Work reviews
Live stream recordings where subscribers' work is taken apart out loud: what reads, what gets in the way, and exactly which fix to make. Watching someone else’s review works just as well as your own.
Lessons in this category come with the Basic plan — $12 a month. Choose a plan
Lessons in “Work reviews”
subscribers only2:13:56Student work review in session — full recording
The full session recording: Azat goes through the submitted work one by one — a drawing of a plaster head, a figure, a composition and a digital painting — correcting construction and value right on top of the work and explaining every correction. Two hours and fourteen minutes, unedited.
subscribers only56:11Week 8 feedback. The figure. Long study. Marathon “The Human Form”
subscribers only1:18:21Week 7 feedback. Male figure studies
subscribers only1:16:52Week 6 feedback. Female figure studies
Week 6 feedback. Female figure studies
subscribers only1:46:21Week 5 feedback. Feet
subscribers only1:38:54Hands. Week four feedback
subscribers only1:24:12Portrait. Week three feedback
subscribers only1:34:16Parts of the face. Week two feedback
subscribers only2:05:11Portrait sketching. Week one feedback
subscribers only2:06:05Saturday feedback, marathon week 8
Recording of the final Saturday marathon stream: Azat reviews participants' work from week eight — what works, what gets in the way and which fix to make.
subscribers only2:01:22Saturday feedback, marathon week 7
Recording of the Saturday marathon stream: Azat reviews participants' work from week seven — what works, what gets in the way and which fix to make.
subscribers only2:00:24Saturday feedback, marathon week 6
Recording of the Saturday marathon stream: Azat reviews participants' work from week six — what works, what gets in the way and which fix to make.
subscribers only2:19:48Saturday feedback on marathon week 5
Recording of the Saturday marathon stream: Azat reviews participants' work from week five — what works, what gets in the way and which fix to make.
subscribers only2:21:22Saturday feedback, marathon week 4
Recording of the Saturday marathon stream: Azat reviews participants' work from week four — what works, what gets in the way and which fix to make.
subscribers only2:22:37Feedback stream, week 3
In this stream we went through the basic mistakes in choosing a color scheme and highlighted the brilliant work everyone on the marathon did! Enjoy :)
subscribers only2:25:40Feedback stream, marathon week 2
We look at color contrasts and compositions built on them.
subscribers only2:14:37Feedback stream, marathon week 1
Friends! In the stream recording we review students' work and talk. Be sure to watch
subscribers only45:19Lecture. Reviewing student work from the Academy of Arts
Hi! I was recently at the reviews at the Academy of Arts, looking at student work. I recorded a lecture for you on the most interesting pieces, so pour yourself some tea, get comfortable, watch and listen. May this lecture set you up for a productive weekend 💪 By the way, how do you like this format — should I do more?
subscribers only59:45Stream recording. The “Value and rendering” marathon: week six feedback
Hi! Here’s the recording of the feedback on the work for the final assignment of the marathon.
subscribers only1:01:20Stream recording. The “Value and rendering” marathon: week five feedback
Hi! Posting the recording of the stream with feedback on the week five work. In a marathon, besides the results, it also matters that you’re building the skill, so watching the reviews and making the fixes is still worth doing now ✨ I’d even say that building the skill and seeing your own progress matters more than the results 🙂 Agree?
subscribers only1:01:06Live stream recording. "Value and Rendering" marathon: week four feedback
Hi! Here’s the recording of the stream with feedback on your still lifes. Your work is just fire — if you haven’t seen it, I recommend going to the comments and taking a look 🔥
subscribers only1:12:29Stream recording. Marathon “Value and Rendering”: week three feedback
Hi! Here’s the recording of the feedback stream. Watch it now and finish off your still life — I’m expecting the final piece from you at the end of this week 😀
subscribers only1:15:49Live stream recording. "Value and Rendering" marathon: week two feedback
Hi! The feedback stream is done and recorded, go watch 😀 And I recommend joining live, since I won’t always manage to post the recording here right away ✨
subscribers only1:28:12Live stream recording. "Value and Rendering" marathon: week one feedback
Hi everyone! Here’s the recording of the feedback stream, if you didn’t make it live. I recommend everyone watch 🙂 And I’m waiting for your work on the week one topic ✨
About “Work reviews”
The section is a simple thing: an archive of live streams with feedback. The core is the monthly reviews of submitted work, half an hour to an hour and a half each, built up over several years. Added to them are the week-by-week reviews from the marathons — parts of the face, hands, feet, the female and male figure, the long study, all six weeks of “Value and Rendering” — and a lecture from the Academy of Arts walkthroughs, where student work is taken apart. Forty-five recordings, more than sixty hours in all of talking about specific sheets of paper.
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Watching someone else get a critique is more useful than it sounds. Everyone breaks the same things: a tilted pelvis, the axis of the head slipped sideways, a hand a phalanx too short, value built with nothing held in reserve for the darkest dark. After a few streams you start hearing the phrase before it is spoken, and that is the moment when fixing your own work stops depending on a teacher. Many people come away with the habit of setting a drawing aside for a day and looking at it with a fresh eye before calling it finished.
You will almost never hear “draw it more neatly” in a review. A correction is named by place and by cause: the proportion from the chin to the brow line was eyeballed, so the face is long; the supporting leg is not carrying the weight, so the figure tips over; light and shadow are too close in value, so the form does not read. The cause almost always sits one stage earlier than the visible defect: ragged hatching follows from construction that was never understood, not from a shaky hand. On somebody else’s sheet that connection is easier to see calmly than on your own, and afterwards it is easier to recognize in your own work.
If you are opening this section for the first time, start with the lecture on student work from the Academy of Arts: forty-five minutes, strong pieces, and you can hear what criteria a drawing is measured by in the first place. Then take any recent monthly feedback stream to see the format. Only after that go into the marathon week reviews on whatever you are drawing now: if you are drawing hands, open the review of the hands week, it is tied to a specific assignment.
There is no one-on-one mentoring here. Work is reviewed in the general flow of the stream, and whether yours gets in depends on whether you sent it in by the deadline and how many pieces came in that round. The recordings are tied to assignments from particular marathons, some of them made several years ago, so repeating an assignment from the archive exactly does not always work. There is little explanation of technique in the reviews either: for that you go to the topic sections of the catalog.
FAQ
Can I send my own work in for a review?
Yes, that is what the reviews are for. The upload link is posted at the end of the month, and the stream happens at the beginning of the next one. Check the announcements for current dates and terms, the arrangement has changed over time.
Is there any point in watching if I did not submit anything?
There is, and for most viewers that is the main way to use it. Everyone runs into the same mistakes, so a review of somebody else’s sheet almost always lands on your situation too. It is also easier to accept a criticism when it is aimed at another person’s drawing.
What level do you need to follow what is being said?
The reviews are conducted in the language of construction, proportion and value. If you know what a core shadow and an axis of symmetry are, everything will be clear. At the very beginning it makes more sense to watch the basic lessons on the topic first and come back here with your first drawing of your own.
Do I need to watch the recordings in order?
No, every stream stands on its own. The monthly feedback streams are not connected to one another, and the marathon reviews are tied to their own week’s topic. It is easier to choose by what you are drawing right now.
What does a subscription unlock?
The Basic plan gives access to the whole archive of reviews and to the assignments. The Club plan adds mini-courses, reference packs and a place in the current marathon with live streams, where you can show your work on air.
Work reviews — how Azat draws it
Works by Azat Nurgaleev on the subject of this category: not an illustration to a lesson, but what the lessons lead to.
Portrait on blue 
Gentleman in a bowler hat 
Young woman in white 
Man in a white shirt 
Figure on a colored background 
Young woman in a shawl