10 month progress! :D

I don’t know that I’ve learned from many instructors as much as I learn from you. I finally hit my one year art anniversary, though I’ve drawn 10 of those 12 months due to neuro/health issues. :D I dived from nothing straight into the anatomy course - both a horrid and a wonderful idea in the end, as it forced me to face my fears, using this course and Marshall’s lectures. I went from zero to being able to draw bodies even from imagination a little bit. I’m so so grateful to you, you have no idea. Lots of instructors skip over things you cover that help me finally understand stuff I struggle with and I’m so visual in my learning that I need to see you do things to get it. You’re so indispensable, thank you for all you do 🥹 When I realized we would be tackling values too I was so happy.

Art is one of those fickle métiers where someone’s lessons either click with you or don’t. But with yours @marshall not a day or an art session goes by when I don’t put what you teach into practice. :D I only wish I had a superbrain so I could absorb more haha. I’ll support the hell out of you no matter what. *nods* - Lin

One of my first figures from memory from April 5th (when I decided to stop being scared of tackling the human body), and a recent one after six months of studying figures. Imagination is really hard and I’m still figuring how things bend especially with fantasy stuff/weird proportions. X.X

Head progress over the last 7 months :D Now tackling figures!

Michael, I've only been drawing for 7 months now but it hasn't been easy. Very little remains from each practice session even after 6-8 hrs of daily practice through these months (it's the way of art, isn't it, with it being a marathon not a sprint). However, what I've learned from you has instantly stuck to me and I am just so grateful. You explain things succinctly and well, and it just resonates with me - so I wanted to say thank you so much. :D

Thanks for the video Stan. Every time I watch a video of you doing / talking about your process for using rhythms for gesture drawing I gain more insight to ways of thinking of, and going about tackling, your method for rhythms and gestures. After watching this video I feel like I have a lot of room to explore using longer rhythm lines. I watch Michael Mattesi’s Force Fridays every week, and he has a different method for thinking about rhythms which concentrates on the rhythms of the forces of motion and gravity that move through the body, instead of drawing longer rhythm lines. In his case, the longer rhythm lines would be the imaginary lines that connect the lines that you draw, flowing that force from the one line to the apex curve of the next opposing sides line. So I had to adjust to the way that you go about it. I really like Mattesi’s Force method, but, at the moment, I find your method works in a way that is easier for me to get things more consistently “accurate,” when drawing from a reference. I feel like I am getting better results this way. Although I do find that when drawing using, more, your type of rhythm lines, I am still trying to think about how the Force would flow through it. I am convinced that there is some way to incorporate both of your two methods into one hybrid version of the two, and that that method will end up working the best for me. Right now my brain is a bit caught in between. I also wanted to thank you for your kind words about my comments. That was really nice to hear. It meant a lot. I always worry when I give feedback that I may be incorrect, or just think something is supposed to be done one way, when there are actually other ways, that I don’t know about, that are as equally valid a way of doing something. I don’t want to steer someone away from something that is just different from the way I understand it, but is not “wrong.” But at the same time when I feel like I might be able to help someone, I feel like I don’t want to not try to do that. You have encouraged me to keep trying to be of help, even though I am still just learning myself. I find it actually helps me understand some things more when I take the time to try and explain it, because I really have to think about it first.

Thanks Stan, I'll keep doing them! And I'll make sure my feet rhythms are up to standard! Honestly it just gets more fun once you get better at it, so for me it's not such a struggle anymore to sit and do quick-sketch! Can't wait to fail at drawing cubes and cylinders next, oh boy! :)

Thank you, Stan, it feels so strange to be called advanced when only 2 months ago I was first trying to understand beans and tapered lines and boxes and 3D space. XD I have been practicing and hopefully some of the proportion issues have and will continue to get better. Thank you Steven Wolf as well, you always help us with excellent critiques. 😊

Hey Stan, something that always helped me in school was always asking the teacher what a certain concept or lesson was trying to eventually teach me to be able to do to help me visualize the concept of the lesson better. It can feel discouraging at times when i practice I don't feel like i'm seeing the eventual arrival location of the practice. If you, or anyone else could help me comprehend what you would say the "major" long term effect of the lesson is all about that would really help me out. Please excuse me if i am coming off as rude, i have a bad habit of seeing the trees instead of the forest.