Yesterday I decided to try adjusting my daily sketching process, and was pretty successful with those shifts. One thing I didn’t do was a series of 10-minute sketches of a single subject. Instead, I removed the timer all together to see what that felt like and if it helped me feel more in control and less rushed. It definitely removed that pressure and I think the sketch is more accurate because of it.
One area I struggled with today was the value shift between the form shadow of the pear and the cast shadow, and especially in relation to the black surface that the pear is sitting on. It might be useful to photograph the still life to pick out the values more concretely and compare them to each other.
I also need to remember to check the negative spaces more — that would help me judge whether things like the stem are the correct size.