Hello :) It's a seemingly easy but difficult question! There is nothing wrong with taking other classes but you're probably right on the fact that the more you learn at the same time the more you'll feel overwhelmed. The easy answer would be to say work hard on your fundamentals and then go to anatomy and from there branch out to other things like portraits, figures, ... I've tried to be as logical as possible in my studies but honestly I haven't witnessed any of the "accelerated learning" I thought I would get from it. Also I don't think that any rigid thinking or systems is any good. I think that if you take good courses like the ones on proko.com you can't really go wrong . Balance somewhat of a structured learning and pleasure learning. I've heard so many of the great painters said that their education in art was scattered and "they should have focused on this or that" but they are amazing painter now so... Guess we always look for "the best way". At the end of the day accept that you'll have periods of progress and stagnation and just stick to painting and you'll do just fine :) This is my own opinion and experience of course. Hope this helps !

Hello, so size of stuff is pretty easy to tackle. You have to place the horizon line and define at wich heigth it is. I could write a tons around that but there is a wonderfull little explanation made by Kim Jung Gi just here : https://youtu.be/CGLIQvNk3zY. You can also find a method in the book “Framed Perspective” by Marco Mateu-Mestre. To be honest I’ve looked at both and regarding proportions and putting stuff to the right size I have found Kim Jung Gi’s explanations clearer. Hope this helps ;)

“Successfull people” as you say literally paint or draw on anything they like as it is a matter of taste. There might be some guidelines like if you draw/paint something with fine details or softness like a women/child portrait then it can be good to avoid paper with rough textures. But this is not an obligation. The paper and medium is just a tool that you’ll use in order to create what you want to create. I don’t know where your are in terms of Artistry level but when you start and if you have the money it can motivate you to use materials from artists you like but this is not a nescessity. In the end you are the only one who has to try the materials and choose what suits you best. Hope this helps :)

Hello JB2, learning art through digital painting or traditional is the same. The thing is to avoid getting too carried away with the medium/software and put it before the basics skills. It is tempting to use all these cool effects and brushes and often that is what gets in the way of progression as softwares are packed with it. Just know that it is probably going to happend to you. One of the best ways might be restrictions.Like use only round brush if you go with digital. Then Learn the basics : Perspective / Form / Light. Pick the ressource you like and study a little bit every day, read and re-read the same materials again and again until you undestand it. Then move on. It will take time but you’ll get there :) Hope this help !

Hello Joseph, you said that you want a practice paper, I don't know if money is an issue for you but as a beginner you are going to use a lot of paper so you have to find the right balance between price and quality. Too high of a price and you encounters the risk of counting every single sheet of paper left, and too cheap you ain't going to be able to learn the appropriate techniques. Personally I used big kraft paper rolls, I tried some before finding one I like. You will then also be able to try different size as you are the one cutting it. Best paper will be the one you like to use. Hope this helps

Hello kep1983 :), I did not get if you are looking for real life sculpture or 3d models. Can't help you with real life things but they tend to be extremely expensive. For the 3D model I recommend you https://3d4medical.com/ I've used this app for years and can check it on pc phone tablet... I learn some anatomy with my phone while on the train :). Hope this helps

Hello this project took me a month to come up with. It’s an underwater gollum protecting the honor of a jelly fish lasso from those helpless romantic humans. Something is off with the final painting, but I don’t know exactly what? Any criticism is welcome.

Hello Jesper :), probably go with what you want to learn first as it has the greatest chance of making you paint. Fundamentals applies on anything regardless of the subject matter. There is no strict rules or perfect path to learn painting. If figures will help you paint landscape it means landscape will help you paint figures.

Hello Jesper :), so first I should tell you that I studied in an physical Atelier were I learned the old masters classical oil painting techniques so I might be a little bias on that. First it is important that you clarify what you mean by oil painting course. Because for me there is an important separation between the *Oil* part and the *Painting* part. The painting part is where you learn your fundamentals and is never dependent of the medium. So even with oil you can lean from a course tackling the form fundamental with digital painting. Oil is the medium and has a number of defined characteristic and techniques. To give you an example in Oil, I render form and depth by first making a one tonal value painting and after it's dry I paint lighter over that and work the form. Watercolor can't do that, so they have to use other ways to render form. But both depend on this fundamental. I said that because from what I've seen, most time, Oil painting courses for beginners are really fundamental painting course where only little medium techniques are taught. To summarize, learn the fundamentals from anywhere you can, all advanced visual artist talk about them whether they are using a pen or paint. To learn the medium of oil, maybe pinpoint resources where they really teach about oil techniques and processes rather than fundamentals. I could give you some advice on that if you want. I hope any of that helped :)

Hello Elson :), I agree with the advice that Paola gave you but I'd like to say that what has most distracted and confused me while I looked at you drawing was the perspective and I think you should start with that. Concerning materials I slightly disagree because I think that your value are the result of your understanding of light rather than a pencil problem. If you feel comfortable using the material you used for this drawing there is no need to seek magical material. That said, I really like the drawing , and I find the perspective effect really cool xD but if it was unintentional it really mean you should work on that . Hope this help :)

Hello :), this is a very cool topic I'm eager to see what people might share. Personally what helped me a lot during my journey has been accessing non related drawing/painting resources. I started looking around because I felt overwhelmed watching only art stuffs and wanted to expand on the subjects. I discovered that much of perspective were actually common geometry/optical physics problems that tackle how our human vision work and there is a lot of things available around that. I surprisingly deepened my understanding of rhythms and textures in painting while watching a music tutorial explaining how to make a song, they use the same concepts. You can found a lot of picture making concept in cinema and a lot of videos are way more entertainingly made which is great to help you learn. I got a lot of composition/using of colors/framing/... from Cinema related videos, a very good resource is StudioBinder (YouTube). For Light/Optics/Anatomy/EverythingScience... I love Crash Course (YouTube). I guess my recommendation is that seeking resources outside drawing/painting communities can help you a lot, at least it has for me :).

Hello everyone! I am currently doing this illustration piece of a mushroom girl. I am not really happy with the background. It somehow looks flat and boring. It would mean a lot if you guys helped me out with it! Thank you

Hello matt :), I've made some notes over your artwork.I put it there only for explanatory purpose and they might be off. I've extrapolate a ray of light from your cast shadow made from her chin to the neck ( small portion in green ) then extended it and multiplied it in order to visually see where the light is coming from. Please note that this imply a far away light source like the sun as the rays are parallel. (even if in reality even sun rays are not totally parallel). It shows you one way of how you can help yourself making this type of lighting calculations. The dots are estimated points where form is turning away from the light and therefore going into shadow. On the shoulder I made an example where it is going to cast a shadow. So you'll have to calculate where the light hits the turning point and where it is blocking the light on the form next to it. Concerning blending I can advise you to make soft shadows on women's faces as they tend to have softer feature. Making a lighting from memory is a very hard and taxing process, I can recommend you two books that will tremendously help with that [How to render - Scott Robertson] and [ How to Draw - Scott Robertson ]. The author recommend to start with the How to draw book as it tackle some of the core concept. I don't know if there is course here on the Proko platform. I hope any of this will help you :)

Love it :) Got energy anatomy and dimentionality

Hello Talal :), Personally I find it hard to say as I don't know what was made with purpose and what you wish to improve in your work. As you were talking about phases I can give you an advice on that. It seems that you are painting Alla Prima. It's a very, very, very hard painting technique. Plus here you are painting from imagination making it even harder. I always recommend oil painters to follow these steps as they have been used for centuries by the great masters : Drawing on canvas -> One color tonal value ->Painting over with colors + refining. Each steps can of course be done in several sittings but following this path will help you reducing the complexity at each session. I do like the painting :) Hope any of that will help you.

Hello Moonless :), I've used [Nicolaides - The Natural Way to Draw] and he has pretty cool exercises around Gesture. Personally I've always kind of felt that gesture is a bit more of a personal thing, with less learning from others in contrary of all the others fundamentals. It's letting out your emotions raw on the paper. I've seen some people doing very squiggly stuff and others with very economical lines, both were really cool. For me it's kind of letting fundamental and emotions connect has you make it so quickly you cant think much. I prefer exploring it myself and find my own shortcuts and expressive lines. It's simply my own opinion though and that said, it sure can't hurt to read some stuff on it ! Hope this helped you in any kind of way :)

Hello Ghada :), well yes I have been there, and I think that these days we have more and more social media procrastination :/ I guess it depends on why you are unconsciously opening them, is it purely reflex and you want that dopamine kick or do you feel uncomfortable while drawing and therefore your brain will find a way to avoid that and seek easy stuff. Can be both also. Finding out at what moment this habit strike is key. What's the action/thought before that make you go there ? Overall, making it harder to access will help a lot. Put your references in a software like pureref or directly on you computer and keep your browser several click away, give you time to realize what you are doing. Same if it's on a phone, keep it far away. Replace it by a safe habit of checking your media account at a specific time like just before a drawing or after and be clear about what you want from that, if it's checking you message or keeping with latest posts , so you'll now when it's done browsing. I personally totally delete the apps on my phone for an extended period as I was sick of it. I lost the habit and now they are on my phone and I use them rarely and only with purpose. It can feel a bit extreme but it worked for me xD. Very nice illustration :), you could bring us more by dropping this habit for sure. Hope you'll find something helpfull in that.

Hello Emily :), I like to make long responses but looking at what my colleagues wrote I'll try make it a bit shorter. I do think that what is happening to you have been experienced by every art students that have ever lived, at least I can assure you I was for sure. So you’re not alone in that. You said that you were just happy drawing then and now you feel overwhelm, I think that this can be explained by a very simple thing with a weird name : the dunning krueger effect. Basically what this effect describe is that when you start something, you know so little about the subject that you think you are good at it, therefore you were just enjoying yourself. The thing is, now you have explored the field enough to be aware of how vast and difficult the subject is. So at each drawing you can spot all the errors,you know way more and this is why you feel different about your drawings. You can check a ted video : https://youtu.be/pOLmD_WVY-E , at ~3:30 they mention being intermadiate, but the whole video is interesting. I have some advice that can help you : 1) Accept where you are now.I know, it's hard, but fighting it will prevent you how moving forward. Drop the perfection, the if this, if that, accept and move on. 2) Learning how to learn and also how You learn is one of the most important skills to have on this road. I never go over a 20min video in one sitting, I'm overwhelmed way before. Then I come back the next day and watch the same 20min trying to grasp the knowledge. Then again two day after giving my brain some rest. I don't go further in the video until I don't understand, if I do it will cascade. If you're interested : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O96fE1E-rf8 for a starter 3) This is a long road, focusing on all the stops you have to make, and hours you have to put, will make you want to quit before even beginning. Just pick the next stop, like perspective, and go there, start learning small chunks and ask yourself questions, write them. BE PRECISE, your brain is trained to answer specific questions and follow tangible actions. Drop " How to be good ?' and " Goal : be good at perspective " ang go with " What is a horizon line ?" " Goal : Watching first proko video and answering all the question"... 4) Hang in there, you never quit when you stop drawing you're just making a pause until you go back to it :) One day at a time. I hope you'll find something that can help you in there :).

Hello :), I note that you said you were confused and then decided to dive right in the making of a very complex scene. I know that the "just do it" method is kind of the standard way but I believe it to be a very brute force and inefficient way of working. You are trying to replicate a very complex phenomenon, just right after hearing it exist, in front of a very blank canvas. I personally don't believe that the answer could come out of nowhere. I also think that following someone else step by step guide is a bad idea as we're all different and what might take me a month to understand could take you a week. I know that it is very tempting, we've all done it. What I suggest you is to have a different method or approach. You will feel confuse when you learn something new. Maybe instead of fighting it and bring it to almost predictable frustration, give time to your brain to process all that. Personally when I watch a video about something that is very new to me, I put zero pressure and just watch it casually. Then I come back to it the next day and it's a bit easier,I get more bits of information. I might come back to it several time .I make lots of <5min sketches around that, I take some notes also, and write down questions I have and stuff that are confusing to me. I still watch some videos that I first encountered years ago because they were so dense in information. Get curious about light, also watch non-art related videos talking about that subject, after all, these are physics phenomenons. You'll never get everything from one source. Be aware that it is like food, it takes time to digest knowledge and you can only ingest fixed quantity before you feel full and have to wait the next day. But your brain will catch up as it always catch up, just give it time. It was not a review but I hope you'll find something helpful in that :).

Hello :) Well, I like to nerd out about this kind of stuffs. Drawing is juggling with a lot of different things. A 3D Form is submitted to a Perspective and to Light. You are translating an instant of those 3 things combined on a 2D plane to make an illusion. The only thing we have in the 2D arsenal is Shapes, luckily 3D stuff is made of multiple 2D. So you need to understand Form, to simplify into 3D geometric solids is because it will be much easier to remember and to apply rules on a defined sets of solids. It's a mnemonic. This technique requires you to be able to add,subtract,twist or bend it in orders to get the desired solid. If you don't use a technique I'd guess you'll have to brute force every shape an object make into your head. Then you apply the rules of perspective which actually is trully a Geometry thing. That will give you a combinations of 2D shapes. Your can add a lighting that might totally alter your shapes creating or destroying some also. Every of those three have things that you must Understand and Remember. Understanding is a big part of the process. You can remember how a cube look like under a certain perspective but if you understand why you have much more freedom and facility to change the settings, which lead to drawing from memory. Diving into Anatomy and Physiology of humans and animals will help you with the form regarding form, proportions or placement of features and you'll also grasps some rules about why some things look the way they do and help you to get easy access to that when you draw. Every bit of knowledge and understanding that you get on those subjects will have to be internalize into subconscious in order to give room to your conscious mind either to learn and add something more or to create. To give an example if you're brushing your teeth on your toilet, while texting, you are only thinking about WHAT you are saying. In the meantime your unconscious is doing the bladder control, teeth's brushing movements, handling grammar, vocabulary, using fingers to text,... and much more. It is the SAME exact process to draw from memory. If you want to be able to only concentrate on WHAT you draw. The others parts of taking a form putting it under a set perspective and then further add lighting will be done mostly by unconscious part of the brain. That it why it takes years to achieve, most of the people you mentioned, especially Kim Jung Gi said that it took them quite some time to be able to do "draw from memory". Also, nothing we'll ever come close to draw with any kind of references with you as the spectacular amount of stuffs to remember will never allow you to draw perfectly reality accurate 2D illusions of a thing in particular. That was my take on it, hope there was something interesting in all that for you :)