This is my one-year progress post. In January of last year I couldn't draw a convincing head from any angle except dead-on front view. I spent the year working through Loomis fundamentals, doing daily gesture practice on Line of Action, and painting one finished piece per week.

The biggest jumps in skill came from three things: value studies in grayscale before touching color, painting from photo reference with the reference visible at all times (not from memory until I understood the forms), and getting brutal feedback from a Discord critique server.

If you're a year in and frustrated, I promise the improvement is happening — it just doesn't feel linear. The month I thought I was plateauing was right before everything started clicking. Keep the work dated and compare six months at a time, not week to week.