggled with this idea a lot at first finding the timer exacerbated the insecurity I had when trying to make choices about what lines to put down and what to avoid. I started leaving out the timer and just focusing on taking the time I needed to understand the process of gesture drawing and trying to make it second nature, only adding the timer back when I felt more comfortable overall. This also goes for mannequinizing and anatomy. Learn to do it slow before trying to do it fast. My last recommendation works well especially digitally but can also be done traditionally. Try tracing gesture over photos to get comfortable finding the gesture. I would specifically recommend doing this the way Stan recommends copying his drawings. Try it yourself first based on a photo, then trace over the photo, then look at both to see what needs to be corrected and try again on your own. Digitally, you can just lower the opacity of the photo in whatever software you use, and draw over it with something bright, or if you work traditionally sports magazines are great places to find fun dynamic poses. Sorry, the real last one. No single concept is going to make you a failure as an artist, so don’t quit because gesture drawing is stumping you. It’s a really tricky concept and you will get it if you keep working at it, but also, give yourself a break. Don’t expect to stick to gesture until you’re perfect at it. If you’re going through Stan’s figure course, practice gesture for a couple weeks or even just a week if it’s really frustrating you, and then move on. Obviously you’re gonna have to come back to it, but having a basic understanding of the process in the back of your mind will allow the other concepts to help inform your understanding and comfortability with gesture when you come back to it. Eventually, it’s a good idea to make timed gesture a part of your daily warm up, but that can come later. I hope something in there helps and I hope you don’t give up.

2021/11/24. Good morning everybody. Here's a preparatory study I'm doing for my new illustration. I think I drew her a little too long (too much distance between the breast and the shoulder?). Do you guys see any other mistakes or something I should be careful about? Thanks and have a good day.

I made some gesture drawings from these model photos after watching the first video about gesture :). All advices and opinions are welcome!

Hello everyone, these are 2-minute gesture drawings I've done for the past couple of days. I feel like they're a bit on the cartoony side and not that realistic/proportional. The way I drew these was by starting with the robo bean and then attaching the limbs.  Do I need to learn anatomy in conjunction with figure drawing to make my drawings look more realistic/proportional? Or should I just focus on figure drawing for now and worry about anatomy further down the line?

My favourites for the mannequinization lesson!