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Hi Birdie,

I have a friend who is in a similar situation to you. He completely lost the use of his dominant hand after 20 years as an artist due to the sudden onset of arthritis and has had to completely retrain with his other hand. I thought it might give you some encouragement to know that after just a few months of hard practice, he is already back to being much better than me! He realised that although he had lost the muscle memory and strength of his dominant hand, he had not lost any of the knowledge and theory that he had built up over the years. It is easy to forget that this knowledge was such a large contributor to his skill. Perhaps more so than the muscle memory!

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you about that, so that you don't get discouraged by the setback. Your gesture drawings are very fluid and dynamic. You obviously have a good grasp of composition and proportion so I think you should have no trouble getting back up to speed. The lines in these left-handed gestures are a little jittery, but that should resolve itself once you have built up sufficient strength and control in your wrist.

You are doing great!

Hi Ian!

Your drawings are really bold and I love that you go straight in with pen. It forces you to be more confident in your marks and I think it is such a useful exercise. It's also great that you are taking the time to sketch quick 30-second stick figures as a warm-up. You might find it useful to also add in the line of action if you have time. It will help you to make your figures even more dynamic.

On the more complete illustrations, you may find it useful to measure out and mark down some proportions and relationships in the under drawing. You can still do this in pen by pressing lightly. Try holding up your pen to the reference and measure how many heads tall/wide each body part is. Also, if you get to the edge of the page and find that you have run out of room for the whole figure, I recommend that you just leave the drawing as a partial figure. If you shrink body parts to fit the page, even a little, it can be quite obvious and distract from the rest of the drawing.

I really like the shading in the 10-minute pose. Having the cross-hatching moving in different directions is a great way to communicate the shape and curve of the body and I think you have done a great job with it there.

You are doing really well!

Hi Naonao!

Wow! Your drawings are beautiful. The poses are dynamic with a clear sense of movement, and you do a great job at capturing the essence of the pose over such a short period. I think your varied line weight is especially effective at communicating where the centre of gravity sits. It really makes these poses feel more grounded.

In order to get more comfortable with producing finished pieces you might consider drawing some longer, dedicated studies of smaller parts of the body only (e.g. hands, feet, torso, back). I see that most of these images don't include feet. That may just be because you are running out of time, but adding them in may be the next step towards producing finished full body illustrations.

Your use of inside contour here is really effective. Drawing in the curved lines sideways across areas such as the torso and legs really help to give these drawings depth even with a fairly economical line. You're doing really well and you clearly have a good grasp of general proportion. I think you will produce some amazing finished pieces when you have the time.

Hi Cyril!

So many drawings! You've really been working hard.

I love the thick, confident lines in these sketches. The figures jump out immediately and the poses are all very clear and easy to identify. You do an amazing job at defining the muscles in contour and it really helps to identify the weight and centre of gravity in the pose.

Since you have such a knack for these sketches, maybe you could push yourself to do longer, finished pieces. Whether it's on here or in a live class, I think you would produce some amazing work with a pose of several hours and it may help you to pin down the fine details.

I love your use of inside contour in these pieces to give depth to your figures. They feel so rounded and fleshy even with minimal shading.

Great work! Keep going!

Hi Rosie! I would love to critique you but I can't see any images here. You can with upload them to the "sketchbook" section of the site and request critique through there, or you can add a link to a site like imgur where people can view your work.

... Or it's totally possible I am being silly and I've missed something obvious! :D

Hi Izzy!

I recognise some of these from my own classes. :)

I love your use of the brush pen to give a really bold and economical mark. Having the confidence to go straight in with the pen gives your figures a bold, eye-catching style. The choice of colour on the off-white background is also very appealing. It gives you drawing a softer, warmer and more natural look than black on white.

A benefit of brush pen is that you can add in some really hard areas of contrast and shadow. I think that something like that would look great on your drawings. When you have finished with the contour, you might consider adding in the very darkest areas as blocks of colour, to really play to the brush pen's strengths.

Speaking of strengths, you do a great job with varying line weight in these figures. In the bottom left, your thinner, lighter lines around the figure's legs draw the viewer's focus in the direction she is leaning and pulls the centre of gravity forwards.

Keep up the good work!

I love the use of brush pen and thick lines in these drawings. You manage to convey a lot of expressions, even with good line economy, and the poses are fluid. I particularly like the drawing of the man with a stick on the second page. The strength in the pose really shows through and the slight tilt of head adds a lot of character and confidence.

I notice that in some of these drawings, the hips are a little narrow. Perhaps a few full body studies or even studies of just the lower half would help if that's a problem you are seeing consistently.

Using brush pen gives you a lot of room to use line weight as part of the composition. I can see this is already coming into play a bit with the creation of shadows and deep patches of contrast so you clearly have a knack for the material.

Keep up the good work.