Lovely paintings @michaelcr !! I looked over the video that you linked -- I think that in your apple painting you replicated the first 50% of the process really well. It looks like the artist (Cha Yeon) then started to add browns, blues, and greens into the shadows of the apple that are much darker than the light side (that bright red that you're successfully painted). I would recommend watching Dorian's Proko video talking about how to shade realistically https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vapw6n6FyU and also to really push and exaggerate the shadows (core and cast shadows) of your apple or other still life object, like you've done wonderfully with the first painting. Hope that helps! Happy painting and keep up the great work!!

@Atharva Lotake This is so cool!! I love how you positioned the camera angle so that it feels as if your character is powerfully watching over the city, and the contrast between the towering buildings and rooftops and the tiny cars is really effective. I think that you can consider varying your line thickness as you go back farther into space to really push the sense of depth in your drawing, especially because you are only working with line and no tone thus far. You've already done it really effectively in some areas, but all the foreground buildings and their details should definitely have thicker line work than those in the mid-ground. As for the composition and focal point, it depends on what you're trying to accomplish! If you want your character to be the focal point, I recommend making them bigger. Consider how your character is feeling, and how that might affect the way their body is positioned -- are they just floating in one place, are they flying to somewhere further down in the composition, are they in peril or rescuing someone in peril? Since your buildings are very vertical and so is the gesture of your character, my eye immediately goes to the cape that your character is wearing, since it's curving and feels more organic than the rest of the scene, and because it's so different from the way all the other lines and shapes feel, it stands out the most by contrast. Hope that helps a little. Keep up the great work!! :)

@Kako Great color study! I think that you captured all of these different hue and value changes really beautifully. I just wanted to add that something you could pay attention to is the way that the color and value dulls and darkens in that top shelf behind the glass, as well as that area where the right wall of the fridge has a reflected image of the beverages. For instance, because of the way that the thickness or slight tint of the glass obscures the pastries, especially in the very top shelf, those pastries are much darker and desaturated in value in comparison to the beverages that are just displayed in the open. Hope that helps! Keep up the good work! :)

Hi @Brad Guinen ! I absolutely love these plein air studies! Especially the way that you contrast manmade structures against organic foliage and other natural elements -- it really makes your subjects stand out. I also think that your colors and values and attentiveness to detail are all really effective. As Luigi said, something that you can consider paying attention to is working on your values. Consider doing a small thumbnail sketch before you begin painting, in pen or pencil or whatever feels most convenient for you-- no details, just the simple black and white notan statement of the scene that you want to paint in big broad shapes. This tiny notan study can help guide you to maintain a strong value structure as you paint, and as long as you stay to that notan, you can create a lot of different temperature and color shifts that are present from all that sunlight bouncing around. As for observing and painting color and temperature more specifically, it can help to ask yourself what the lighting conditions and weather are like before you start painting. Bright sunny weather means that there'll be a lot of light and therefore color bouncing around, giving you an opportunity to create a lot of temperature variations and to push for more vibrant colors. If you're painting in overcast weather, you can really push or exaggerate how cloudy or gray or 'local color' everything is, to really convey the mood and setting you're painting from. I also think that you can push the depth in your shadows by creating more temperature variations. Hope this helps! Really looking forward to your next studies!! :)