Thanks. I'm glad I took the time to ease back in and it has fed the flame - I'm excited to make something everyday!

I hit the first figure drawing lesson today, I love the human form, it's a beautiful machine, wonderfully made.

Feel very much as if I've been training my eye to observe which feels satisfying and I'm expecting to sharpen that eye the more I dig into practice.

I feel pretty good about what I did today, I think the Pelvis box and hip joints could be more on target. That will come with practice.
The cylinders became smoother and easier as I did them and once I enter a flow, and stop overthinking the prominent angle comes easier.

Another good day with a pen. Much love.

Thank you kindly, I really enjoyed these - about to start some more. Hope you're good mate.

I hit the nude forms again today. I want to get myself familiarised with the lesson before I move on to the next part.

Pelvis boxes still elude me slightly. I have a lack of confidence in my ability to identify them clearly and know precisely what I am creating a box around. I think some study into the anatomy of that area will help a lot.

I've been thinking a lot about when one should move on to the next session.

Highly creative people seem to have two demons that whisper in their ears constantly when trying to progress and express themselves.

The first whispers "But is this one tiny part PERFECT though?" and the other whispers "Be FREE from form and structure! The rigid world contains your creative whims of genius! Spontaneity! Chaos! Follow these winds and divine inspiration!"

I think to truly harness the creative spark within us that begs to be expressed in manifest form (be it painting or some other form of consumable media) we need to know when to tell the one to shut the hell up and to demonstrate to the other that the chaos of the unsaid needs a word, pen, and page to harness it.

If we fixate on a perfect step then we'll never take the next one to learn the skills to express ourselves.
If we run in the wilderness with no boundaries to contain us then we'll have no road to direct us to our dreams.

Be encouraged at every step you take and don't pitch a tent too long in any one place in case you never start moving again. The road you are on is a structure to a dream you have. Go get it.

Decided to go further and deeper into the rabbit hole today.

I watched the male proportions part of the tutorial and then tried it with Marcs finished product next to me for reference.

It was okay and I was eager to move on (getting the dopamine hits from learning new skills) so I attempted to do it from memory right away.

I wanted to highlight the gaps in my memory so afterward, I did a paint-over with Marc's reference again and made some notes of what I needed to solidify in my grey matter.

I distilled that into what I considered lynchpins; 3 easily triggered things that would have a knock-on effect and would mean I didn't have to remember all the orange notes (just the green ones.)

The next two pics were again from memory.

I'm pleased with them, and I'm hoping it all gets filed into the long-term stacks in my archive (won't be letting any redheads with a candle in there ... wondering who gets that reference

)

When operating from memory I felt so loose and free. It was very much a pleasure to be drawing. I think I just got a taste of what working from a visual library feels like, the sense of flow and freedom was both relaxing and fulfilling.

And to make sure the previous part of the lesson is refined I got in some lines of action, head, shoulders, hips, and then cylinders.

I figured I'd push myself a little and tackle some overlapping bodies. I liked having to push my observance and think about them both in a 3D space.

Having understood the Pelvis in relation to the rest of the anatomy after the proportions exercise I tried circles instead of boxes. It clicked so much better.

One lesson compounds on another and it feels goooooooood.

Watched the female proportions portion of the video today. So similar to the men I figured I'd check male was in my memory and then go from memory to female straight away.

I traveled into the world of pen and thumb measurement next it got messy.

However, I realised something interesting as I painted over my attempt to see what was wrong with it. If I grabbed it with the pen tool and squished it ever so slightly to the left then everything almost aligned perfectly.

I realised that the second orange line I used for a grid line (right of my sketch's head) was too long. Mostly because I used my fingers to measure instead of the pen. That being the only line that made the difference is encouraging as it means the rest of my work was completely right.

I'll certainly practice this a couple more times before i move on to gesture drawings but so far so pleased. Much love.