My first attempt, I think I was a bit lazy with my shading and could have simplified further. Would love some critique.

Here is my third attempt at simplifying shapes and using 5 shades of grey. I think i tried to stick to the instructions more than the first two attempts, though i did a little blending at the bottom of the bowl. I could darken some areas more, but I tried to simplify more. I used HB, 2B, 8B pencils.

Hi everyone! This is my first drawing of the course. let me know what you think.

my very first attempt of my very first lesson with proko :) i don't really have the materials to make this project look great as i'm pretty much solely digital now ;-; but i still wanted to practice the simplifying concept with whatever traditional supplies i have (which happens to be... a cheap mechanical pencil and some printer paper... lol) i don't have access to the demo video yet, so i watched this critique right away as a supplement and it definitely clarified how i should approach this study as i definitely would have gone in with too much detail off the bat. any feedback appreciated (besides the fact that i drew the core shadow at the wrong angle... that much is already clear to me... lol)!

After doing the pear assignment 3 times, I decided to do a project of my own using the same rules for the pear. I decided to use the 5 values on the taped banana that was sold for $6.2 million lol. This was hard because I had to keep it simple. I did not add in the brown spots of the banana. Let me know what you guys think? Any feedback is welcomed! Looking to improve my skills :)

After watching the critique I decided to try to do a lemon.

I will be better.

Third attempt after watching the critique video. Less worried about finding hidden values and broke it up into more uniform planes. I think it turned out better! Feedback much appreciated, thank you.

The biggest issue I found while trying to do the shading in this picture was trying to decide which value was which shade. Was I supposed to keep the underlying colour of the differing fruit in mind or not? In the end I decided against it and just kept light in mind as I chose the shades. Any chritisism would be very much appreciated!

Tried to draw with my own reference i found online. I think i have done bad with showing the form of the top of the pear... it kind of seems flat? I don't know, just something feels off. Would really appreciate criticism!

This is after watching the Level 1 critique video, I seem to be struggling to shade the lighter tones mainly because I've noticed it's really hard to make soft lines with my new graphite pencils. Does anyone have any advice for that (I'm assuming the answer is just practice).

Hi Proko! I´m very excited to start this course. Here's my first exercise, I hope someone can comment on some constructive criticism. Thanks!

Just did my first attempt on the pear drawing (or in my case the mango drawing). I did in three different angles to see if was easier to understand the shadows. I don't know of the light on my desk wasn't good enough but to me the main difficulty was to see the shadow transition. Still also trying to not have so strong lines, erasing wasn't easy also.

Okay, after some critique from a couple friends as well as my own re-examination of this image, I made the following adjustments (in Clip Studio Paint for convenience, similar to how Proko paints over one of the student's values for their group of pears): 1. separated the way I had grouped the shadowing on the left pear, keeping the darkest part where the pears touch at the bottom as the dark accent and then using the rest of the values for the actual pears. 2. Added rebound lighting on left and middle pear 3. Redid the background based on these values, really trying to make sure that the pears don't disappear into the background I think this improves it a lot!

I've done 4 project attempts over the past 2 days so far! 1. My attempt before watching the demo 2. My attempt on the second pear image after watching the demo 3. My attempt on the third pear image, no longer using a mechanical pencil 4. My attempt at drawing my own selected reference image (see attached) after watching the critique video. I had a bit of an epiphany while watching the critique video and realized in my first three attempts, I hadn't been thinking at all about the actual forms and was instead focused on replication, which as Proko says in the video, is NOT what we are trying to do. Like this, It felt like my eyes suddenly opened to what exactly the purpose of using values. They're to communicate the volume and shape, not just where light and shadow are. And in order to communicate, I have to be wary of not just replicating and actually try to understand what I am looking at. I resolved to try it again and while there are still errors (ex. accidentally went too hard and scratched the paper on the right pear's shadow), I am most proud of this one! Thank you, Proko! I learned a lot and am going to attempt the face project next!

For anyone thinking about skipping this lesson because it is super long and you're way too late to make it into the review video: DON'T I was going to skip it but decided to give it a go, then it was over in a blink of an eye. There is SO much good information here. There is a lot of common mistakes I was able to spot on my own drawing based on the feedback Stan is giving to the others. Anyhow, WATCH IT. Seriously, it really gets your brain into problem solving mode and some things I was struggling with start to make sense.

I fini

testing out multiple sketch pencils with various executions in procreate and also testing out using the side of the Apple Pencil (didn’t know that was a feature until yesterday)

I try these long time ago and I came back to this course today. The first attempt is tried too hard, a bit too complicated. After this video, I tried anther time, which is much better. The old sketch book quality seems low, is a bit difficult to not smudge the line and keep geometric shape.