A student and fellow tattoo artist just sent me this from my drawing and tattoo challenges. Smooth shading, nice shadows. Great work. Take part in this exercises and post your work below for feedback (original reference tattoo and sketch is in the photos below)

Start here. Learning to draw with professional method and technique. I don’t just tell you what to learn, I do it with you… You can join my 10-week drawing challenge for self taught artists right now. 10 pages of sketches. 10 weeks (or 10 days if you can practice full time) A video of each page breaking down: ✅ how to do the exercises ✅ how to build drawings ✅ where shadows go and why ✅ shading methods ✅ how it all applies to tattooing If you’re on a free trial, you can: 1️⃣ watch Drawing Challenge 1 video in the comments below 2️⃣ begin Drawing Challenge 1 (in the photo below) 3️⃣ post your drawing for feedback (in group or private message) To watch the full videos for each drawing challenge, you can either join: 👉 the standard tier - learn from my Black & Grey Tattoo Course, my A-Z of black & grey tattooing, which includes all of the videos for each drawing challenge plus so much more ($27 per month) 👉 or the “premium tier” - get continuous feedback videos and mentorship from me on top of everything in the standard tier ($67 per month) Black & grey tattooing is made of 2 halves. Art, and technical tattooing. Learning each thing separately makes things much more digestible and efficient. These are the exercises that will teach you the art fundamentals that apply to every drawing and tattoo I do. We’ll focus on technical tattooing later on in the course. Post your drawings for feedback from me.

From page 1 of the 10-week drawing challenge, a part of my Black & Grey Online Tattoo Course. To watch all of the drawing challenge videos, you can join Crook’s at a stander tier or higher and take the B&G course. If you join the premium tier, you can post your work for feedback and mentorship at every step. https://youtu.be/UocaRWlOB1g?is=FY9pKIswMBDjVrkW

Aim - sketch the frame of an eyeball and a complete one next to it - sketch a female eye from the side and front - sketch the frame of a human nose from the front and side using tube and sphere shapes - draw 3 complete noses from various angles - draw 3 sets of lips from various angles - draw 1 eyes, mouth and nose using only black/one tone to simplify shadows (figure 9) - draw a face using only black, 1 tone of grey and highlights, a study and exercise in simplicity - draw an ear from 2 angles ​ See how an eye and eye lids wrap around the sphere shape of the eye ball. The wrinkles and creases follow the form of the shape by nature. ​ Continuing to build complex shapes with multiple simple shapes combined. Getting into the art of simplifying complex images such as faces. Breaking complex images down to 3-4 tones gives clarity and a base for accurate and confident detail later. ​

Aim - study the natural flow of leaves and flowers to find the light. Draw 2 clusters of leaves with organic flow - draw 4 different Japanese style waves using natural flow - draw 2 wings in different poses with different flows - study and draw the snake body, using various size circles to build flow - draw small sleeve design using a snake body and flow with the arm. Note my arm template, considering the ball of the shoulder, the angle of the trip and forearm, and the bend at the elbow This is a loose exercise. Study and explore flows in nature. We'll use it to our advantage when designing tattoos later. As we've done in previous exercises, we'll continue to think about how nature behaves and model our work around that. Using nature's flow contributes to making great designs, especially with tattooing. Japanese waves consider the overall shape and flow of the crash, allowing each finger wave to flow in the right place and direction. The leaves in figure 2 consider the nature flow of leaves and how they grow. Leaves and plants naturally grow in specific order to reach light so they can grow. It's worth studying. In figures 3 and 4, I play with flow and it might work with the shape of the body part we're designing on, such as the wing flowing down the side of a forearm. Also see figure 7, these small exercises on body part templates are fun and useful. Consider not making things static when drawing with shapes. We want flow and movement. Like in figure 5. The snake is made up multiple circles, varying in size and placement, so the body has good flow.