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Scans are preferred, but Affinity Photo is pretty good at cleaning photos with a couple of clicks. So, no problem.

I'll tackle all your Week 1 exercises in this single post, and then your feather separately once it's received.

WEEK 1: EXERCISE 2
A nice try, but they all appear to be flat-face - or a blunt tip. As you aren't a member of DrawWithMike, here's complimentary access to the CHISEL POINT video. Follow that and form a chisel point on your pencil, and then try again. However, if you are using a chisel point (which I highly recommend) then experiment with the sharp edge. I'd expect it to get graphite deep into the tooth, which I'm not seeing here.

Your other marks are a good set of medium width to broad and soft-edged lines. Use the flat face for shading and it will blur the lines, because it draws soft-edged lines. And when you need intense shading, use the edge, so you get graphite deep into the tooth.

EXERCISE 3
You've achieved a good range of values but the shading is very irregular. If you want to draw realistically your pencil lines should never show. When they do, the viewer's eye will always detect it and their brain will simply label it a "drawing" instead of something to treated as real life.

Your main problem is GAPS. Try to fill them, because the gaps lighten the value you're attenpting to describe. And they look unnatural, too.

First, try shading over your existing work to fill those gaps. Or you can shade using tight circles. In time you'll find the technique that works best for you.

Your bottom row 4B and 2B blacks appear to be quite dark but they do suffer from the gap problem. Try working over those boxes again using as much pressure as your lead will stand (probably more than you think it will) with the aim of removing all the white and light content. It's that white content that is severely reducing the impact of your blacks. I've copied your 2B and dulled the gaps - nothing else, just darkened the light content. As you can see, that makes a huge difference.bb The 4B and 2B in particular need to be as black as you can manage, because the more contrast you can generate between your darkest value (tone) and lightest (the white of your paper), the greater will be the range of values available to you. And good solid blacks will add impact to your drawings and help with three-dimensional rendering.

EXERCISE 4

First, your blacks are much weaker than you achieved in exercise 3. And the problem is those gaps, which are even more pronounced here.

Gaps, especially in the darks, dilute the strength of the value you were seeking to create. The human eye will see the dark line and the lighter gap and read the average value from those two, which is a lighter result than if you had filled the gaps.

To solve that you can, if you wish, shade to the right with decreasing pressure and then return to the left, gradually increasing the pressure. That will further smooth the transition through the values and fill in any gaps you might have left. Try whenerver possible to remove gaps - they always look unnatural in a drawing. This tip might help: When you shade back look at the next GAP and not at what you are drawing. You'll simply watch yourself shade it until it disappears, because the feedback to your hand will be about the gap and its value. It's much easier than looking at the line you're drawing and trying to match it tonally to the surrounding values.

Another tip is to always shade using the flat face of a chisel point. That face draws lines with soft edges, so adjacent lines will more readily merge into each other.

If you squint at your boxes you should see that the darkest value of your bottom box can be matched almost all the way up to 4B. So most pencils can produce many of the values that the other grades can. Notice also that the harder grades produce a much smoother finish. That's because the harder leads contain a greater ratio of finely-ground clay to graphite.

You can use that to your advantage. For example, you could use a grainier soft grade for drawing a dirt floor, or a harder smooth grade for drawing a shiny metal flask. The values might be the same, but the perceived surface texture is completely different.

Have another go if you want to. I don't mind how many times I have to critique anything if it helps to get it right.
No sign of failure detected. I won't comment on your feather much, because it's intended to be a drawing that you can gauge your progress against. And it also shows me how you work now... and how hard I have to work over the next 8 weeks...

I sense you were feeling your way in the first attempt, and that was a good move. Then in your second attempt, it's beginning to come together. And your feather is definitely feathery... most peoples' look more like leaves. It depends on how observant you've been in the past. But one thing I can promise you is that the more you draw, the more you'll begin to see and soak up the world around you. You really will begin to notice beauty in things that everyone else just glances at. It's quite magical.

WEEK 1: EXERCISE 2
It's good to see you experimenting with different papers. Personally, I quickly found my ideal paper and decided to use nothing else. That way it remains a constant, and I don't have to relearn between papers.

But that also means I don't know much about papers at all. So, with that in mind... Let's take the BRISTOL VELLUM first:

The top row shows signs of why I prefer a smooth paper - the less texture, the better. Your shading is peppered with white holes that instantly dilute the perceived strength of your intended value.

BUT the second row is close to ideal. All the grades are solid,and the darks are quite intense.

Now the SMLT BRISTOL:

A better top row (more solid), and the heavy-weight bottom row is close the Vellum for smoothness and solidity.

As for the FABRIANO...

Frankly, I'd not want to use it. It appears to have a very deep tooth that ever harsh shading cannot completely fill.

I cannot over-stress how important solid, intense blacks are. Assume for now that your drawing has one very dark tone or black in it. As soon as that dark tone has been drawn you immediately determine every other tone within the drawing. If that "dark" is light you will force yourself to work with a palette of light greys. Unless it was intentional, that usually leads to a flat drawing. Setting a wide range of tones, by making your darks dark will help with three-dimensional rendering and add visual impact to your work.

Take a look at: DRAWING DARK VALUES (Susan, you should be able to view this too).

And the "constant" I mentioned earlier: try to maintain as many constants as you can. For example, although there is a recognised range of values (10H to 10B) there isn't a single standard that all manufacturers adhere to. So, mixing brands is not a good idea. Of course you might, for example, use Faber Castell pencils but prefer a Tombow 6B for rich blacks. But if that's your decision you should stick with it.

Try to build in as many constants as you can into the way you work. That's one reason I always use Steadtler leads and clutch pencils - the value, length, weight and balance remain constant. I know exactly how each pencil is going to perform every time I pick it up. And as I always draw on Conqueror Diamond White paper, nothing changes there either.

EXERCISE 4


There often seems to some bias against pressure. As though it's somehow not permissible. Personally, I think the ends justify the means and, as long as the pressure doesn't harm the paper, then use as much pressure as is needed to fulfil the requirement.

And, if you're using a chisel point, where mere pressure might fail to fill the tooth, the use of the sharp edge will ensure full coverage.

The Arches Hot Press could be a good choice. I hope so. The Conqueror Diamond White I work on is almost devoid of surface texture (actually, not quite as smooth as it used to be since the relaunch), and it's long-grained, so damage is very rare.


Not only that, it would (in my opinion) know the life out of it. And probably lighten it, too, as blending usually removes some graphite.

What's important here is the solidity of your darks, and the absence of gaps - especially the latter. You've produced lovely smooth gradations through the values. You can, if you wish, shade to the right with decreasing pressure and then return to the left, gradually increasing the pressure. That will further smooth the transition through the values and fill in any gaps you might have left.

Try whenever possible to remove gaps - they always look unnatural in a drawing. This tip might help: When you shade back look at the next GAP and not at what you are drawing. You'll simply watch yourself shade it until it disappears, because the feedback to your hand will be about the gap and its value. It's much easier than looking at the line you're drawing and trying to match it tonally to the surrounding values.

If you squint at your boxes you should see that the darkest value of your bottom box can be matched almost all the way up to 4B. So most pencils can produce many of the values that the other grades can. Notice also that the harder grades produce a much smoother finish. That's because the harder leads contain a greater ratio of finely-ground clay to graphite.

You can use that to your advantage by, for example, using a grainier soft grade for drawing a rusty surface, or a harder smooth grade for a shiny glass vase. The values might be similar, but the surface texture will look completely different.

ROCK DRAWING

I don't know what size this was, Debra, so I can only comment on what I'm looking at. Possibly it was smaller, so I won't mention the holes in the darker shading (even though I just have... )

That said, your darkest value is wonderfully dark and solid. It can only be seen as what it is - a deep depression emerging from a sharp edge. Overall, the shading describes every feature so well that's it's immediately understandable. And that's due in part to the way you've consistently adhered to the lighting direction.

I think you mean that there is still texture working its way through your shading? Well, the flatter your drawing board, the better. A clipboard should be OK, as long as it is bare board and not covered in plastic or similar. A sheet of MDF or hardboard, or a smooth laminated board would work well.

EXERCISE 2
First, your lines of shading should be drawn to produce the darkness of tone that you require but as you approach the end of each line, gently decrease the pressure until your pencil finally lifts clear of the paper. That way your lines will taper and fade to white. Just stopping the line will result in a blunt square end - and that appears to have happened to some extent with most of your lines. The taper need not be long, but it MUST be there. Blunt ends will NOT blend away, and this exercise was designed to show you that. With blunt ends your shading will appear to be in a series of steps instead of smoothly changing from black to white.

Your second attempt is certainly an improvement, and you're close to achieving smooth tapers, but the steps are obvious. Feathering the ends is all that is required to turn this into a smooth blend from dark to light. Also you can slightly alter the length of each line so the eye doesn't have an obvious edge to detect.

When you have time, try drawing a series of lines that have tapers on both ends. Imagine drawing a flattened arc - gently drop your pencil down on to your paper as you draw to create the start taper, then draw your line, and finally gently decrease the pressure and lift your pencil clear of the paper to create the end taper. This is something we'll be returning too soon, so practice now will make that week much easier.

EXERCISE 3 - LAYER AND BURNISH
As the ends of the right-hand box look soft. I'll assume you blended it. That would also explain the lighter dark at the top, which is to be expect when blending is used. So, with that in mind./..

Your left-hand black is strong and dense and you've achieved a smooth transition through the tones. Hopefully, you were aware of your black increasing in solidity and intensity as you shaded over it. You can use this layering technique whenever you want to darken a black or smooth a midtone - just layer with a harder grade, which will remove any white content and, in the case of the blacks, break up the large graphite grains, spread them more evenly, and push them deeper into your paper.

Incidentally, never be afraid of using strong blacks - I'll show you how you can reverse it soon.

In my opinion, layering produces a similar effect to blending but the result is sharper and more lively, and it doesn't lighten the darks. Use blending with caution. Always ask yourself if it's really needed before you pick up your blender. Where line has to be completely banished - wide expansive skies, and smooth skin for example - then blending is definitely required. Just be aware that it will lighten the values and soften hard edges.

EXERCISE 3 - COMPARISONS
This was a good experiment. I think you will have noticed that the 2B increased the darkness of your 4B, And the HB did the same for both. Then it's most likely that not much will have changed when you layered 6B over 8B, because the 6B is too soft to greatly affect the 8B. Even though this is the darkest box of the three, I would have used 2B to burnish ANY grade softer, right down to 10B, because it contains enough clay to really break up the soft grade and push it into the tooth.

Your HB/2H/4H box is light, as would be expected, but notice how much smoother it looks. That's the fine clay in action. Conversely notice too how grainy your central soft grades box looks.

EXERCISE 4 - LEAVES ON WOOD

This is something you really need to practice. In my opinion, it's the most important technique you can learn when drawing. Have as many tries as you feel you need.

This has excellent areas and others that need more work. Your leaves are wonderfully rounded and smooth? Not a hint of a blunt end that immediately say "drawing" and not real. You've put a lot of work into them and succeeded very well.

On the other hand, the wood does contain blunt ends. When you think about it, you'll realise that wood never has blunt ends. Because a split is simply the grain parting and coming together again, every split tapers into a fine point at both ends. As soon as you create a blunt end we can no longer see it as being wood.

I'm also slightly concerned about the white space surrounding t=our leaves, I realise I did leave some white around parts of mine, but that was to represent a highlight around that part of the edge. Your lines of shading are either beginning just a little away from the edge, or stopping short - I can't tell which. But that's something that will correct itself in time. Right now, I think your having to think about technique as you draw, but later you'll be able to draw without having to think about how at all.

Also, at present you won't be finding the tapered line to be natural. As long as you keep practicing, it will become entirely natural in time. Your mind and body need to develop the muscle memory - then there'll be no stopping you!

One final point: You need constancy, otherwise you'll be continually relearning. if you draw on a pad (as you are) either place a hard surface beneath the top sheet or open up the pad so the sheet is directly on your drawing board.

If you always work with a single sheet on a hard and smooth surface, you'll always know exactly how each pencil is going to perform every time you pick it up. That really matters when it comes to delicate work or shading. What you don't want is a surface that sinks beneath your pencil!

WEEK 2: EXERCISE 1
These are very good. Your shading is completely free of gaps, and your darks are strong. You can see why consistency is vital - any gaps, or lines that are too strong, will be plainly visible.

The initial careful application is vital, especially if you intend to blend it. Blending can smooth but it cannot fill gaps or remove over-dark lines. Although not obvious here, it also weakens darks because it removes graphite.

EXERCISE 2 What you probably experienced was a 50:50 mix of indenting and what I call graphite-resist - where hard graphite resists further layers of any softer grade. We'll explore that in a couple of week's time, negative drawing it can be a very useful property of pencil, but one to be treated with care.

For now, just remember that a once the fine clay of a hard grade has filled the tooth, there's little tooth remaining to scrape off any softer grade.

EXERCISE 3
Practice is all it needs. You have to establish the muscle memory, and that just takes repetition and time. But once you've achieved flawless tapering, you'll be so pleased you spent that time.

The majority of these are really good. Unfortunately, there isn't a "half-right" option. It's either tapered... or blunt! The right-hand set appear to have been drawn too quickly, which does result in a loss of control. It's not a quick flick., but a controlled "landing" and "take-off" - no matter how long or short those tapers are.

The left-hand set of straight lines look excellent. Deliberate, controlled, and tapered at both ends. likewise the curves above them too.

EXERCISE 4
I thought this was the overlapping tapers exercise but now I see vertical lines at the base that don't fit that description... so I'm not sure what it is. But it's looking smooth and devoid of any blunt ends - but certainly not as dark as I'd expect from multiple layers of 4B and harder grades.

WEEK 2: EXERCISE 5

I feel you're correct. The quality at this point is superb, but any more would be too much. Your shading is flawless, and the occasional mark within the shading reads as a natural feature. As far as I can tell, you've got the tapered line nailed. Every single one fades wonderfully into the highlight, and they all combine to produce a great feeling of three-dimensional solidity.


I noticed that immediately too. But all that really matters is that you did notice - and know to avoid it in future. Personally, when I have to draw in the evening, I only develop it as far as the basic groundwork... knowing that I'll have to add the finessing the next day.


I often think nothing teaches us more or better than correcting errors - even when those errors are unfounded, which I suspect was the case here. Your wood looks good, but darker and less detailed would have done no harm to the drawing either.

The leaves are simply excellent - wonderfully rounded, three-dimensional, and smooth. Not a hint of a blunt end anywhere. My only advice would be that the top leaf's lower edge might have been better defined. You could have allowed a little stray light to catch that edge and display a broken and thin highlight. It's quite natural as it is, but a tiny highlight should aid instant understanding for the viewer.

The wood - and I'm being quite strict here - doesn't possess the same degree of realism. It lacks sharpness - especially along the edges of the boards. Each tends to flow into the adjacent gap, where the gap should have a distinct break along each edge. The gaps are also considerably lighter than the darkest value in the leaves - which is the reverse of what I'd expect to naturally encounter.

The same applies to the woodgrain. Wood exhibits a sharp edge where Summer growth meets the next Spring growth (because it shuts down over the Winter). That's missing here. All lines are soft-edged, and the highlights are often too broad to be naturally occurring.


That's probably why the lower edges tend to merge into the wood. Personally, I would have introduced the bits of thin highlight I mentioned, and then allowed the shadow to flow into the wood. When you draw the shadow with a hard edge, you're suggesting the light is super-bright. Your top leaf agrees with that, but its shadow is lighter than the leaf, which cannot occur. But, all that said, it is an excellent exercise.

WEEK 3: EXERCISE 3

...but you tried - and that's half the battle won. My personal approach would be to emphasise the anthers (on top of the stamens), because they give you much more scope for creativity. To make them stand out you need top look for "opposites" - anything you can do to make them contrast with the rest of the lily. Two things spring to mind: DARKNESS - try to build the darkest values in the drawing into those anthers - and SHARPNESS. The rest of the lily is smooth, so hard edges will stand out. Combine those hard edges with spots of blackness, and you'll definitely create an eye-catching appearance.

Overall, I feel you had a good idea of the three-dimensional shapes as you shaded this, which means it was living in your mind as a real Lily. And that's good, because it leads to drawing with understanding instead of copying. Your shading of the petals, with their subtle highlights, really describes their form very well. And I like your dark tones within the inside of the flower - they give a very good sense of depth - and, despite your misgivings, they help to make the stamens stand out.

Finally you managed to remove any need to use outline, which is excellent! Line is a purely man-made device and completely unnatural, so always look for ways that cast shadows or reflected light can help you to display edges and junctions between two parts.

WEEK 3: EXERCISE 1
This is a good result (left) but your darks are very pale. I can't stress too often that strong darks are what give a drawing impact; they broaden the range of values available to you; and because they generate much more contrast, the vastly increase the three-dimensional sense of the drawing.

All that said, if your original looks more like the right-hand version, then the problem doesn't exist.

Your drawing is virtually free of faults but, just to run through the common one - If you just stop the line it will finish with a blunt square end, and that and will not blend away. Second, if you shade up and down - draw each line one way and then immediately back up again - the termination of the line will not only be blunt, it will also have a double layer of graphite. No amount of blending will smooth out the end of such a line. And if you return to the beginning before you've complete the taper you will create a hooked end.

These faults result in the shading being in a series of steps instead of smoothly changing from black to white. however, apart from your lack of good strong values, your shading uses tapered lines throughout with no visible steps at all.

WEEK 3: EXERCISE 2
A very good attempt! You've achieved a lovely smooth transition through the values, and your black has increased in intensity, as it should have. You can use this layering technique whenever you want to darken a black or smooth a mid tone - just layer with a harder grade, which will remove any white content and, in the case of the blacks, break up the large graphite grains, spread them more evenly, and push it deeper into your paper. Usually shifting up 2 grades is sufficient - HB over 2B for example.

Your blending is smooth too. I don't use blending much, except where it produces a particular effect, because it tends to knock the life out the area. Here you can see how fresh your layered version is compared to the blended one. Blending also tends to remove graphite, which lightens your darks. But it does have its uses, such as creating flawless skin tones, or where detail would distract - in midground or background element where detail would look false.

Incidentally, never be afraid of using strong blacks - I'll show you how you can reverse it soon.

WEEK 3: EXERCISE 3

Well, I've looked - at least three times, both internally and externally... and I can't see the line you mention. But assuming I could... my first thought would be to use an edge of Blu-Tack (or possibly the less-effective kneadable eraser). That should pick the graphite right out of the tooth, even if it needs multiple applications. If that failed, I'd consider ways I could alter the shape of the leaf to accommodate the slip. Ultimately, nobody viewing the drawing will have seen the reference, so changes can be made. And the third option, relative to the degree of error made, is to accept that it might be seen as a naturally occurring feature within the subject - which might be the case here.

The first thing I have to say is that your time was well-spent! This is beautifully crafted and near-perfect.

I feel you had a very good mental picture of the three-dimensional shapes as you shaded this, which means it was living in your mind as a real Lily. That's ideal and leads to drawing with understanding instead of copying.

I'm very pleased to see that you managed to remove any need to use outline. Line is a purely man-made device and always looks unnatural. Always look for ways that cast shadows or reflected light can help you to display edges and junctions between two parts. You can use reflected light almost anywhere you need it - the viewer's brain just assumes there's a reflective surface outside of the picture that is bouncing light back in. It really is the artist's best friend.

Your shading of the petals, with their subtle highlights, describes their form very well indeed. And I like the dark tones inside the flower - they give a very good sense of depth. The stamens stand away from the petal behind them, and that's a difficult thing to achieve.

My only reservation is that the anthers (the lumps on top of the stamens) could have been better. As you can see below, if you had found ways to work in some really dark values with very sharp edges, they would have sprung forward from the softer petal behind them. Like this:

Contrasting sharp against soft often works in this situation - probably because we're conditioned to understanding sharpness to be in the foreground and soft edges belonging to the midground or background.

Your shading is flawless and slides smoothly into and out of every highlight. The more I look at this, the more I find to admire, and everything is immediately understandable in a three-dimensional way.

WEEK 4: EXERCISE 1
This forms the basis of most forms of shading. Consistency is vital and this exercise was designed to show you that. Any variance in the gaps between lines, the pressure you apply to lines, or the straightness of the lines is immediately apparent, as they always attract unwanted attention.

There are a few inconsistent lines, but the gaps between them are pleasingly regular. This technique works best if the gaps are the same width as your lines - that way you remove 50% of the white in the first box and then incrementally reduce it further as you progress right. And it's the only technique that allows you to produce a variety of tones with a single grade and no variation of the pressure.

Personally I've used a looser version of this technique for building up skin tones - with very narrow or no gaps. In that situation I use the flat face of my point (the lines posses soft edges that easily merge) and feather both the ends of all the lines so they blend seamlessly. That allows me to shade in sections with no visible joins, and it gives excellent tonal control.

Although you've produced a good and even range of values, what the eye tends to see is the inconsistencies. Overall though, this is pretty good.

WEEK 4: EXERCISE 2/3
This is near-perfect! Your midtone lines of shading taper to white at the right-hand side and should blend smoothly. And your lines of shading properly follow the contours of the cylinder, so any that remain visible after blending will read as surface texture. Incidentally, if you were having problems drawing a downward-pointing arc, try turning your paper upside down. That way the arcs will follow the natural movement of your wrist. Personally, I never turn my paper, because I lose the "reality" of the subject I'm drawing. You risk it becoming a "drawing exercise" instead of the creation of a living form.

Your vertical black shading at the left-hand side is strong, consistent, smoothly applied, devoid of gaps, and lightens really well as it progress to the right. Establishing that strong dark tone at the left hand edge will boost the brightness of the highlighted right-hand side.

Added to all of that, your blending is wonderfully even and smooth. I usually say that when you're shading and intend to blend, it's your initial careful application that counts. But your shading already was perfectly consistent, smooth and devoid of gaps. So, that only leaves me to mention that the blending has probably lightened the dark left-hand side. As long as your blending was gentle (and it appears to have been) there's no reason why you couldn't reapply the vertical 2B, or even the mid-section HB, in order to restore the previous values and boost contrast.

One final point: when drawing ellipses make certain they don't come to a point at the ends, which yours do at the base. An ellipse is a circle in perspective so it obeys the rules of a circle - all curves, no angles. I have a tutorial on the subject if you need assistance: tutorial: DRAWING ELLIPSES.

WEEK 4: EXERCISE 4

No problem - and thanks for the choice. This is a composite of the two - essentially the scan with the photo's right-hand wall.

There are a couple of potential problems here, although it's looking good. I'm wondering if you were looking at values in a reference, where I'd be looking at a house. Maybe to you it's a drawing, but to me I'm about recreate a three-dimensional building. It's difficult to explain but it's a mindset you should explore further. Essentially, your job as the artist is to describe to me, the viewer, the three-dimensional form of everything - even if that requires some exaggeration and doesn't match the reference you are using.

In other words, you might have been using the values you thought they could see. And I'd be using the values and shading techniques I thought were necessary to convey my message.

Your roof is perfectly shaded and good choice of tone. But your shadows don't quite look real. They don't tell me much about the prevailing lighting, or fully state the structure of the building.

The left-hand eave's shadow:
This could have been considerably darker at the top, which would have emphasised the overhang of the roof. That overhang is very important - it needs both a hard sharp lower edge and a solid shadow beneath it. You have to show me, the viewer that those two surfaces are completely different planes and that one does not flow into the other.

Consider how we read what we see in real life:
If two adjacent surfaces meet with a soft edge it suggests they are connected in some way, because the visually flow into each other.
If two adjacent surfaces meet with a sharp edge it suggests they are two separate entities. That they are not connected, and that one might be further away then the other.
Personally, I would have drawn a single very dark HB line along that edge. That gives me a sharp edge and a black line that I can extend downwards to create the cast shadow.

The right-hand eave's cast shadow:
This is the one that's making me think you were copying the reference instead of thinking that this is a building with an overhanging roof. Your shadow is almost the same tone from top to bottom, yet in this situation I'd expect it to degrade and lighten as it descended. Never mind what the reference says, you need to interpret it in such a way that you're telling the viewer exactly what is going on. In this case, the eave is casting a shadow, so it would be relatively dark beneath it. But this is a relatively light wall, receiving some direct light, and that light will reflect back up into the shadow, diluting the strength of the lower edge and then progressively diluting it less as it approached the eave. Just lightening the bottom edge doesn't fully describe the situation.

The other thing that bothers me is that you've shaded the left-hand wall with lines that follow the angle of its top edge. That wouldn't be a problem if the lines had blended away fully, but they haven't. So now I'm presented with a wall that shows a texture of lines that don't follow the perspective of the wall - and that's really unsettling. Vertical shading would work on any wall, but those parallel lines catch my eye and distract because they don't follow any expected pattern. The eye always looks for pattern and understanding and it's easy to unsettle it if you present it with something it can't match to it's known knowledge.

As you're not a DWM member, this video should help you: TONAL SHADING.

Apart from that... this is actually pretty good. Well done!

WEEK 4: EXERCISE 4 REDO

There are still a couple of potential problems, but I'd leave it and move on. It's definitely beginning to look overworked, and your mind won't be clear.

Congratulations on your perfect (perspective-wise) shading of the left-hand wall! As previously, your roof is perfectly shaded, but that sharp edge at the bottom is too soft. Just keep telling yourself that soft edges merge planes into each other - suggests they are connected - where sharp edges divide and separate planes. Also, your narrow shadow under the eave is too dark. We're looking at just the bottom edge of that shadow, which would be quite soft and diluted by stray light at that point - just as the right-hand shadow is.

This is the effect a SHARP EDGE creates. I've allowed a little light to catch its bottom edge, and it could have been even sharper. I've altered your narrow shadow, too:


Leave it alone now. I honestly think you're trying too hard and probably obsessing about things, and that's causing problems. It'll all come out right with time.

WEEK 4: EXERCISE 1
Tough be informative was precisely its reason for being. I applaud you for your patience, because it's such a potentially boring exercise. But it does form the basis of most forms of shading. Consistency is vital and this exercise was designed to show you that. Any variance in the gaps between lines, the pressure you apply to lines, or the straightness of the lines is immediately apparent, as they always attract unwanted attention. however, there are so few inconsistent lines that I'm going to ignore them. Their weight is remarkably even!, and the gaps between them hardly vary at all.

This is a technique you'll probably never use again in its purity (unless you're a comic book artist), but if you imagine shading this way with no gaps at all, you'll see that it does form the basis for the majority of shading techniques, so it's one you need to be aware of. And to be aware of the need for consistency too.

WEEK 4: EXERCISE 2/3
This is near-perfect, even if it might be darker than your original - because I can better see detail in it. Your midtone lines of shading taper to white at the right-hand side and have blended smoothly into the white section. And your lines of shading properly follow the contours of the cylinder, so any remaining visible after blending read as surface texture. Your vertical black shading at the left-hand side is strong, consistent, smoothly applied, devoid of gaps, and lightens really well as it progress to the right. Establishing that strong dark tone at the left hand edge has boosted the brightness of the highlighted right-hand side. This is an excellent result!

WEEK 4: EXERCISE 4

The roof and left-hand wall look OK to me - smooth, with a hint of texture, which works well. The shadow cast by the overhanging roof could have been darker and more solid, and the junction of that dark cast shadow and the edge of the roof is also soft. A hard sharp edge is what the eye expects to see, and it's a visual clue to the fact that the two planes are not connected. You could have used a hard black line to define that edge and then extended that line down to form the shadow. As it is, it almost does its job of telling us there is an overhang... but not quite.

The corner between the two walls is a bit soft and rounded, but that could have been fixed by additional vertical shading just to sharpen it after blending.

The right-hand eave's cast shadow is nicely diluted along its lower edge, which you would expect on a lighter wall that reflects light. Personally, I think there;s too much light being thrown under the right-hand overhang... but maybe it's been painted gloss white?


Fun or not, what tells me is your thinking is perfect! You're seeing it in your mind as being a solid three-dimensional object that's illuminated from a particular direction. And that's what you should always be doing. Always recreating - or even inventing - but never copying.

WEEK 5: EXERCISE 1

That doesn't surprise me at all. I think stumbling on the wonderful properties of Blu-Tack was probably the single most important act in my drawing career. It suddenly made all sorts of effects available that would, at best, be difficult to otherwise draw. I've been sent many equivalent products over the years, and yet Blu-Tack still outperforms them all.

I've darkened this to expose the lighter areas. Again, nothing surprises me about the result. The art eraser will often quickly smudge rather than remove graphite. And the physical downforce required might also push some graphite deeper into the tooth.

The Blu-Tack, because of its slighty sticky nature, will pull graphite up from the tooth and embed it into itself - in a way that precludes it being applied back to the paper. Blu-Tack, in my experience (I'm not a scientist) removes graphite without harm to the paper's tooth. But it won't remove all the graphite if it was heavily applied. However, repeated rolling or rocking of Blu-Tack will eventually remove most. Then a final erasing with an soft art eraser should remove the remainder, but with possible harm to the surface.

EXERCISE 2

In my experience, for this to work well the graphite has to laid fairly lightly on the surface of the paper. The deeper it is in the tooth the harder it is to erase. And don't forget that erasing with an eraser will always push some graphite deeper into the surface. All that said, this has worked quite well for you, and better than I expected.

However, smudging, especially along both edges, is to be expected. If I haven't explained this before, graphite is composed of flat sheets - the eraser picks up some until it cannot pick up more and then slides what it has over the flat plates still on the paper. In doing so it will drag some graphite along with it and smear the edges of the line its erasing. That might be acceptable in some situations, but there's nothing soft about the edges of hairs, So, in my opinion, it's not the ideal method.

That softening of edges is one reason I no longer use a plastic eraser. I once had an artist on a course who said "This plastic eraser pencil is nothing more than a smudging tool! I just could not keep the chisel edge clean for even one mark or to clean up the edges, quite frustrating." I was tempted so say "That's good". Because it's better you appreciate the pitfalls of using it now than in a drawing. But it is a useful erasing method to know about - including its faults.

EXERCISE 3

Don't be discouraged. Look at it positively. It's an ideal way of discovering what your pencil work really looks like. Then that gives you the opportunity to begin fixing it. Of course, it's unlikely you'll ever completely fix it, but at least you know the problem exists. And in normal viewing, what remains of the problem is probably no problem at all.

A good range of lines, shapes and spots. However, the removal isn't particularly clean or sharp-edged, which leads me to believe you were using a kneadable eraser. If so, there's nothing wrong in that - but it can be improved by using Blu-Tack.

There are two issues here:
Your lines are rather broad, which suggests you were pushing your eraser into the paper and blunting the edge. If you use (or did use) Blu-Tack you'll find it works because it's sticky, so just the merest, lightest touch is all that required to lift graphite up off the paper.

Also, at the right, your lines appear to be blurry. That suggests you might have been touching your eraser to the paper and then dragging it along. You should never drag Blu-Tack, or any kneadable eraser. Graphite is made up of flat plates (that's why it reflects light, unlike grainier charcoal) so dragging simply drags graphite up on to top of graphite and doesn't remove it cleanly.

Your spots look good. No dragging here of course. Some are rather large but without the usual ring around them, so I'm assuming you deliberately formed a large, blunt point, which good practice. Pressing a sharp point too hard is what causes rings to appear, as the eraser point collapses into itself.

Have fun! Try some more. You'll never regret the time spent, as this technique has a multitude of uses.

Your tree shows the reason I love this way of working - you never know what the result is going to be! It's both fun and surprising. Your tree has a lovely feeling of solidity and three-dimensional form, and believable textures and features too.


First, I've never used graphite powder - far too messy and uncontrollable! - but your experiments are broad and the results could certainly be of use. I wish I could help you and make suggestions but, so far, I've managed to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome and other hand problems.

EXERCISE 4

Perfect! It's a right-brain thing. With no end result in mind the interfering left brain can't control your actions. And nothing actually exists - it just grows as it begins to resembles something remembered. That's just what I was hoping would happen, and why I love this technique!


Good decision. The sharpened edges and increased contrast work well. You've lost some of the subtle interest in the skirt, but gained a greater sense of solid three-dimensional form.

I really like this. The ability to see things appear and recognise them as NOT being what you thought you were drawing means you have that hand-to-brain connection hard-wired. Now we just need to find a way of transferring that mindset over to when you are actually drawing.

Being aware of the areas and shapes that appear between the lines you are drawing or areas you are shading is very important. Those "negative" shapes are as important as the positive ones you are drawing so, as with this exercise that had no predetermined goal, you should aim to allow for spontaneity and "happy accidents" to exist within your drawings.

EXERCISE 5
Looking good, and as expected. Only one tiny sign of an edge, so it seems you correctly stroked (like stroking a cat) rather than dabbed, which tends to leave troublesome hard edges.


Well, you can cover them up, but they're a tiresome timewaster and better avoided. So, lesson learned!

First, the trees are receding well. Second, the grass should follow that recession, but it doesn't.

That halo might be a result of using too large a piece of Blu-Tack? So its effect is spreading too far. Personally, I pull a slim finger out of the ball (maybe a quarter-inch wide (5mm), no more), flatten the end, and then stroke very gently with that. Gentle with many passes is far preferable to heavy and uncontrollable. Apart from the halo, this is a very good result.

Finally, this is a technique I use a LOT! I hold two tools: a pencil that can apply graphite gently to aggressively, and an eraser - Blu-Tack - that can remove it in the same way. One applies, the other adjusts. This means I can draw dark enough to create detail, and fade it to its required values with Blu-Tack. It produces drawing that is almost impossible with a pencil alone.

WEEK 5: EXERCISE 1
This removal is entirely as I'd expect it to be. Now, after you've rolled your Blu-Tack a few times, try pulling it into a thin sausage and then repeatedly rolling and rocking one end on the area. You can repeatedly dab it too, although that can create hard edges that might not disappear. As long as you don't rub, you can try anything. Rubbing simply pushes graphite deeper into the tooth, where the other actions pick it out of the tooth and leave it sufficiently undamaged for further drawing.

Finally, when you're certain your Blu-Tack (or kneadable eraser) can't remove more, which I think it can in this case, you can use a plastic art eraser. By then there will be very little graphite that can be forced deeper. However, be aware that up to that point the tooth of the paper has suffered no damage, other than that caused by the shading, but erasing with a plastic eraser will begin to flatten the tooth. That flattening can prevent graphite adhering properly.

EXERCISE 2
Despite darkening everything it's difficult to see what's been done... but not impossible . As long as the graphite is applied lightly, you can usually cut through it with an eraser. The down side is that the erased lines almost always have soft edges, and often the eraser will drag graphite with it and leave smears in its wake - as yours might have.

EXERCISE 3
Your Blu-Tack shouldn't have problems with very dark shading - unless its relatively new. Blu-Tack improves with age by becoming a little stickier. In any case, you've produced a good range of lines, shapes and spots - and significantly cleaner and more through than your electric eraser did.

There are instances of your spots almost becoming rings. That occurs when you press too hard and the Blu-Tack (or kneadable eraser) point collapses into itself. The lightest touch is all that is required with Blu-Tack. You can erase extremely small spots very cleanly with a sharp point of Blu-Tack just lightly touched to an area of graphite.

I keep two balls of Blu-Tack available (I always ball up full sheets) - one in my free hand to keep it warm, and the other on my drawing board so it stays cooler. They behave differently - the warm ball is slightly softer and stickier.

Using the warm ball: hold the ball and pull out a finger and flatten the underside (I press it onto my drawing board). Now very lightly stroke the Blu-Tack over the area.

Because the finger will become dirtier with removed graphite it will remove progressively less with each stroke - and Blu-Tack will not put that graphite back onto your paper. That gives you infinite control. If you want to speed it up, pull out a clean finger and continue.

I use this technique all the time. I have two tools: a pencil that applies graphite, and Blu-Tack that adjusts and fine-tunes its value.

TREE
Your tree branch has lovely sharp edges, but it's flat and devoid of character. Try it again sometime. Working in small sections, just lightly touch a sharp edge of your Blu-Tack to your shading. Let the erasing suggest the form and texture. I love this way of working, because I never know what the result is going to be. It's both fun and surprising.

EXERCISE 4
That Strad is something else! Agreed! But I love the way you've negatively created your figure standing out against the light. Possibly a man... but I'm seeing a lady in a tight-fitting hat with her hair bulging out from beneath the rim. And the collar of her coat turned up, suggesting a chilly and foggy evening.

What you did was all I was hoping for - recognising marks made by the eraser as being something recognised, and then developing it. I often find these serendipitous features are more natural than something I might consciously try to invent. It's a right-brain thing. With no end result in mind the interfering left brain can't control your actions. And nothing actually exists - it just grows as it begins to resembles something remembered. That's just what I love about this technique!

If you were ever worried about "going dark", I hope you realise you fears are unfounded now that you now have the means of lightening it again. And I'm glad you used Blu-Tack. It is just so superior to any kneadable eraser in the clean removal of graphite.

EXERCISE 5
I'll tackle the visual recession first, as that's what this exercise was about. That recession involved partial erasure, which I don't see any evidence of. In all fairness, you didn't make life easy for yourself because you chose a very short section of fencing that isn't going to naturally display much recession.

This might have worked better for you:

Opening this out to cover both recession and perspective... it has problems. Everything diminishes with distance: height, width, spacing, values... everything!.


First, given the lack of erasing, I'll take this as being purposefully-drawn recession... in which case it only partly succeeds - because the only recession here is the values used for the posts.

The shadows of your posts on the tops of the rails shows that the sun is behind the fence. That results in darker front faces on both the posts and rails. However, you've only reduced the intensity of the darks of the posts with distance. The same, even though they are back-lit, should apply to the rails. Also, your posts only decrease in the width of the front faces - their depth remains almost constant. And I have to mention that your posts reduce in width at a very exaggerated rate for that little degree of recession.

The other thing that diminishes with distance is spacing. Apart from one post, you have that remarkably correct. So, permit me to introduce you to an exercise from my Advanced Course - how to accurately construct recession in perspective.


You need the top and bottom orthogonals (divergence lines) from your vanishing point (my RED lines ).
Draw the FIRST and THIRD posts.
Draw a diagonal line (GREEN) from the top orthogonal of post A to the bottom orthogonal of Post B.
Now connect the top of B to the base of A.
Where the two lines cross if the true centre in perspective, and that's where you place Post C.

Repeat that from the new Post C. So your lines (BLUE) pass through the vertical of Post B.
Where the two lines meet the top and bottom RED orthogonals is where the next post is placed.
Repeat to find the next post... and, as you can see, you Post E is too close to Post D.

As long as the spacing is regular, you can use this system to correctly place anything repetitive in perspective.

WEEK 6: EXERCISE 1-2

Small is OK, but sharp isn't. I use two needles, both in old, retired clutch pencils. The large one is a bodkin/sewing up/darning needle that has a round tip. The other is a thin needle that used an oilstone on to blunt the point. From what I can see here, your choice of stylus looks good.

Top left: These needed more pressure. They're too shallow and have partially filled with the shading. Also, the shading was applied in multiple directions, so pushing graphite into the indents is more likely. I find shading obliquely across the indents works best - but it is paper-dependant, so you need to find what works best for you.

Lower row: The Cat Claw would be good for thin whiskers. Almost ideal. The bodkin appears to give similar results to mine. The others I can't read (text cropped off), but they all appear to be suitable tools.

EXERCISE 2
Lovely, clean indents - even under the increase pressure in the right-hand example. However, in my opinion, you really need to taper the end of every indent. There might be times that blunt ends are useful, but I can't think of any. My experience of indenting is almost entirely involves whiskers (and the iris in eyes). In those situations, tapered ends are essential. And again, I'll mention that your very dark shading follows the direction of the indents, which most probably explains why some graphite has dropped into them. Shade obliquely when you can.

EXERCISE 3

I totally understand that. I don't use indirect indenting myself, and never have. In tests it always results in soft-edged indents that easily break down. That it not what I want.

That said - and the reason I included the Indirect version - is because other artists do use it successfully. One I know of is my friend JD Hillberry (JDHillberry.com ), but his work is very controlled, where I prefer the freedom to invent as I draw. So, the Indirect method doesn't fit my way of working.

EXPERIMENTS
First, I mainly use indenting in areas of high contrast. It offers the ability to draw clean, white, parallel-sided, tapered lines in areas where it's otherwise difficult to accomplish that. And second, I congratulate you on experimenting. There is no better to discover what works for you.

Your top-left dots are excellent, your lines are clean (although blunt-ended), and you've discovered you can draw really thin lines when required.


Whilst you had problems with the braided hair, I can see the smooth locks developing into a very usable method once you've had time with it. That said, it is a method I very rarely use now, because it simply cannot be relied on to work. But, when it does, it can work well. If anything is wrong... well, I think you were using it on too large a scale. And the sinuous right-hand lock has a problem in its lower half, because the lines within the hair don't flow through - your indented lines run into the drawn lines at an angle, rather than continuing the same curve.

Finally, disregarding the lower eye as practice... the upper eye is SUPERB! You should be immensely proud of that. There's nothing I'd want to change. And that includes the cast shadow at the top and the hair surrounding the eye.

WEEK 6: EXERCISE 1
These are OK - I can see what I need to see. Your indents are pretty good for a sketch pad, which can have quite a soft surface. What's missing is burrs, but I'll return to those later.

EXERCISE 1: on Bristol
I've artificially darkened this so I can see it better - and so I can practice in Affinity Photo . Good, clean, sharp-edged indents and - if you look closely - in a few places I think you can begin to see a thin dark line either side of an indent. That's caused by the indent throwing up a burr on each side. My Conqueror does that a lot, and I welcome it, because it reinforces the sharpness of the edges. I've found the smoother and "harder" the paper is (Conqueror is "plate-finish"), the smoother and cleaner the indents are.

EXERCISE 2: on Bristol
These are simply excellent! Sharp, parallel-sided, and clean of any graphite dropping into them. That surprises me because you've shaded directly across most of the indents. That very often will cause graphite to drop into the grooves, unless you're using a very broad and flat point on your lead... which I think you were.

I like that you've shaded more heavily this time. You could also try shading as heavily as you can until the indents begin to break down. Knowing how much pressure you can safely apply is invaluable in an actual drawing situation. My Conqueror takes an incredible amount of pressure before any damage is done - but it is long-grained and very smooth.

EXERCISE 3: Indirect Indenting
Good results. I don't use this technique but others do and to great effect. I always found my indentations were soft-edged and broke down easily under shading - and I can see that occurred with your indents too.

. However, it's a good technique to know about. And, if you're uncertain about indenting on an actual drawing, it does allow you to plan the placements first on the overlay sheet before committing them to your paper.

Personally, using direct indenting, I very lightly draw a line alongside where I intend the indent to be, I take a few practice swings with the stylus, and then commit the indent to the paper just below my pencilled line.

EXERCISE 4
That's a wonderful quote! I could do with new eyes this morning - I've got Hayfever from the tree pollen!

This is a lovely set of experiments. Heavy shading again, which I prefer. Indenting works really well in areas of high contrast, so I tend to use where I need a parallel-sided white line to cross a dark, or solid back. area. Nothing else produces as good a result.

Your light 6B shading is what I usually do immediately after indenting. Not to produce the finished result but simply to make the indents more visible.

Good to see you trying gradated shading, too. Especially as you now know the limits to the pressure you can use on that paper.

EXERCISE 5: GRAPHITE INDENTING on sketch pad
This is not a technique I'd recommend for regular use, but sometimes it can be invaluable. The only problem is that its results aren't consistent. It also feels weird when you first try it - as you probably discovered.

Your results are OK, and it's good to see you experimenting. Nothing can teach you more than personal experimentation.

I would have preferred to see more solid and darker shading, which is when this technique best works. Personally, I would have just used 2B (flat face) over my 8H. The use of 4B is OK, too. But HB could lead to problems. It's sufficiently hard to damage the original indents. But used with a broad, flat face, it should be useful in burnishing the softer grades.

EXERCISE 5: GRAPHITE INDENTING on Bristol
This Bristol would be my preference, because I think it will stand heavier shading. But, that said, your shading is a little timid. The indents almost aren't showing through the shading. In this case its the indents that represent the hairs, so the shading, while it can display three-dimensional shaping, is in effect the featureless background behind the indented hairs.

"Experimentation" is close the result I'd expect. A little more weight on the 8H would have made it more prominent. And as for the eyes... The stylus one is showing a great result - if impractical in this situation. But the 4B over 8H indenting is approaching perfect! The key highlight alone instantly increases the intensity of the shading. And the indents are visible without being dominant - perfect!

Just a final warning: Indenting is so very useful but take care to not overuse it. The result is a very mechanical line that can look artificial among hand-drawn lines.

WEEK 7: EXERCISE 1

I think that was a very wise decision. Any more time spent would probably have muddied what you've already drawn.

This is excellent! There are just a couple of points I want to raise, but overall this works really well.

The fist thing I noticed is that you've managed to keep all the edges sharp. That is essential if you want to depict reality - it's what the eye expects to see. You can't achieve separation and depth if your edges are soft.

I'll begin with the background and work forwards.

HOLES and GAPS
Drawing involves visual clues - extracting them, possibly exaggerating them, and including them. So, these holes are deep dark holes. What does that mean? What can you see when you look at one? Nothing! That's the clue. A hole leading through to the inside of a dark barn has NOTHING in it. If a little light is coming into the barn, shade it lighter but solid. If the eye can detect any "features" - gaps, dots, irregularities - it will not read it as being a dark hole. Instead it might think a piece of black sacking was hanging behind it. Whatever it thinks, it tries to make sense of it and will bring it forwards. A deep black hole should be solid black with no detail at all.

Your holes probably look far more dense in real life. Here they appear to contain light patches. I know that shows up more on a monitor - and what I'm seeing might be light reflecting rom the graphite - but that's useful. In real life the eye will read an average tone and your holes might look solid, but here we can see they aren't. That helps you to really make them more solid in future.

You've created very believable edges of the rotten wood, and the gaps in your boards are very realistic with varying widths between the two boards. Those gaps are also deep holes with two edges, one of which may catch the light and display a thin highlight. Yours do! And they work well. Again, visual clues - a highlight tells the eye "this is an edge. It's a hole. Not a dark stain". It often helps the viewer's understanding if you exaggerate. You're telling a story and clues add clarity. Your highlights on the rotten ends and edges prove that. And they prove you were recreating the rot you could "see". That's excellent! They are very believable.

WOOD
What usually surprises when looking at wood is how little detail it actually contains. There might be knots but the grain, especially in old weathered wood, is usually quite insignificant.

Your wood is lovely - you've chosen an excellent value to work with. Many artist have drawn that wood far too light, resulting in very few available values for the leaves. I can almost run my fingers across the surface and feel the undulations. You've suggested grain without it being intrusive. Your use of highlights on the rotten ends really serves to emphasise them and adds three-dimensionality. The single knots adds balance and interest without attracting too much attention. And your central nail hole is nicely played down, and with a lovely subtle indentation.

LEAVES I'm happy to see you haven't been influenced by the "natural" tonal values of leaves, which tend to be dark rather than light. This is your drawing - your world - and you make the rules. Like you, I would have drawn those leaves using the tonal values required for the drawing, not those in real life.

Your leaves look like leaves; all the visual clues tell you they're leaves, the subtle cast shadows tell me each has depth, and the shading within each leaf clearly describes the way each one twists or bends. I like your choice of positions of the cast shadows and that you haven't tried to include all of them. More would have caused confusion (the eye will fill in the rest).

My only reservation - Sorry! There had to be one - concerns the first and second leaves (reading from the top left corner). The second has the weirdest kink in its lower half, which I'm certain is completely unnatural - even if damaged. The first has a series of kinks that suggest weed killer... but, apart from those two, this is really good work.

WEEK 7: EXERCISE 1
HOLES and GAPS
I'll tackle this layer by layer. Drawing is about visual clues - extracting them, possibly exaggerating them, and including them. So, these holes are deep dark holes. What can you see when you look at one? Nothing! That's the clue. A hole leading through to the inside of a dark barn has NOTHING in it. If a little light is coming into the barn, shade it lighter but solid. If the eye can detect any "features" - gaps, dots, irregularities - it might think a piece of black sacking was hanging behind it. Whatever it thinks, it tries to make sense of it and will bring it forwards. A deep black hole should be solid black with no detail at all.

Your holes probably look far more dense in real life. Here the right-hand one appears to contain light patches, but I think that's shine on the graphite. In other words, you've created very believable holes.

The edges of the rotten wood are equally believable. As are the gaps in your boards, which have gaps that realistically vary in width. Those gaps are also deep holes with two edges, one of which might catch the light and display a thin highlight. Yours don't, but consider using that device in future drawings. As you can see in my alteration, those narrow highlights are visual clues that tell the eye "this is an edge. It's a hole. Not a dark stain". It often helps the viewer's understanding if you exaggerate. You're telling a story and clues add clarity.

And you might have noticed that I drew the highlights on the wrong edge! You have the light shining from the right, my highlights are lit from the left... BUT... it really doesn't matter. As long you don't highlight both edges, the viewer's mind will see the clues and understand their meaning.

WOOD
Sometimes I design these exercises expecting errors to be made - which is good because we learn best from errors. In this case I know that if the wood is not drawn dark enough, you'll be forced to draw the leaves with a very restricted palette - and I think that's happened here.

The first thing I noticed is that your leaves are outlined. That's OK as long as the background is as dark as the outlining. Then It struck me that if you had outlined and then extended those outlines to become the wood, the "too light" problem might not have existed.

There are dark "splits" that aren't tapered at both ends, which makes them marks on the surface, but otherwise, your wood is OK. It has a semblance of grain that is suggestive and not intrusive. On close inspection it appears that your attempts to darken stop short of the leaves. A few have light halos surrounding them, as if you stopped the shading short. Instead, place your pencil in the leaf's outline and draw away from it. That maintains the sharp edge and ensures the shading meets the leaf.

LEAVES
I'm happy to see you haven't been influenced by the "natural" tonal values of leaves, which tend to be dark rather than light. This is your drawing - your world - and you make the rules. Like you, I would have drawn those leaves using the tonal values required for the drawing, not those in real life.

Your leaves look like leaves; all the visual clues tell you they're leaves, the cast shadows tell me it has depth, and subtle shading within each leaf clearly describes the way each leaf twists or bends. You could, however, have used shadows cast on the wood. Don't forget the leaves, which are casting their shadows on each other, can also cast their shadows on the wood. Those shadows will add a great deal of depth, improve the three-dimensionality, the dark tones will make your highlights shine, and they might have helped solve the "light wood" problem.

Another problem solver would be to reverse your shading of the wood. At present the wood is darkest at the top, but the rot lower down suggests the wood could be damp, and damp wood is darker than dry. In addition, the lower section of the wall is in the shade of the leaves, which presents another logical reason why the base of the wall could be significantly darker than the top. Any viable excuse you can find to darken that wood is worth trying, because it will push the leaves forward and add depth to your drawing. With the rider that all edges MUST be sharp. Soft edges will cause the leaves to merge back into the wall.

Overall, this is good work. Personally, I'd leave it and take what you've learned forward to your next drawing rather than try to "fix" this one... but don't let me stop you if you feel the urge to improve it...

WEEK 8: EXERCISE 1

It looks as though you've been watching Divide Line and Tone (available to DWM Members only)? That's deliberately a larger-than-life scale so you can more clearly understand the process, but it was never going to look realistic.

But it also gave you the opportunity to let rip with the darks, which you've done. They push the light hairs forwards really well. And you've succeeded in getting the ends of the white hairs sharp-edged - the sharper the better. Soft edges belong to distant objects, not foreground ones.

There are two ways of tackling this way of drawing hair. One, which you can see in the video, is quite deliberately designed. The other, on a smaller scale, and working faster than you can think, is very immediate and drawn intuitively (as were the illustrations in the PDF). However, in both cases it involved defining the ends of the next layer, and then connecting the previous layer to it.

Hopefully, when you connected the shadows above to the hairs below, you split that area up into small sections. I tend to start a line in the shade above and look to see where it might end. I draw that line and it represents one side of a lock of hair. Then I complete that lock. I move to the next by again moving along a bit and starting another line that aims for a believable end. the more you can divide the job up, the easier it becomes.

I'm happy to see you avoided any tendency to simply shade from dark to light throughout. I can clearly follow any hair from root to tip, it's all definitely layered, and not "too neat" in between the layers. The hairs won't usually all lay completely flat and smooth, and it's the out-of-place hairs that usually give a sense if reality, which you've included.

Every hair, or lock, you draw has to have a purpose. It has to begin and end realistically. And you need to show how it relates to those on either side - above, below, emerging from beneath, etc. All of which you've done, and the ends are varied and interesting - which was the main aim of this exercise. Work on a single lock at a time. Treat is a being THE drawing - not a part of a bigger drawing. Try to make three-dimensional sense of what you're drawing. If you think one bunch of hair is emerging from beneath another, create a cast shadow to make that obvious. The viewers can't see inside your head - they can only try to decipher what they see. So help them to understand your intentions by adding clarity, even if it's a little exaggerated.

The most important aspect of both of these exercises was the ability to see and create white shapes as you drew dark lines. When you draw, you should always be as aware of the white you are leaving as you are of the marks you are drawing - they are equally important. I can see from this exercise that you have that ability, and that you were seeing in three-dimensions what you were drawing.

WEEK 8: EXERCISE 2
What a difference! At the bottom, that's your feather from eight weeks ago, looking very accomplished... but without the quality of your latest feather.

I'm assuming the central partial feather was an earlier beginning? If so then you're partly compromising your options. I can see you planned it first, which is good. But then you've applied tone before defining any edges. Personally, I apply line (detail) first, and then the three-dimensional shaping tone on top of that. That way I preserve the white of my paper until the final layer. But your way removes the possibility of pristine white being involved, assuming - probably correctly - that no eraser will return your applied tone back to pure white.

And now for the lovely feather at the top that's gently floated down onto your paper. Where your first feather was centred around drawing, shape, and form... this one is firmly planted in recreating a real living feather.

It has wonderful highlights that perfectly describe its form. Darker areas that add depth. A minimal use of indenting that adds reality to the feathery base. Splits and twists that all make sense. And even a bunch of filament ends that curve up towards us that increase both depth and the sense of reality.

Lovely work! And I've so enjoyed working with you over the past weeks.

WEEK 8: EXERCISE 1
OK, so far... Go on...

I love both! Had 9 cats. Now just have semi-feral Susie who lives in our barn.

That explains the lack of a nose... and the lazy eye. Spare nose supplied courtesy of management . But - that aside - that was an excellent decision. Drawing in context really does help your brain to absorb, remember, and understand much better than a soulless exercise.

As for the exercise - both have faults. The top one is packed full of blunt ends. Even if the hair had been cut, it would only have blunt tips at one end. Your dark bands are blunt at both ends, so they cannot be seen to lay over, or emerge from beneath, the adjacent lighter bands.

The lower attempt is better. It still has some blunt ends, but the principle problem here is the hooked ends. The ends of the darker hairs don't follow the direction of growth but curve off in unnatural directions.

Now for Miss Wendy Wombat the cat... Lovely ears! OK, the hairs don't correctly spring from the ear leather (blunt ends again), but they taper wonderfully well, and suggest depth. The wiry appearance doesn't bother me. Maybe she's a feral like Susie? With the exception of the stop/bridge of the nose (blunt ends) the hair layers quite naturally. At this stage, it's looking good. Now try to slow down, picture the area you're drawing as you draw (to inject some reality) and use a narrower point. Even the flat face of a narrow chisel point is OK, but your hairs here are rather broad, so we tend to concentrate our gaze on the ends rather than the hair. Hence the wiry/wild look. And practice your tapered lines, because you'll never regret the time spent perfecting them.

WEEK 8: EXERCISE 2
Well, let's begin right there... Personally, I aim for a sense of realism, because photo realism leaves me cold. But, whatever your definition of "realistic", realism will creep up on you, and the more you draw, the quicker that will happen.

It's not as poor as you probably think. However, it is disconnected from the feather, But if you don't try these things you'll never benefit from making errors - and making errors is how we learn.

You have every right to feel proud of this. There are a couple of points I want to mention but it's otherwise looking really good.

First, beware of repetition. You have four splits on the rear edge that are so equally spaced they soak up far too much attention. Our minds have a love of repetition and pattern, so try to avoid both - even if those features appear naturally in a reference.

My other point, concerns the two splits at the left-hand tip. The top one is blunt-ended. That cannot occur in Nature. It's a split running between filaments of a feather, so it has to be sharply pointed. Oddly, the lower split is pointed... but, again that shape is unnatural. The filaments extend from the quill out to the edge, so they have to split along those lines. They cannot branch out into anther direction part-way along.

I'm less concerned by those errors than I am by the thought that they occurred because you were thinking "drawing" and not "feather". Try whenever you can to get the subject alive in your mind. That way, as you work, you inevitably draw on memories and experiences and build those into your subject. And that's from where the "realism" arises. Believe it's real and you'll draw it that way.

All that said - Well done! And, thank you - I've throughly enjoyed the journey with you.