Venessa, I like what you did here as well. I think I should have simplified my boots more, but I couldn't stop myself. I want to take another run at it. I want to stay in the same vein as you did. Great gob, good work.

The idea is to simplify the greyscale value of the image. If you struggle to see what colors should be lighter/darker, try editing the photo to take out the color and compare it to the original. I find that squinting my eyes or letting them relax out of focus helps me break up the values into simpler blocks.

Quaint.

Hey, @Vanessa, good job! By comparing the different pages, I can definitely tell you have improved during that time. If you haven’t already, I’d say yeah, go ahead and move on with the course. As an overall recommendation as you keep practicing gesture in the future, I’d say look for pushing the exaggeration even more. Consider “What is this pose about?”, and then imagine ways you can make it even more intense and visually assertive. Think of the silhouette, the forces involved and how the rhythms flow one to the other across the pose as you design each gesture sketch. As to using your limited time efficiently, I’d suggest making your practice as deliberate as you can: define one clear focus for each practice session (for example, “exaggerate the poses”, or “line of action”, or “look for flowing rhythms across the body”); be open to making mistakes; and take some time along your practice to awarely and non-judgementally examine how you did and be mindful of how you can improve as you keep going. Deliberate practice is kind of the opposite of “just doodling” - you set an intention for your practice and assess your own work based on that intention. Another thing I like to do is to use the Pomodoro technique: it’s based on defining short periods of intense focus balanced with quick frequent breaks. To me, it’s a good way to keep focus when I know I have a short time span to concentrate. If you’re interested, maybe do some Googling on it? Hope this helps!