Fresh eyes challenge, part 1

I have just completed the Fresh Eyes Challenge that was run by Kenzo of Love Life Drawing, a 10 day series of lessons in how to get started breaking down the human form to capture gesture-style drawings. Kenzo is an excellent instructor, and I loved doing the course. Am I a pro now? Of course not. But I have much better tools in my arsenal than when I started. Each lesson comprised 5 or 6 photos of reference poses, chosen to illustrate something particular about the figure. I am not at liberty to share the references, so you’ll just be seeing my side.

In the first days, the challenge was to pose these little 2D models based on the poses, and then to draw a figure based on the simplified model. Many of us, myself included, tended to minimize the angles. Our brains prefer an upright figure, it seems! Much of the learning in these first days was about leaning into, even exaggerating the angles.