Proko - Project - Get Your Tools and Start Playing

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Project - Get Your Tools and Start Playing

Stan Prokopenko

in Drawing Basics

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Drawing BasicsFull course (181 lessons)

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Stan Prokopenko

Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.

assignments 242 submissions

My pear may be a bit wonky as I have a tendency to freehand everything, but thought I'd go for it and give the pear a try. :). It's definitely not as easy as one would think. sheesh. Spent about 1 1/2 hours and thought I'd quit before I over did it. Maybe I didn't go far enough. P.S. Not sure why it's saying "Asked for Help" Obviously I'm hitting the wrong button...sorry. :(

LESSON NOTES

Alright guys, so before we can do anything, you’ll need to get some tools. Like I said before, the minimum requirement here is paper and a pencil, with an eraser on it. A sketchbook is great but if you’re on a budget, get a giant stack of printer paper. It’s very cheap.

An option that you youngins might be drawn to is digital. If you want to do the whole thing digitally, I’m fine with that. Whether it’s Procreate on an iPad, or Photoshop with a Wacom tablet. If that’s what you want to do, go get your stuff and get it setup.

If you want to go deeper in tool exploration of traditional mediums, below is an extensive shopping list. All of these are optional. You can get whatever looks fun to you, or all of it if you’re feeling spicy! If you want the full lessons where I'll go into much more detail about these tools, get the premium Drawing Basics Course.

SHOPPING LIST

* If any of the items below are out of stock, do a Google search for other sellers.
* Some of the items below contain affiliate links

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project-get-your-tools-and-start-playing.mp4

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project-get-your-tools-and-start-playing-transcript-english.txt

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project-get-your-tools-and-start-playing-transcript-spanish.txt

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project-get-your-tools-and-start-playing-captions-english.srt

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project-get-your-tools-and-start-playing-captions-spanish.srt

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ASSIGNMENTS

Your assignment is to get your tools. Once you have your stuff, start doodling. Make random marks on the page. If that gets boring, find something nearby and draw that. Or doodle things from your imagination. Just start drawing. Obviously, you have very little information right now to make these drawings look good, but we’ll get there. Right now a big wall that we need to start climbing over is the awkward feeling of not having control of the pencil. The way to get over that is mileage. Draw a lot!

Use the tip to draw thin lines. Can you control how light and dark the line is? Does the pencil feel different when it's freshly sharpened vs after you’ve used it for a few minutes? Use the side to draw thick lines and shade large areas. Can you make a gradation from dark to light? Is the texture of the paper showing too much? Or do you kinda like that? Try your eraser. Shade an area and erase it. Make a darker area and try erasing that. What’s the limit of your eraser? Start to play and get a feel for your tools.

If you make anything you'd like to share with your classmates, post it below. Or if you have questions about your tools, ask the community here. There are too many of you for me to help individually, so please help each other when you can :)

@jonahj

•

21h

Don't have all the tools but have a decent selection of pencils, so tried to use varying line weight and different strokes and perspective warmups. I still tend to struggle with putting too much pressure on my pencil as I draw. I also tend to draw digitally, and haven't drawn traditionally in years

Haiko Noyuki

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1mo

I tried drawing with only a mechanical pencil due to low budget but also trying to improve my lines and test out my skills, feedbacks are appreciated, thank you.

@richard21

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1mo

been drawing for some months but decided to take a course finally. using digital and a sketchbook when need to

Rachel Dawn Owens

•

1mo

Cute Pikachu!

Jacek Skowronek

•

1mo

A painted china cup on my table. I am almost 60 and want to learn drawing as a pastime. I have a busy life with lots of "digital" in it so look forward to doing something different.

Chuck Ludwig Reina

•

1mo

Looks lovely! Nice work!

Jorge

•

1mo

Another hand touches the beacon?

@gold_slashcat8

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2mo

I realized that I need some more mechanical pencils and eraser variety and some new micron pens, but I made what I thought seemed like the head of a mech connected to a body while testing out different lines. Fun!

@linds_202

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2mo

My first drawing basics assignment. I may be a little late, but I was able to get it done quickly. I need to work on my draftsmenship, especially for clean lines.

Chuck Ludwig Reina

•

2mo

Looks good! You did a nice job capturing the shape of the pear. You can maybe go a little wider with core shadow, but overall you did great. Keep it up!

Bubbles

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2mo

#HELP. AM I THE ONLY ONE THAT FEELS LIKE DRAWING ON PAPER FEELS EASIER THAN DIGITAL? So I started the course in November and I'm going back to redo some of the first lessons before I keep going further and I'm drawing on paper and digital, I mix both depending on my mood. My end goal is to make a webcomic, so digital is a MUST for me. I need to practice but every time I do anything digital I feel is always WORSE than paper and I end up feeling frustrated. I got some textured papers for Procreate and I'm experimenting with different brushes. Does someone has good resources that talk about this? I will appreciate it a lot!!! Maybe I need to take a course in the future just focused on digital drawing?

@gold_slashcat8

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2mo

I feel the same way about physical being easier than digital. Something that helped me when I was trying hard to do digital was playing around with brush stabilizers, or smoothing. It made my lines feel more intentional, and that I had control. Being able to trust your pen always helps! Happy drawing, and have a good new year!

Melanie Scearce

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2mo

It might be a matter of familiarity with the tools. I don't think a course would hurt at all if that's something you want to do, but I think with your drawing ability, more experimentation within the software of your choice would be a good starting point. You could also play around with a mixed media approach: drawing traditionally, scanning it in and coloring or doing linework digitally. I've done that multiple times with my own work and have been happy with the results. Keep up the practicing :)

@montymonterson

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2mo

Aidan Jimenez

•

1mo

Thanks for the reference, I was struggling to find something productive to “just draw” aside from random squiggles . Your sketches are perfect examples in my skill level to just start with.

shingoski

•

2mo

It's not even a sketchbook but I've started playing anyway😁

William Alves

•

3mo

Art baby on the way! My first assignment.

@elizaqp

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3mo

Hola a todos! Estoy emocionada por el curso, aquí comparto algunos dibujos que realicé con lápices grafito.

@vbismarck

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3mo

I’ve mostly been painting in oil and gouache last half a year, but realised I want to improve my drawing for better painting. Here below is a value study for one painting i want to do. started with a pencil sketch, then blocked values with black and grey markers. Added some warm/cool tones in the last stage

Lilah Rak

•

3mo

Back to basics! I graduated art school back in 2023, but due to personal circumstances I was unable to absorb the education that I was provided. I look forward to completing this course while I work on the preliminary work on my first comic. (Basic Ticonderoga Pencil and smudgy as heck eraser. Will be using my better supplies once I can find them lol)

Lilah Rak

•

3mo

Whoops didn't mean to ask for help. Unsure how to change the flair. Oh well.

Robin

•

3mo

I did the drawingabox lessons a few years ago, but never completed it. I have both a physical sketch pad with various pencil grades, and a Wacom drawing tablet (screenless) that I use with Krita. The drawing tablet causes me frustration due to the disconnect between my hand and eyes. While Stan did say in the video that digital art can be used, can someone whose been through the course tell me if I should try using the tablet or just use physical drawing to learn concepts and fundamentals, and work on hand-eye-tablet coordination separately? The generic advise of "do whatever you want" isn't helpful since all I want is the most effective learning method, I can make either work.

Andrew Doroshkov

•

5mo

Despite choosing the path of drawing on the iPad, I still followed the advice of this lesson and did a bit of sketching, enjoying the process.

kitsune546

•

5mo

So after about a week of putting it off I finally got to start the classes and so far I got to say its been helpful even so short a time in. I think I finally understand the importance of thumbnails just by doing a little doodling. I look forward to the rest it will be nice having structure to follow so I can learn easier.

@azormx

•

6mo

Does anyone know which pencil case he's using? I'm trying to find a similar case that doesn't include the art supplies because I already have my pens and pencils

Melanie Scearce

•

6mo

The one in the thumbnail is Speedball brand. The leather one in the video is a set from Amazon that includes the pencils, refils, etc. The brand is Nicpro.

The Wonkee

•

6mo

First day of Day of D.I.Y Art School! :) It was nice to take a step back and play around with the kind of marks that these tools can make. Cant wait for tomorrows lesson!

Melanie Scearce

•

6mo

Excited to see your upcoming projects! :)

@masonicpleb

•

7mo

Hey, been putting this course off for longer than I'd like to admit, but I'm finally getting around to it. Been sketching from the imagination lately so I'm hoping the course can help me better flesh things out.

Stan Prokopenko

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