Here's my lvl 1 boots. No demo. It's funny that this is a lvl 1. I have actually tattooed a similar image called the soldiers cross, but in our industry we trace the one HQ pic of it. Never had to draw one from scratch. Quite hard to keep proportions. Will post the others later

Here are my level 1 submissions before watching the demo. I found it to be very difficult to balance the detail with simple lines for the boots. One thing I'm noticing is that fatigue is getting in my way. I know it will improve as I continue to practice, but are there any exercises that are good for building up endurance in drawing? The more I can practice the better and at a certain point it feels like my brain is trying to melt out of my eye sockets.

Simplify portrait before demo

Hello! I count all 5 values, so you did a great job with that. I do hear you about the "muddiness" in the light value range. I would recommend taking some artistic liberties and designing shapes based not only on the reference image, but using your understanding of the form and planes of a pear to inform the lighting in your drawing. If you imagine a pear as if it were a low-poly model, like in the tracing I attached, you can place invented value shapes on the form based on how you think the light would hit each plane. Just an idea for further exploration, I like your drawing and you met the requirements of the exercise :)