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Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
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project-learning-to-sketch-from-observation.mp4
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project-learning-to-sketch-from-observation-transcript-english.txt
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project-learning-to-sketch-from-observation-transcript-spanish.txt
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project-learning-to-sketch-from-observation-captions-english.srt
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project-learning-to-sketch-from-observation-captions-spanish.srt
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ASSIGNMENTS![]()
![Moaz Khalil]()
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![Melanie Scearce]()
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![@esmarieb]()
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![Ben Kraske]()
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![@mororz]()
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![Ben Kraske]()
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![Edwardd]()
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![Ben Kraske]()
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![Abs]()
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![H K]()
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![Melanie Scearce]()
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![Lucas Finney]()
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![Ash]()
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![@viksune]()
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![Crow Semantic]()
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![Corey Walker]()
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![Monty B]()
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![Daniel Rodger]()
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![Daniel Rodger]()
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![@gibble]()
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![Patrick Bosworth]()
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![Zachary]()
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![Nero]()
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![Patrick Bosworth]()
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![harry john]()
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![Cesar Espinoza]()
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![Anastasiya]()
Use the three reference images of clean line drawings and sketch them using simple loose lines. Don't try to match the cleanliness of these drawings. Instead, sketch them out with energetic, tapered strokes. Don't hesitate. Just practice moving your arm with confidence. If you draw some lines and then you realize that, Oh, shoot, I need to curve that more. Go ahead and just draw the new curve right over it. As you get more confident that you've found the shape, you can darken those lines and the lighter lines start to disappear. Focus on the big idea and the shapes the lines represent, rather than on each individual line.
For you, Level 2 monster trucks, I want you to start with this Level 1 project as a warmup, and then head over to the Learning to Sketch from Imagination project page for your instructions.
If you'd like to have a chance to be included in the upcoming critique videos, you must submit your drawings below by March 9th 2023.
Good luck and please have some fun!
This is my assignment. For some reason I feel that the penguin looks off. I would appreciate any feedback.
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10h
Hello Moaz! The penguin probably feels off to you because of a difference in proportion. In the original, the head/neck shape is smaller in proportion to the body shape. Don't worry too much about that right now- later on lessons will go in depth on how to train your eye through measuring.
Your line quality is exactly what the assignment is asking for, so good job! The penguin is my favorite because you stuck with the CSI lines even in the more detailed areas such as the feet. The VR girl is great as well, although your lines get a bit more shaky on this one in the more detailed areas. If you need to slow down to get your lines more confident do that!
Here is my assignment. I didn't realize that my reference photo for the robot girl was zoomed in and cutting off part of the photo until I uploaded these. 🙈 Contructive criticism is very welcome and appreciated.
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11h
Nice job on these, I can see you using searching lines to feel around the form of the subjects. Some of your lines on the VR girl are a bit dark and a little shaky, so I'd recommend practicing building confidence with doing tapered strokes. Great work and keep it up!!
Hey everyone! First i did a sketch with blue pencil which is badly visible, and then tried to add clean lines on top of that
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11h
Nice work, good to see some sketch lines for the torso underneath the hand on the girl to help visualize the form. Keep up the great work!
Before the Demo. I'm struggling with detailing the VR Girl's hand, but I'm having fun!
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11h
Nice work! Don't worry too much about the details on these, remember to simplify the forms as you observe, utilizing CSI line! Keep it up and keep having fun with it! :)
The portions aren't the best, but it's good practice for drawing CSI curves and gaining confidence with whole arm drawing. Progress over perfection. P.S. this is the cleanest hand I've ever drawn. Thanks Proko :)
This was challenging. I am not sure I am doing it the right way - I keep cleaning my lines. For the penguin, I struggled with the proportions and the angle of the head but I am overall satisfied.
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5d
You have a good eye, @H K! The proportions look good to me. I don't see many construction lines, it looks like you just went for it and got pretty close!
Looking at your drawings, I think you might be focused on the details a bit more than the project intends. You don't want to copy the lines that you see so much; you want to capture the idea of them using expressive CSI lines, like you did in the simplification project. Not sure how you are cleaning up your lines, but if you're using your searching lines, starting lightly and then committing eventually to the line that you choose, you shouldn't be spending too much time cleaning up. The goal is to not touch an eraser at this stage. Your preliminary lines should be so light they fade behind the final lines. It's a tough habit to form and takes some conscious effort and self-correction, but it will make the sketching experience really fun and seamless!
I'd say overall- great job, I would encourage you to be mindful about using CSI lines, and try to avoid making short, scratchy strokes. Keep your lines long and light, even if it slows your process down a bit.
At the end of the demo video, Stan mentions how "you" probably want to do this exercise again after watching and he was absolutely right.
In my first three attempts, pre-watching the demo video, I realize now I was really just doing the CSI approach again. So while I am happy with the effort, it wasn't really good practice in terms of using some searching lines to practice my rough sketching from observation.
Stan had a lot good tips in the demo, and for my second attempt with Squirtle and the shakka I focused in on these three in particular:
1) Using some big shapes to plot out the overall shape -- Squirtle was relatively straight forward with him being primarily a circle, and then two other ellipses. Well one ellipse and one ellipse-ish shape. Plotting those down first, really helped provide a good foundation and the rest of the drawing flowed out much easier than any of them in my initial attempt. For the wrist, the main shape I used was a rectangle for the wrist. Just having that there let me easily approximate where everything else on the hand should go.
2) Grouping together smaller details before breaking them up -- I really only used this in the shakka. I used a rectangle for the three folded fingers, and it was such a game changer as compared to how I approached those similar fingers in the spider-hand.
3) "Thinking lines" - I leaned on this strategy for Squirtle's face and tail. Not to sound too hyperbolic, but it was slightly shocking how much easier that made keeping his face symmetrical and get his ending tail shape correct just by having two simple reference lines down first. They really helped anchor all the other lines I was trying to make as I worked through his shapes.
The tips from the demo were immediately useful. I did both of these drawings much looser and faster than I did any of my first three attempts, and actually had a lot of fun doing so. Looking forward to incorporating this approach into my drawing moving forward. I ordered some of those red and blue col erase pencils as I am buying what Stan is selling when he mentions they help him when doing these kinds of sketches in particular.
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6d
yay, Squirtle!
These are nice. Try to be even more loose with your lines next time and remember to use your whole arm while sketching.
The proportions are completely off but I think I did a somewhat good enough. I decided to use a stronger brush for the last two since if I left the previous it made pretty hard to see
I don't know why but every time I tried exporting the penguin img it kept doing it mirrored
Biggest challenge for me is keeping these “sketchy”. On the girl I used a blue Col-Erase underneath.
I challenged myself to move quickly on this one. Finished in ~15 minutes. This was fun!
First crack at the assignment. I think I'll take a couple of goes as this overall to get some more practice in. I'm finding the tapered strokes challenging and visualising a line prior to putting it down is something that doesn't come naturally.
Happy to keep trying though.
Main takeaway is that hands are hard to draw, I found getting the proportions very challenging.
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9d
Nice, these are looking really good! Great to see you measuring out blumb lines and working it though. Keep it up!
Was actually pretty happy with how these came out. Didn't spend more than 5 minutes on one. Didn't leave enough height for the vr girl's head
Tried to use tapered strokes as best as I can. Very difficult to keep control over lines.
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9d
Great work! Really close proportions, this looks good!
Tried drawing the penguin. There's so much to improve, and I feel like I'm just drawing scribbles when drawing the "fur". Also I feel like I'm not doing well on the feet. Any tips on those or even other things to improve are appreciated!
After watching the video Critique – Learning to Sketch from Observation, I felt like I got a bucket of cold water poured over me when I realized I wasn't putting into practice any of the things Proko was explaining.
I went back and redrew the penguin, then drew a spider as well, to see how much I was actually applying what I had truly learned from this assignment.
Great assignment, I loved it. Confident lines are not that easy though.
But this assignment was not even close to the difficulty of the boots (I'm still traumatized)
