Today, I finished the beginner drawing course I started in 2018! Here is my certificate of completion lol:

To be perfectly clear: There were 11 total hours of recorded lectures. I spent Quite A Lot More Time actually drawing, and I actually watched each lecture at least two, and often three or four times.

The first assignment was to draw an eye, and the final assignment was to do that assignment again and compare them. So here are my before-and-after eye sketches.

the eye I drew in July 2018:

The eye I drew today, April 2021:

I was surprised after the first one that it came out as well as it did, given my inexperience with drawing. I do follow instructions pretty well, I guess. And I guess that is contributing to my suspicion that three years of practice should have yielded more improvement than it has.

But the almost three years of practice DID I think paid off, at least a little - I feel like there's a lot more expression and depth in the new eye. I could still use more practice drawing eyelashes, I think, and eyebrows. But I feel like I have learned better how to manipulate contrast and shadow. The new eye looks like it's inside the eyelids in a way that the original eye doesn't achieve quite as much.

What do you think? 

I think I am going to move on to a course on cartooning next. We'll see. :D