$159
Bundle discount Each additional course part in your cart adds 3% off all courses, up to 15% off.
Full course
You’ll learn the most important foundational concepts for drawing anything and soon you’ll be drawing pictures out of your imagination or from reference.
$159
Give a gift
Give a gift card for art students to use on anything in the Proko store.
Or gift this course:
Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
DOWNLOADS
ASSIGNMENTS![]()
![Benjamin Gustafsson]()
![]()
![Melanie Scearce]()
![]()
![Marco Sordi]()
![]()
![Ilan Jones]()
![]()
![Vincent GIL]()
![]()
![Petar Ristic]()
![]()
![@ralk]()
![]()
![francesco zanardini]()
![]()
![Alicja Słowacka]()
![]()
![Jonathan Fisk]()
![]()
![@na_talie]()
![]()
![@princerobot]()
![]()
![Chuck Ludwig Reina]()
![]()
![Jonas Stemme]()
![]()
![Samer Fakiani]()
![]()
![Dawid Zając]()
![]()
![Melanie Scearce]()
![]()
![Nat]()
![]()
![@jportela]()
![]()
![François Alligier]()
![]()
![@etin]()
![]()
![Patrick Bosworth]()
Download the photo reference images of seals and sea lions.
Level 1 - Draw from Reference
Draw their gesture and design dynamic shapes using the concepts from this lesson and the previous lesson.
Remember that gesture is not the contour, so don't just copy the outlines. Look for the movement and energy throughout the shapes. Use your whole arm and use the looser sketch line that we learned about.
Level 2 - Draw from Memory or Imagination
Start with the level 1 project and after 5 to 10 poses, turn the page, put away all the reference photos and do more drawings from imagination or from memory.
You can try to invent your own poses and design those shapes to be dynamic. Or you can try to remember the poses you already drew and use those as inspiration. Try to push and design with a focus on drawing dynamic shapes. It doesn't matter how accurate you get to the original photo, it's more about designing the shapes to look dynamic and interesting.
---
Deadline for submissions to be included in the video critique is next Thursday (8/24/23)
* Because of the large amount of reference images, it would help a lot of you include the reference you used for each drawing. I'm more likely to select your submission for the critique. Thank you!
•
4d
Great invention!
2026/5/6. Good morning everybody. Here's my assigment for Lv.1 an 2. Thanks for any comment or critique.
I like seals. There's a lot of them where I live. It was a challenge to draw their blubbery tubular bodies dynamically. Hopefully it worked.
Hi everybody,
Enjoy this assignments. I struggle with the n°1 and non dynamics poses. I have to make them feel dynamics. But i keep trying and do and re do. I will keep doing this assignment (38 pictures left). I posted it in order of date. I don’t really see the evolution for now.
Thank you for yours critiques and advices.
Have fun :)
Fun assignment - kept it fluid and focused on the nuance of each shape in relation to each other.
Trying to feel the shapes, and later on simplifying and grouping as I get more familiar with the seal-ness of them.
With the level 2 task, I tried to see if I can make symmetric, static seals look dynamic.
It was a really enjoyable exercise, though it did take quite a long time. I’m pleased with how some of them turned out, whilst others, unfortunately, didn’t quite work out as I’d hoped. I tried to limit myself to a maximum of 10 minutes per reference and to use an overhand grip.
I apologise if, in some of the photos, the scan has unfortunately highlighted the difference in the lines, making them a little hard to see.
I’m open to any kind of feedback and thank you in advance!
PS: I've attached the other images in the comment
This was an interesting one. I am definatelly going to continue this exercise with different animals.
Possibly my favorite assignment so far! I chose oceanic whitetip sharks since I’m studying them for work right now, so I thought that’d be a fun double dip. For the first drawing, I really loved the downward curvature of the shark’s body, so I tried to accentuate that feeling by bringing in the dorsal fin and having it curve more, exaggerating the folds near the pectoral fin, and changing the shape of the tail fin some to continue the flow of the curvature more. I see now that I could’ve been even more aggressive with the curving down of the head!
For the second one, I wanted to really emphasize this feeling of the shark being above the viewer, with the sharks body curving ‘up’ / to their left some, and I wanted to make them chunkier since my previous one was more slender. I changed the perspective on the shark’s left pectoral fin and had it overlap with their dorsal fin to try to sell the feeling of being below. I made the tail less thick so that the body feels even chunkier by proportion; that makes them look a little odd as a result, but I’m glad I played around with it!
They look good! As far as I can tell, it is always a good idea to draw the gesture a little more extreme. At least in my drawings, what lands on the paper is often a little less gestural than what I intended to draw.
Some examples of drawing with the reference. I’m trying to be more lose and sketchy—but it feels forced and sometimes looks worse than when I just do one line? Though one line looks worse sometimes too.
•
22d
Nice work! And yeah, whenever you're learning a new technique it can feel super weird and alien. That's normal. Don't beat yourself up about it. That's just part of the learning process! Keep at it!
I am trying a new study method for observation. Observe the subject, imagine drawing on a blank page, study subject again and notice anything you may have missed. Finally start a drawing of the subject without the reference visible. Once finished review again and note new or missed observations and repeat a few times only using the reference after a completing a study. It worked well for me. The two colored pieces are from imagination and the final for the project. Thanks for checking it out!
I enjoyed this assignment a lot. I tried to apply to my own characters or existing ones, hence the Gengar. Looking forward to hearing your feedback ❤️
•
27d
I love the shapes in that fourth drawing. It's cool that you used a circle to build off of for the rest of the form. You did a good job incorporating CSI as well. Nice!
Well, funnily enough it was a struggle for me to be loose, I think the issue is more mental than physical though cause I am fine when I do my warm ups, lol. I definitely feel I could use some gesture exercises as I never did them before, which I am gonna try to figure out and do daily. Had fun with the assignment although I’ll probably stay there a little while to practice more since I am not 100% happy with my shapes. Good one tho, cute pups.
First ones, this is actually fun! Love being able to do quicker/messy/rough sketches, I feel the improvement and margin to try new things helps me learn and stay motivated. Will continue doing these!
Made about 10 sketchs with reference and I could really see the difference between before and after watching the demo and understanding the concept of pushing the energy !
Here are the results of my level 2 exercise drawing those from imagination after my level 1 :D
•
1mo
These are excellent! Great shape designs, I love the simplified lines, you're using CSI and not shying away from straights, you're mapping the gesture well and your lines are very clean. Great job!
