I am getting more comfortable with each attempt.

I did a draw along and tried it on a back reference picture from the Back Anatomy reference pack. I referenced the Watts Atelier Instructors Companion Workbook. Although the workbook shows rhythms this course helped make sense of the landmarks and why they are used.

I paused the video on each picture and made an attempt before seeing the correct method. I got it wrong most of the time but took notes each time I got something wrong to try and understand how to improve and put the correct bean next to it.

In the first attempt I only got 30mins into the demo and got frustrated and rushed it. The second I used a different charcoal pencil which helped me lay down tone. I focused on trying to properly use charcoal as a medium but the proportions suffered. Overall I feel I improved in some aspect. I tried working on a larger scale which was challenging and made all of my weaknesses more obvious. Overall I found it a fun process and find it easier to find what I need to improve on by drawing larger.

I followed Stan drawing in each stage as a guide at some stages I copied what he did and other times I tried making my own attempts throughout. It ended up a bit weird with a mix of smudginess to set tone and using lines for shading highlighting the plane changes. If anyone has any feedback on how to improve and what to pay attention to while practising on other portraits it would be appreciated. Thanks 😊.