Drawing Basics - Lines - Project - Line Master Studies I studied part of The Painter and The Buyer (1565) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1525–1569). I struggled with the proportions (I'm working on it) and I didn't manage to get all of the lovely sweep of his lines. It made me appreciate the drawing much more though. I love the hand and the shape of the thumb in particular – it seems very modern. I also like the variety of the marks to render the stitching on the jacket and the way the paper is left unmarked for the beard on the chin.

I did a bit of digging into research on line art. Aaron Hertzmann has an interesting and accessible series of blogs describing some of his research in the field of non-photorealistic rendering. https://aaronhertzmann.com/2020/09/12/how-to-draw-pictures-contours.html https://aaronhertzmann.com/2020/09/13/how-to-draw-pictures-suggestive-contours.html https://aaronhertzmann.com/2020/09/14/how-to-draw-pictures-style.html https://aaronhertzmann.com/2021/05/19/how-to-draw-line-thickness.html Some of this is similar to the line weight methods that have been presented in the course. The paper, Where Do People Draw Lines? is interesting too. https://gfx.cs.princeton.edu/pubs/Cole_2008_WDP/cole_2008_wdp.pdf

Drawing Basics - Lines - Project - Organizing Line Weight I enjoyed this a lot. I couldn't resist the opportunity to use pen. Hierarchy of Importance - Drawn on tracing paper with Sakura Pigma Micron 01 (0.25mm) and 08 (0.5mm). Light and Shadow - Drawn on tracing paper with a Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen - Hard.

Drawing Basics - Lines - Project - Learning to Sketch from Observation There are issues with proportions with all of them, but it's been a helpful exercise to make me use my whole arm more and practice tapered strokes – most successfully with VR Girl.

Level 1 assignments

One area I struggled with was pencil technique - getting good separation between the lightest dark and the darkest light, while still getting good separation in the lights. My most successful attempts are just using an HB pencil, adding successive layers of graphite. Any tips for which hardness pencil to use for which value? I know it won't be a firm rule, just looking for ideas of other things to try!