Project - Get Your Tools and Start Playing
Project - Get Your Tools and Start Playing
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Drawing Basics

Getting Started

Project - Get Your Tools and Start Playing

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Course In Progress

Project - Get Your Tools and Start Playing

5.3K
Course In Progress

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 :)

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George Rabbitearl
Warmup Drawing. Tools: Samsung Tab S8 Ultra, Sketchbook App
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David Alejandro
Hi guys, these short skits are part of day 1 to day 5. I would like to know what you think, if there is anything to improve or if you recommend any other tools or techniques. Sorry for the photos, my cell phone camera is a bit damaged. Thank you
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Brayden Luttrell
Day 1 I did some doodles and it’s been a while since I’ve drawn or down the proko courses. Let me know what you think and if I should get certain pencils or if these work fine.
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Tony Chang
Day 1! I just started and will be following this course digitally. I’ve always loved Proko’s courses. Let’s see how far I can go with this course!
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Lisanne
Started just today, trying to catch up with the course the upcoming weeks! Due to quarantaine I'm stuck at home with just a couple supplies - but gave it a try and doodle. Gonna get some new gear once I'm allowed and test everything out once again! I never knew about the standard sharpener to be considered shit.. I also never realised one of the steps is for the wood and one for the graphite! These are the little things I didn't even expect to learn.. :)
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Bop Sun
Hi,大家好! 就像Stan所说的那样,工具并不重要,所以我打算好好利用现有的东西来完成这个课程。 我有大量的打印纸,一个板夹和两盒晨光 MG-2180 勾线笔。 目前我在用我女儿的铅笔做练习,如果有需要,我也许会买一只2mm(施德楼925)的自动铅笔。 对于上色练习,我计划把我的线稿扫描到电脑中,使用数字的方式进行学习,这样对我的工作更有利。
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Osman Perez
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Jo Lefeaux
Tried playing around with an HB to start with. Sharpened with a standard sharpener first (like I’ve done in past), then tried out sharpening with a blade and exposing more graphite (2nd two pages). I felt like I had more control transitioning from thin to fat lines, and the graphite was sturdier than I expected. I forgot to get sandpaper though, so I found it a little uneven. But it felt good to draw with!
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Renee Painter
It's fun to see the difference between the two.
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Sharat Buddhavarapu
I started practicing in my smaller sketchbook with a Staedler HB. I tried out a couple of other pencils elsewhere, a Blackwing 602, a Musgrave Tennessee Red, and a Mitsubishi Uni 9000, just because I had them lying around for writing. The Staedler felt superior for drawing. As for the exercises, I tried a bit of shading and drawing circles. For the shading, I’ll be honest and say I liked using the tip better than the side with graphite. I’ve used a charcoal pencil before and it would be the opposite for that. I used a circle template I had lying around to help give myself a point of comparison. Still, amazing how circular my freehand attempts looked until I saw them in camera! The eye can really deceive itself…
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Liandro
After many years studying and working with Proko, I still can’t help but get inspired with Stan’s lessons, even the most elementary ones! Congrats and thanks for putting such high quality art instruction videos out there, @Stan Prokopenko and team!
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Mike See
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Stan Prokopenko
Did you find any discernable differences?
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Mike See
Pencil crayon comparison doodles.
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Dru Drax
Hello everybody, I'm super excited to be able to join this course as it goes up! Having grown up during the "cringe culture" era of the internet, my relationship with the act of creating is very screwed up. So I'm really hoping allowing myself to get into this course with the mindset that I'm sort of starting over from the beginning will help that relationship bloom into something more healthy and productive. I'm pretty much exclusively a digital artist, though I have experience with some traditional mediums so I may switch up what I use to draw every once in a while!
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Renee Painter
Very creative, but I like the journey you're taking yourself on.
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Jason Stroud
I am very new to drawing and I want to improve my drawing skills. I am very self conscious about my drawing but figured I have to start somewhere, and would like feedback if that's ok. I do not know where to begin Side note: I really like souls like games and their art style that's what got me into drawing in the first place, and I want to draw that kind of style
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Jen Trader-Morgeson
I am very new at drawing skillfully, but committed to doing it every day! Really looking forward to this course and to eventually not having a shaky overhand grip (ha). For this assignment I decided to pull out some dog books and do a couple drawings from that, plus try a blending stump which was a bit messier than I expected! 🐶
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Tony Chang
These are really cute! I love dogs.
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aly_w
Hey Folks. My first time joining/drawing. I assume this basic course is just these 6 lessons on tools and generic info about the course. I haven't found the actual 'meat' of the course though, like the stuff that Stan mentions the course is actually about? Anyway, I just sketched these little random guys. I know they're a bit rubbish, but hey something to progress with - no where near some cool sketches I'm seeing here, but yeah. LMK if I missed on something though please, I'm a bit confused where the actual lessons on stuff that Stan is talking about are (I bought premium) - like the pear and the face of the asian guy, shapes? lines? etc.
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Edward Plamondon
Hello Aly, I 'm not a mediator but I have taken a couple Proko courses before. You haven't found the meat yet because it hasn't yet been released. We are still at the intro. There will be regular ( probably weekly) lessons released, as well as critiques of some of the people who submit. The pear is supposed to come out this week I think. I expect this course will run at least the span of a year before it is complete. So do the exercises given and have fun :) Also as a side note, don't put your sketches down. We all start learning someplace, those who don't draw don't learn.
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Mandy
Waiting on the lessons too..
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Nat Thompson
I can better understand the benefit of using different hardness. I’ve been using only black wing matte pencils and find no control in using 1 pencil. I like the variety. No control yet but I will get it with practice I hope!
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CHARLES DEIGHAN
The adventure continues, Johnny Socko U7. Doodles from me.
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Billy Martin
Hour sketch tonight, was going to scrap it but there are no mistakes in sketching 😂. It will be nice to go back and look at the progress in a year
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Beatriz Inocencio
I loooove to see the progress of a year. Always makes me feel proud that I didn´t give up
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nepenthe
Hi there, Me and my wife tried to draw our pears last night. İt was very funny and we want to continue our journey in this course. First one is mine but of course my wife's one is better:))
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Jen Trader-Morgeson
That's so great that you are doing it together! <3
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Anna T
Some Mass Effect sketches.
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Micah Glinter
smooth shading!
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About instructor
Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
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