Drawing Class - Week 8: Classmates Cartoon #2

What you are looking at:
same set-up as last week, but facing 2 rows instead of 1.
(we were in 2 joined rows of V's like this, >>>>><<<<< , running east-west across the room, where each 'v' represents 2 students, each seated facing the pointy center.) I'm sitting toward the center of the row, my back to the window, facing NW. The white tape is what we use instead of trying to erase 9B pencil. Lots of white tape this week. The big head centered in the top panel is my immediate neighbor. I'm looking west.
The 4th fellow from the left is the same character who appears as the left-most figure in the second panel. (The purple door dead-center is one of 2 purple wonders in the same classroom. This isn't even NYU!) The yellow rectangles are light-wood supply cabinets and the white and gray vertical stripes in front of them are two sides of a rectangular column. I'm facing north.
For the third panel, I'm looking behind me, toward the eastern wall. The lady on the left is an architect. (The weird shape behind her is the outline of stacked plastic chairs.) The figure next to her is a young Japanese guy here for a year to learn English--he's enrolled full-time at Kaplan?! which apparently offers ESL--and to study art.* Behind him, another white column, with the other purple door to the immediate right. A guy with long hair--I don't know him yet. The girl with glasses from the first day of class. The guy in the stocking cap sitting directly behind me is the blond guy from the far right of last week's picture. He's a working illustrator and this is his second semester. (Several of my classmates are repeat customers.)
Fourth panel: almost the same as the second, obvs, but I'm looking more directly north. I was trying to see what would happen if I chose fewer figures, with more space between them. Turns out it's not good, esp the way i accidentally made space bend back from the giant cowboy hat. The right-most figure is my direct opposite, not the hat guy.

The unfinished painting: I think I like the 3rd panel drawing the best [mostly the hand], but the 2nd panel had a little more variety of shapes and sizes. There was only 1/2 hr left in class when I started adding color, so I started with the things I didn't want to spend too much time on: the cowboy hat, the background and floor, the drawing boards. I finished as much of them as I'd care to. I was just starting on the figures' hair and faces when it was time to clean up. I spent about 5-10 minutes on their skin colors, but not much else. I was hoping to draw their eyes this time! I don't know how to spend 5 minutes and make it look like 25 minutes worth of work. Real artists do it all the time, right? My hunch is that particular skill involves "No More Mistakes."** I was a little disappointed in my time management because I didn't finish the faces, which is the part I like most and that confuses me most. I got a little carried away with making the black blob in the center (stacked plastic chairs, y'all) out of colors other than black.

*He majored in architecture back in Japan. I asked him if he'd study with any architects here--nope. He's here for the English, which he hopes will be useful in his career. I hope English will prove more useful to him than it has for me. I think this might be his first drawing experience. Next year, he's off to Finland, studying "design" for another year. Guts! I like his style of study abroad. It turns out that no one cares if you're earning transferable college credits. He's starting from scratch with the English. (Finnish? Umm, what do you think?)

**which was, yes, my New Year's Resolution for the past 3 yrs running, for those of you keeping track, or who might recognize the phrase. So far, not so good: mistakes at every opportunity. "No More Mistakes" will be every year's NYR from now on or until I'm proficient at my current level of difficulty.