Hi! Any advice on how to improve this drawing is appreciated. Thank you :)

After demo.

First attempt, before demo.

I'm feeling quite confused now I've watched Stan's demo because my second and third attempts kinda felt worse lol! I did have some observations I wanted to share, but firstly I should say that in my first attempt last night, I only used a 3B Pitt Graphite Pure pencil and I found shading the different values a lot easier to control with just the one pencil or perhaps it was due to the type of pencil. I'm still unsure. Today, I switched up to multiple pencils and this is where it got super confusing for me as I found it so challenging to keep the same tone as I blocked in one area. I also found that I kept wanting to go darker and so it ended up changing all of the values each time I did this. Lastly, with each study, I realised I wanted to add more and more detail, which I realise wasn't the point, but holding myself back from doing so was difficult and, well, I ended up totally overworking that last one! 🙈 I find it hard to see progress in my work or comment on things I like, but I'm going to try here because, despite it being far too dark and the values becoming too similar in the light and dark areas, I do see one improvement (I think?) and that's the shape of the shadow underneath the pear. I think! Lol Any advice or critique would be so, so appreciated, thank you! P. S. Apologies for the difference in light. I took the first photo last night.

My first try with the pear!

@Autumn Aurelia pretty much summed it up. ‘looking forward to seeing the progress.

I'm quite nervous about posting my first project and would love any feedback. ❤️ I realised, afterwards, that I was maybe supposed to use different pencils, but I used a 3B for the entire process. I can definitely see things I'd change if I were to give this another go. My lines feel too dark and too harsh, especially the shadow under the pear. I'm very surprised by how enjoyable this project was, too, to be honest. I usually get so overwhelmed and frustrated by drawing that I come away feeling really upset and hopeless. I'm feeling really good about this course though. It helped to hear Stan talk about anxiety in the early stages and how we shouldn't expect too much from ourselves right now and just to enjoy the process. That's something I have always struggled with.

Before and after watching the demo.

Pear 1 after watching demo

Two attempts. The first was done entirely with a 2B pencil on some extremely smooth 90gsm sketchbook. For the second attempt I used 2H-6B pencils on a more textured 130gsm pad. I don't think I got the shape quite right in either case but I got closer in the second.

My second attempt and first post. I had trouble seperating my 2b and hb shading at the end, but the idea is present. On to the next one!

open to suggestions please

Few atempts. This needs to be practice a loo!

Take three …time has come to devour the pear 👹

First attempt to draw such patch effect drawing

This is my second attempt. I really enjoyed drawing the pear the first time, but after watching the demo and the critique video I felt overwhelmed. It took me almost a month to gather up the courage to try again. I try to remind myself that it's okay to be bad, I'm only learning, but I still struggle. When I draw something I don't like, I feel discouraged. When I draw something I do like, it feels like it happened by accident and I won't be able to recreate it. Anyway, here's what I tried to focus on for my second attempt vs. the fist: + No dark outlines around light shapes (though I was confused to what extent this applies to the contour) + transitional shadows between the lightest and the darkest areas + no/less symmetry to keep the shape more interesting + sharp edges, clear shapes I wanted to chose my forms in a way to make the planes of the fruit more apparent but it was too difficult for me.

Second attempt at live pear…

I found it pretty difficult to make light strokes even with featherweight pressure. This one turned out the best of all my attempts thus far, though. :)

I watched the demo and made another attempt, this time with my supernote as a sketchbook (had to do it at work today), which I actually liked, surprisingly. Couldn't extract the photo from my supernote, unfortunately, and had to take a photo. I am struggling with the stem and multilayered shadows, and definitely the shadow behind the pear... but am a lot happier with this result than my first attempt ever.