What I find most difficult is fitting the drawing on my paper. Unless I use a ruler to go from large to small, and use proportions, I run out of room! The techniques I find most helpful are negative space and short sketchy lines. I  chose to draw the marsh wren because I really liked the photo and my gesture drawing were all done very small.

I took off on a new venture with this assignment. The challenge? To apply the drawing techniques to capture the details of a wolf spider I observed, at great length, in my garden. It was uncovered while I was weeding… by hand, no chemicals or mechanical devices. I took a photograph to work from. It seemed overwhelming at first, however, proportional techniques, keeping negative space in mind, and using short sketchy lines, mark-making, value, and breaking my subject down into shapes and relationships helped immensely.

Using negative space to find the distances between things is coming naturally, but shading correctly is posing more of a problem to me. Or, maybe it's not the shading so much as shading but also retaining details while doing so. Once I shade something it all seems to get blurred and the details aren't crisp and clean like they are in nature. Finding and using negative space has probably been the most helpful technique in this course so far. It helps a lot when something looks wrong but I can't tell what. 

I really enjoyed refining this drawing. Getting the values right is always the most challenging and it is important to know when to stop and not overdo it. I think the use of a Staedtler Mars Lumograph Black 6B and 8B pencil on top of a drawing done primarily with a mechanical 0.5 F pencil helped me a lot in achieving this.

The initial sketch is coming naturally, but refining it with more detail - especially shading, is difficult. I like the technique to imply patterns and texture, I would have been hung up in the past with trying to sketch every detail as I focused on specific areas and parts of the bird.

The general shape of the bird has come more easily to me, but the difficulties have been making the bird look more realistic and feet have always been a struggle for me, but luckily this one's feet are more hidden. The most helpful technique I've learned so far is the gesture sketching itself, it gives the bird such a natural look.

I chose one second of the `Red Fox P&K on an Alaska Beach´ to do my draw, I said one second because the amazing hyperactivity of the fox cub it´s only comparable with the tenderness that the video demonstrate, but deepening in the feeling that provoked in me, I think I found this emotion like the best technique that I need to express it, helped and using the skills that we learned in past lessons, of course, I just hope I got it.

I loved this practice. Starting with the quick sketch allows for such freedom and a loose quality. Following with refinement makes the piece really pop and highlights the bird's natural beauty and motion. I find focusing on negative space invaluable! It's such a fantastic, easy way to confirm proportions and accuracy. Getting the right position is still a struggle for me but the negative space really helps with that.

Getting the proportions right.  Sketchy lines has helped me with this.  

I am finding the mark making and value shading is coming more easily the more that I practice it.  I find myself naturally shifting into looking at the negative spaces more often too.  Taking proportion measurements is something that I would need to do more intentionally.

I really enjoyed re-learning gesture drawing. That is the key to field sketching success! My big ah-ha moment! Drawing is definitely a skill. Although I consider myself to be a life-long artist, I am very out of practice and I feel rusty. One of my goals with this course is to establish more regular drawing time back into my life. I like the cross-hatching inside the mouth for darkness.

Going back to the quick drawings and correcting the details was fun - I was amazed at how many things needed tweaking. But was also pleased that I could see the problems and fix them.

Assigning value is hard but practice sessions like this are helping. Most helpful has been to focus more on the negative space.

I would say the two most helpful techniques refining the sketch were  proportion and negative space as not only in the drawing but also in the adding details of the seagull sketch I was doing. The shading helped with depth and bringing out the wings.  Proportion was so helpful in getting body length, head and legs in sync.

I really have trouble with depth. 

I am learning so much and renewing some of the skills I acquired in art classes decades ago.. 

My polished lizard

Putting the techniques I've learned was lots of fun.  The easiest for me to use was proportion and negative space.  The hardest is shading.  I still have touble seeingwhere the shadows are and  I have trouble using the right technique and getting the right value.

The techniques I found most helpful are proportion, negative space and breaking the subject down into shapes and relationships.  But I find myself using all the different techniques at different times.

I am concentrating on working quickly, adding detail later during commercials on television. I viewed a Chevy truck commercial a number of times getting a little more detail in the quick sketch each time because it was a very amusing story. 

I find the proportion tool useful as well as simply going back several times after stepping away a bit to add more detail. The more values (light, medium, and dark) shades I give the drawing, the more 3D it becomes.