Since the start of taking this class I have learned a lot of new skills. My only past art experience was in 8th grade when I took art, but there wasn't much focus on drawing. When I came to this class, already I have learned so many new techniques. My favorite and most useful skill learned is vanishing point. From my first drawing of a hallway to my final piece on vanishing point, the improvement was great; all lines lead up to one point, and the drawings actually are from one point of view and are going in the same direction, and the corresponding pair of lines on each building are parallel.
Another skill I developed is shading, and using different values. In my perspective drawing of the buildings above, even though I'm not too great at shading, the range of values do make the drawing more realistic around the windows. The drawing would be more complete if I had time to shade the entire building, too.
Lastly, the final skill I learned which was completely new to me was using a range of values when drawing rounded objects using a light source. Depicted above is a hard hat I drew when I did not have the skill to make something look round, and two spheres in which I tried to use burnishing to build up the mid tones, shadow and cast shadow of the sphere. I also left room for reflected light. Unfortunately, I drew the shadow on the same side of the sphere. Of the skills I have collected, none of the materials I used are anything new. All I have used are pencils, colored pencils, rulers, and the occasional blending stump, nothing that I haven't seen before.