Which of these exercises are you gonna try? Do you have other suggestions for good exercises? Share the knowledge!

Can this be pinned? Tell me if I need corrections here. Exercises: 0:08 - ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORA - just kidding 0:15 - Marshall Vandruff : Looking at the world and turning them into the simplest geometric volumes. Boxes, cylinders, spheres... 0:52 - Caleb Cleveland : Draw things that take you outside your comfort zone. Ex. If you prefer figurative, draw landscapes. Landscapes into caricature. Try getting more comfortable with new things. When things are getting easy, switch subjects. Try mixing up media. 2:10 Chrissie Zullo : Life drawings. People on the street, how clothes fit on people, etc... + gestures 2:50 Stephen Silver: Observation and drawing loosely. Filling up that sketchbook. Blind sketching (10 secs at start, then start looking and continue drawing). 3:37 Sanford Greene: Gesture drawing. Draw whatever. Hat, Cup, etc... Loose, free, and thoughtless drawing. Capture the idea of the subject with your gesture. 4:58 Ross Tran: Draw from life. Ex, draw a tree... try to replicate the tree in scenario where it is in space. 5:20 Bobby Chiu (Hello Schoolism!): Draw from life and draw from an artist that has the same interpretation of the subject. Then make your own interpretation. 5:43 James Douglas: Drawing straight lines... Take an imaginary cube, rotate it around (in your drawings) freehand. (Meaning you draw the same box from many different imagined angles). Then do the same exercise and draw stuff over it. This exercise is taken from a Taiwanese artist. 6:27 Ron Lemen: Do those repeated exercises like drawing circles all day, draw straight lines from thick to thin, thin to thick, draw over those lines again. Draw c curves and s-shaped curves with the same thin to thick, thick to thin exercises. This is used to practice dexterity. 7:53 Marcelo Matere: Best ones: Life drawings. Specific things like structure, how to build the figure and make it 3-Dimensional. Use solids to try the figure. 8:25 Eliza Ivanova : Gesture drawing. Variable times from 30 secs, 1 min, 3, 5, 15 min. Use whatever materials. Maybe switch them up if you are too used to one medium. 9:18 Peter Han : Perspective. Knowing how to draw boxes in space. 1 point, 2 point, 3- point. Freehand drawing a box without construction and intuitively rotating it in space. 10:05 Mike Hayes : Drawing from Life. Be aware of what you are doing and why. Think about what your doing and if you are improving at it. What skills are you working on? Have a specific goal and evaluate it every month. 11:23 Howard Shum: Gesture drawing everyday.Draw from Photos, and real life when you can. 11:50 Patrick Ballesteros: Drawing cubes and boxes out of your imagination. It's amazing to be able to draw a box in space without having to rely on perspective lines. 12:23 Victor Olazaba: Thumbnail sketches. Sketch everyday. Do quick ones. He does a lot from imagination. 13:02 Hai-na-nu Saulque: Need to be able to draw pencil to paper. Don't learn digital first. It's good to learn how to draw traditionally, and not use UNDO. Drawing pen to paper prevents you from undoing things. There is natural and curve and flow to hands with traditional media. (Wait, but what about drawing tablets that "flow with the hands"?). In Summary: Draw from observation. Do loose drawing. Do gestures. Do life Drawings. Draw things from life using simple geometric shapes. Learn how to rotate a box in space freehand. Do thumbnail sketches (for dynamic idea capturing?). Draw traditionally to improve better. Practice your line work control.

I would say that one of the best things is drawing with a pen or any other unerasable media. You learn how to think about what you're drawing, how to plan ahead, how to deal with mistakes, how to have a light touch. A lot of good things learned from the simple idea that every line is a full commitment in the drawing. Keep it up Proko!

5:52 I was stuck for years in drawing, had absolutely zero creativity, and pretty much was copying everything from references. Until this exact same thing at 5:52 I heard from Kim Jung Gi as well. this particular exercise helped me so much more than anything else. Guys do this exercise, this works.!!

6:08 step1: draw a box step2: add details

Again another great video. The fundamentals are so important to master. Gesture, perspective and drawing from life.

don't think inside the box, not out of it, DRAW THE BOX

I love that most of these answers are similar because now I know what to focus on more.

These pro asks are incredibly helpful! Thank you! I would love to see more content like this in the future.

There was an exercise that my design professor assigned us to the art school: taking a photo, flipping it over and then copying it. Turn it again and check for errors. Obviously this is something to do in addition to the classic fill sheets of lines, circles, curves, study the perspective and draw from life. To draw from life, if you have the chance, is the absolute best thing, in my opinion: you improve quickly, you train your eye and hand, and you get great satisfaction. I've never had as much confidence as when I did the drawing course from life, in the first two years of art school. I still regret now, after more than 20 years, that I could not do it any longer.

Exercises I do before going back into figure drawing or warming up before a drawing session. Dexterity exercises: X1 pg lines/curves X1 pg circles X1 pg ellipses Perspective Exercises: X1 pg plotted boxes(1pt, 2pt, 3pt) X10 freehand boxes X10 freehand cubes(rotating) X10 freehand cylinders X10 freehand cylinders(rotating) Structure Exercises: X2 pgs combing basic forms I learned about these when I took classes with Peter Han and they are really helpful. I tailored the exercises to fit my schedule and it works. I cannot wait for Proko's new series 👍👍👍

I went through a period where i became obsesed with gesture drawing and i did Them really fast (15-30-60 sec) for hours every night after work for 3 months. It cured most of my anxiety and i wasn't afraid to attempt anything.

Sounds like the most common suggestions were 1) Drawing boxes in perspective, and 2) Gesture drawing. That's what I'll work on. Great videos!!

I think I should really be doing them all. :D I really love the idea of using a pen so you can't erase - forces you to pay attention instead of getting lazy. I personally love drawing with old school dip-pen and ink, as they give you much more dynamic lines, and it requires even more attention - so easy to make mistakes, even things like making sure you don't take too much ink at once or it will drip and ruin everything. Drawing with dip-pens is like meditation, I'll reach flow and hyper-focus and feel like I'm one with the pen.

You are helping so many artists with this video. We appreciate you so much

Gesture drawing of the motion and not worry about the details is a great exercise for me.

I see a lot of people making excuses for their lack of technique, saying "it's their style". I said that to myself sometimes too... It's easy to stay inside our bubble when we are learning how to draw... I didn't understand that I was making MAJOR mistakes until I got into school. Composition, color, line, movement, plains, texture, light... Everything matters. It's always hard to understand that what you're doing is wrong, but once you look at other people's work and realize the endless possibilities, you get that drive of wanting to be as good as them. And that's GOOD! Never hide your style because someone tells you to. But have the judgement and self-consciousness to look at your art through fresh eyes, and find your errors. Get out of your comfort zone. That's what means to grow as an artist.

its hard to draw from life when u stay inside lookin at memes=')))

I am no pro, but for me, an exercise that helped me improve exponentially was actually Iterative Drawing. It felt like a pure and genuine level skip because how fast I felt myself improve. Simply drawing one thing, quickly. looking at it. analysing mistakes and what i like and writing them down. then doing it again, trying things differently. different pose, different style of line, that sort of thing, just to see how it looks. do that for say 10 heads and hopefully will have experimented in lots of different ways and figured out what you like and dont like, or what looks good or doesnt, or what looks unnatural!

What Ron Lemen said was interesting to me. I've been drawing since I could pick up a pencil, and my mother told me that when I was 3, i would sit contently drawing little tiny circles all over my paper. As an adult, we don't take time to play that way, and Ron reminded me how important it is.

My suggestion for an exercise I find works with me is draw something over and over again with the intention of improving on it. You will see the image evolve better and better each time. Try it with a pair of eyes or something simple, then go bigger or more of a full drawing and try repeating it more than three times. You will be amazed!

I really love how proko gets everyone on board. He is such a genius who loves to share his skills and get others inspired. Love proko from Bangladesh.

Thanks for this, it’s gonna be really helpful! An exercise I like to do is, drawing pages of “deliberately bad drawings” because it helps me think about my weaknesses and how I can do a better job next time I work on a proper art project.

So gesture drawing and boxes from any angle are the two main thing and I agree. The boxes are great for correct structure and gesture to make the drawings feel energetic and loose. Drawing elipses in every angle should get an honorable mention.

Ron Lemen gave a really great advice. Probably the most important one that can be easily overlooked imo.

Stan, thank you for taking the time to film and put together these videos. You don’t know how much good they bring to people facing a creative depression. Much love.

The "advice we are not looking for" was my favorite. "Find your personality in the way you draw lines and curves"? That's my next goal definitly. Thank you!!

This was incredibly awesome! It's been hard to find information on HOW to practice, but these were simple and straightforward - real applicable advice. LOVE to see the general consensus too, and in a shorter time frame than watching 20 individual videos. Thank you!!!

Good post. What I value the most is routine, regardless the type of exercises I do, it is the routine that makes me feel the most comfortable with my tools and it gives for the best results. One of my teachers of the academy I went to said "If you draw 2 days a week, you learn 2 days and then you forget for 5 days". I've always remembered that as one of the main rules for improvement: draw every day, even if it's just for 10 minutes, but don't go to bed without having drawn something, anything.

All great ideas. The only thing I would add is to draw with other artists, especially ones that will give you honest feedback. It boosts the ego for friends and family to praise you, but one of the fastest ways to grow as an artist is to have somebody who can help point out things you may miss that need work.

Oh god. I have so much things to do !!! I'm just a teenager i'm not in art school, but "classic" school and I feel like I have very little time to draw. I'm trying to draw anytime I can but it's very hard and sometimes I just go on KZfaq and watch those kind of videos that are helpful and motivating ! Thanks a lot, i'm not giving up to become a professional artist one day :D

I think Hai-Na-Nu's advice is great. I've been always a digital artist, but often I rarely see myself improve. Often times I really dislike drawing with pen on paper because I "fear" the failure, the idea of being unable to correct the mistake is what often pushes me back. Caleb Cleveland's advice of "leaving comfort zone" is the toughest to do, but probably the best. Love these videos, please keep them up. I've gotten myself back into drawing after a 2 year hiatus and I still hope to improve for the better.

At this point I'm convinced that learning how to make art is no different from exercising, just instead of your whole body it's your brain

First year high school art teacher here. I have drawing next semester and I'll be implementing a lot of these ideas! Thank you so much for this great video.

Drawing in perspective in ball point pen has definitely helped me. Highly recommend.

What really helps me is looking for stuff in life and just remember how they were, then make them simple in my head to use them in future >

gesture drawing! I was lucky that in art school- years ago I had 2 3hr, classes/week of one minute gestures - full page, 18 x 24 . Suggest the whole figure at the start - the head, the weight bearing leg. You can't help but improve because what you are doing is training your eye and peripheral vision to the point where you find you can place everything, and take everything in without shifting your gaze up and down and then your figures have movement! When you find that your attention is not quite what it was, that you are repeating your drawing habits, go to the zoo, or a farm, etc. - and draw animal figures whose joints don't go together like ours. That will get you back to really looking. You will then be able to be excited drawing still life: you will look at flowers just sitting in a glass and see so much movement.

Great takeaways Going from hard to soft edges, reverse And being specific for what subskill in drawing you're looking to improve Also as soon as sth becomes easy, continue to explore outside your comfort zone

Caleb Cleveland brought up a really good point, I tested it, and it works 100% it gives you a sense of confidence that you can draw anything you want.. a boost of creativity of sorts. Really good stuff.

From my experience, gesture drawing, drawing shapes were the best. I have improved SO MUCH IN SUCH SHORT TIME WITH THESE. It's only been like a year for me. I'm going to now try life drawing (I have tried it before and its HARD), I believe it make me improve even more since like EVERY artist recommends it.

LOST EDGES!!! Thank you Mike Hayes, now I know what to obsess over next! And thank you promo for all the free knowledge, God bless you sir!

Mike Hayes: “Be aware of what you’re doing and why.” True wisdom. The rest of his interview fills in the blanks.

One of the things I thought about when having students to draw with pencil or ink is that it forces them to think or mentally visualize what they're drawing. Drawing in digital can dull the thinking process because corrections come too easily.

Thinking about Caleb Cleveland's advice of approaching new subject matter with the attitude of gesture drawing as Sanford Greene suggested, that really feels like it’s opening up a world of possibilities in my mind. Drawing things outside of my comfort zone is daunting, particularly things I’ve never tried to draw before, but thinking about it in a gestural way - the idea of being loose and capturing the idea, the essence of something - makes it way more approachable and engaging to me personally. Funny how an idea can shift your whole perspective! Great advice!

These videos have been so helpful. I love all the tips about the boxes. I’m going to try that in the morning. I already force myself to draw with a brush and ink everyday so now I don’t feel crazy for doing all those circles and squares. I need to watch this particular video again. Super helpful thank you.

The rotating box, pen, life drawings! I already do shapes, lines, boxes, and Mark Kistler' s 30 minute book! Cool video!

6:27 this one really stuck with me, I don't know why it just made a lot of sense. I like the comparison of " musician can make one instrument sound like anything " I'll be trying out a few in this video, I'm so happy to hear other tips and personal exercises that helped these talented artist ( The ink pen / traditional one was also amazing ) Edit: grammar

"In order to draw the perfect painting, become perfect and draw naturally" anonymous art's teacher answering a relevant question.

Drawing everything around you, simple sketches and drawing shapes in perspective are the the 3 that inspire me

I love doing all these exercises, one I didnt hear though is actual exercise, working the body out can help just as much as working the drawing muscles

This was exceptional man! Getting all that valuable information from artists I would never have had a chance to question truly is a priceless thing. Thank you so much and thanks to all the talented artists who shared some really insightful information.

Thanks for all those suggestions. My self will exercise gestures and boxes I like to draw with ballpoints in napkins. Don’t ask me why. It’s like a challenge for learning about pressure and not be able to correct the drawing.

This pushed me to draw cubes in space and I’m having a lot of fun?! It’s hard to get perspective right sometimes but I feel like this is really helping me visualize stuff!

I'm definitely going to practice S and C curves and circles, the boxes in space and gesture drawing !

Back in the day when I was drawing alot, it literally just comes to you, your hand just magically makes images appear without much thought. Then I lost it. I had to start taking antipsychotic medication. As well as making me a literal zombie, it also had the effect of completely shutting down the creative part of my brain. When images and ideas would once pour out of me, its now impossible. I'm trying to wean myself off my meds in the hope my artistic skill will return. Until then I will just try my best....look on with sadness at all the artists thriving out there.

Cubes, lines and gestures, I'm super new at this so I think that's what will help me get a grasp on all this

I'm going to work on the box exercises and gestures I just found a group of artist doing a life drawing class and joined it yesterday so I'm excited.

Going out of the comfort zone, definitely! I really like (by that I mean hate it) drawing quick 360° sketches of the same model.

Deep down, I knew that I was supposed to do these, but for some reason, I only want to do these exercises only after hearing other artists talk about them.

14:00 so true ! i think everyone needs to learn drawing traditionally , thanks for the great tips Proko , love your videos , keep making video man , love learning new things from you

Clearly draw box, cylinder and gesture drawing in traditional is best way I found to improve my digital skill! Try it guys!

Thanks Proko for this videos. I started using boxes to draw cars and spaceships, then found out it can be useful even drawing difficult human parts such as heads, noses and hands. I could suggest also mastering stick figures could help a lot with human poses and animals.

Wow that Concept art of Ross Tran is absolutely stunning!

Gesture drawing is so damn important!!! Whenever my stuff starts feeling stale it's because it's stiff! Five to ten minutes of gesture drawing can save me from hours of frustration!

Great segment! I definitely echo the recommendations for drawing from life. Having to flatten a real-life 3d image onto a 2d sheet of paper completely changes your perception and informs what you lay down. Most people look at their world every day but don't really know what anything looks like because the brain fills in gaps and patterns subconciously. Drawing from life forces you to really ingest what you're seeing so you can close those gaps and draw (pun intended) from that knowledge to create your art.

I picked up on the quick, gesture drawings..being free. I also liked the concept of pencil-to-paper/traditional first. I did several ballpoint pen drawings a couple of years ago during Inktober, and it was kind of awesome to commit to something which couldn't be erased that I knew would be shared with others. It was really refreshing and fun, perfectly imperfect!

Definitely the boxes one... it's the best for figuring out perspective.

SUMMARY: Best drawing exercise (questions asked on comic con): - Look at the world turn it into simple geometric volumes - Surprise yourself, draw anything that takes you out of your comfort zone, once things become easy, then do something else, like drawing figures, draw fluids dynamics things, etc - find the fun in practicing - Just fill in the sketchbook, draw directly on paper without looking on the paper, draw directly from feeling - draw whatever, a hate, a cup, try to think "How to draw this" > related to figures mostly - you see a tree, try to draw it in space, be creative, add something, change something - find an artist that interprets the same as you, and then figure out your own - draw lines, cubes and rotate it around - exercise, practice in all different angles - your pencil is your instrument in your wrist, the language - you - speak through in your art - life drawings, figures, in 3D - gesture drawing, it's the best thing ever, short time, medium time, long time - draw boxes, perspective, try to move freely, many people say it - lifedrawing - once you understand a box in space (not actual space btw) it will help, so practise - thumbnails, you can start small and than later just blow it up - draw pencil to paper, ignore digital stuff, learn to draw propererly first on paper, traditional art will help you improve faster, it will help draw with a more fluid flow of drawing, drawing traditionally helps improving your skills

Drawing from life has really helped me improve in the last few years :) My favorite thing to do is go to orchestras and sketch the musicians. :)

When I was in high school, as I was starting a new sketchbook I made a dedicated challenge to only draw in pen until I filled it up-- no pencil first. It was an adjustment to be unable to erase, but eventually it taught me to make confident strokes and to think about the marks I was making; in pen you have to make a decision before you make the mark, you can't just scribble mindlessly. The results were great, and to this day I'm often complimented for my clean and confident inking. (of course, this exercise gave me more confident brush strokes and sketching, too)

I'm working on my digital art skills, but this video shows how important knowing the fundamentals is - no amount of digital polish can cover up mistakes in structure/form, lack of gesture, etc. It also helps to expand your range, draw things you're not comfortable with - something I'm still trying to get into...

I liked Ron Lemen's comparison of the drawing with playing an instrument. Having control of your hand and the outcome of how apply your pick or your pencil is fundamental to being a good artist.

Another excellent exercice is taking a chunk of charcoal, half an inch long. Do long and large traces with the side of the charcoal twig. These exercises free you up and off of details. Gesture, orientation proportions, complicated compositions, perspective, shadows, lights, and so on could be worked out this way. Good luck with your art.

Gonna try the simple exercises right away, straight lines and circles. Then the cube exercises.

00:08 Me: Yare Yare Daze

Drawing cubes, cylinders and spheres from all different perspectives and then reducing everything to these three forms often. THanks. Great interviews.

Thanks so much for this mini series asking pros questions like this. I find it interesting how ultimately simple their tips are, encouraging study of basic shapes, drawing from life, and experimenting. For me, drawing from life is something I’ll be trying out more!

I think another important thing to frequently experiment with is negative and positive space. Not just by the additive process (putting lines on a canvas/paper) but the subtractive process as well (eg, using scratchboard or doing printmaking). However, as an artist who does both traditional and digital equally (and learned traditional first), I kind of cringed at the last piece of advice. Not because it's wrong. He's absolutely right in fact, because it takes different control to actual draw something on physical paper and control the media in a way that you can't just press undo or make a new layer over top, so it's certainly valuable to learn traditional first as a new artist. But, digital is not inferior to traditional. They just have different natures and different struggles and pros and cons. I think everyone who is into drawing and illustration should do (or at least try) both. Digital is not easy nor does it make it any easier to really correct things in artwork. TRUE you can press undo, or draw on another clean layer over top, like I already said, BUT none of that is useful if you don't already have the skills to execute the fix you're trying to make. And correcting in traditional art is just as easy as it is in digital. Even if you're drawing in ink or marker or pen, you can always gesso or whiteout over it or even attach another piece of canvas or paper over top to cover it. You can even just layer over it with more ink or paint or whatever. Or trace the original and correct it on a new piece of paper. Or cover the mistake you made with paper and photocopy it and continue the drawing on the copy.

Ron Lemen was the best one, so freaking honest. Exactly what I needed to hear. Sloppy isn't a personality trait in art HA

i always doodle and draw shapes to get the feeling of the pen/pencil/brush that I use. it becomes a part of you and makes you feel like being creative .

I think all of them are very helpful, but I personally took the perspective drawing, and pencil balance to mind. I like the idea of being able to keep all your lines exactly as you want them even in traditional drawings.

Here I am sitting drawing freaking circles all day and I finally realize actual professional artists did this. It makes me so happy this could actually have some affect on my pieces.

Learning traditional before digital is definitely a big one for me. When I started drawing more seriously, I only drew digitally on my iPad and didn't have any pen control skills going into Photoshop, so I started drawing pencil on paper all the time instead. being able to see the drawing at one consistent size instead of zooming in and out and being able to feel the natural texture of pencil on paper is really important to me.

I am going to try the boxes exercise. At the moment I am working on eye and hand coordination by drawing my hand three times a day ...continuous line contour

I love this! In particular, the idea of being goal specific for a few months and then evaluation if you have developed better skills.

Gesture is always going to be useful, shapes and volumes as well. But one thing I didn't see any of these artists address is step away or back away from a piece of artwork. Coming back with a fresh perspective will help you see mistakes and or potential in the image that you might not have seen if you're constantly working on it up close. A simple change of your perspective can be of great help sometimes. It will also usually immediately help you with seeing composition and shape language. That type of information is usually visible at any range. Fun video series, nice work.

So TL;DR: Fill up a sketchbook with still life 30 second gesture drawings of boxes in perspective in a (traditional) medium I am not comfortable working with, every day. Got it!

The exercise of drawing rotating boxes and then rotating objects was so useful! :D

Glad almost all these guys are on KZfaq so I can learn from them

For this year I set to work a lot on the basic maybe 2-3 hours a day - a lot of lines varying length, weight, direction straight, curves. With pencil but also with ink liner, nib or brush. - also circles and elipses. - then I do some calligraphy and lettering, trying to work with the whole arm. Basic Fonts to get the lines and curves clean.Again more to get control of the arm and hand rather than for the specific result(I'll think about the final result at some point but later). - Then I do some geomeric shapes, square, rectangle, hexagon, and fill them with hatching or with smooth layer in graphite. - Finally I do some freehand drawing, trying to focus on getting the first lines correct, I mean not sketching or roughing, only one evocative line. For example I followed your video in the Zoo with Aaron Blaise, and I tried to get the Gorilla or Puma gesture in 2 or 3 lines. In the train I make quick 2 min peoples sketchs with a ballpoint pen not thinking about erasing. Regards

This was so immensely useful, definitely a video I will be coming back to. Thanks for posting this video it was not only practical but motivating, hearing so many great artist repeat the same thing help me see what I need to focus on to get better.

thanks for this video, i'm one of the lazy artist, iknow that i have a talent of drawing but i enjoyed seeing the artists drawing than i myself practising it. but now i have to practice drawing everyday thank you again proko your channel is the best artists motivator. more power... and more practice to all artist.

That thing with the boxes, im deff trying that out. So simple but it seems like it's really gonna help

All the advice I use, but the circles and lines is a really good one.

You take an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper and draw six equally sized squares on it, three squares along the long axis, two along the short. You draw random shapes consisting of 5 straight sides within the squares on the left column and then in the right column you try to recreate those random shapes. This is a great way to improve your eye as you need to capture the angle of line, relationships, shape of some random abstract construct.

Drawing boxes in all angles, along with lines and circles. Then finishing with the 10 second blind drawings sounds like a good plan for me.

This is just about your best video. Each artist keeps it to the point and there are so many different ideas here to keep yourself motivated. Thanks for doing these.

Good to see Draw-A-Box was a good choice for my drawing coarse. Kinda checks a lot of these boxes(sure, pun intended, why not). Now if only I can keep on top of it and not stray. Thanks for all the videos that help inspire me to keep going.

At 6:17-7:46, I really loved Ron Lemen's method of drawing practice advice ❤️ Thanks, Proko for making these inspirational and helpful videos!

6:23 had the best answer, those fundamentals are the most important, everything else builds up on that foundation