good.

Hey, @Dana! I just wanted to reinforce that I certainly agree with @Lotta, the lessons over at Draw-a-box cover fundamental drawing skills that should benefit you regardless what kind of art you wish to make (except maybe abstract, conceptual, post-modernist or something like that... which I assume is not your case). I also agree that the “50% rule” doesn’t need to apply to everyone. In my experience, as a cartoonist, I tend to be spontaneously driven to creative drawing, so back when I was investing more time to develop basic skills, splitting my time between study and creation just happened naturally to me - but I never felt the need to keep track of precisely how much of my time was dedicated to each one. I just made sure that I had enough input to learn the skills I felt I needed while also having some regular time for the creative part, which is ultimately what I wanted to hone and cultivate. However, I know there's defintely a personal component to learning strategies, and some people do like to design their path or assess their progess through strategies such as these percentual measurements. So I'd say that, if you find it works well for you and the goals you want to achieve, then great! But I definitely wouldn't say it's a rule all need to abide by, and if you believe going in a different direction suits you better, I'd say that's perfectly fine too. I think it was @Glenn Vilppu who once said that art has "no rules, just tools". Hope this helps. Happy studies!

And if you need references for Drawabox exercises (textures, plants, animals), I have a rich collection at Pinterest: https://pin.it/1xDnnEL

Of course, it's beneficial! Even if you want to draw only from observation, it's much easier to do it, when you understand the relations between objects in the 3D space - you can better transform them into 2D and the drawings doesn't look flat. And the learning progress is much faster than by just "copying the lines" from observation. Believe me, this is my own experience. Take look at my album, I'm learning to draw as a veeeery adult person (just for fun). I started from null and I am delighted with the Drawabox. It really works!