So I watched the eye structure and anatomy video- first couple of pages are my attempts - the first I took more time on, the second I tried to make more sketchy. Then I followed Stan's example (image 3) and then tried some of my own - I was more focused on shading than accuracy (never done shading before) so not surprised that accuracy is off - but is something I aim on improving

I've been obsessed with Austin Osman Spare recently, and there's a passage from a book I was reading called The Static Alignments on Spare's school of draughtsmanship that has some of his advice to students. I think it's relevant. First, "Riding a bike for the first time is very tiring, and with Art it's just that." Which makes me think of your comment about getting frustrated at how long things take. The idea I think is that if you keep at it, you'll get through the frustration. Spare also had the following recommendations, direct quoted list from the book: 1. All the practice you can get. 2. To be an enthusiast and obsessed with "ideas" however vague. 3. That real knowledge is always first felt and whether it becomes more knowable or remains vague doesn't affect your work. 4. Your effort (now) should be towards realism (you will always interpret your way) and towards satisfaction, e.g. to do your best. 5. You never will be satisfied or do your best -- no one has but their great accomplishments are through the effort and constancy towards perfection as they saw and felt it. So...in summary, my response to this problem based on the art advice of Austin Osman Spare is to practice your art of choice a lot, and every time you do it just try to do your best, whatever your best is.

Hi Finlo! I think one idea could be to try something in the middle of the two extremes. It might not solve your problem, but maybe it could help ease your frustration a bit. for example: If then you are “Doing it ‘right’” you might normally work for 4 hours on a piece, you could try to instead do it in three and a half hours, or if you would normally take 1 hour to do something, try doing it in 45 minutes instead, just to be able enjoy the quality without getting quite as frustrated about time, The same for the second approach “doing it a lot”. If then you work quickly you spend 10 minutes on an exercise maybe try 15 minutes instead, or go from 30 seconds to 45 seconds. Maybe it could help you to still get quantity while being a bit happier about the overall quality. Or do something in between the examples I gave. If you fastest is a 1 minute sketch and longest 2 hours, maybe try to do something that takes half an hour instead. Feel around and see if you can find your own pace. Nothing is wrong with fast or slow, I think the most important thing is to find what suits you personally. One extra note about the second piece of advice in your example ‘doing it a lot’. It’s hard, but then it comes to mistakes try to think of them, not as actually mistakes, but as a valuable piece of learning opportunity. If we never make mistakes, we don't learn from them and don’t get as many chances for growth! I think it’s a very interesting and important topic you brought up and it’s good that it gets talked abut. I hope you find a way that feels right for you!

Hell yes! I have noticed that for me drawing fast or failing more, and quickly, has not helped. Whatever I am learning or working on I do it the best I can and take my time. I feel much better about the out comes which I feel is important to keeping up my self esteem and enjoy the process. One other thought I have is some things need to be quick like gestures or thumbnail drawing. Those should be quick and dirty. Hope this helps.

I get confused by this a lot, too! I suppose it depends on what you're doing right now and whether or not you're getting the type of practice you need out of it. Personally, I have poor line control relative to where I want to be, and I think it's because I've naturally been thinking in approach 2 for a long time. It's not that it hasn't resulted in growth ( I credit it for teaching me not to get attached to one drawing if its going badly, for example), but it's also encouraged my sloppiness and it's not teaching me what I need at the moment. So, I'm consciously making myself to use approach 1 more often, and spending more time doing one thing right. It means my production speed has slowed down, but my accuracy is improving! I once heard an artist say, "slow is smooth, smooth is fast," and that's been repeating in my head since I got back on Proko's courses. Biiit of a ramble I wrote up there. But basically, I think the right question to ask ourselves is, "What am I trying to learn?" That'll help you know what to do for each concept you're trying to pick up. For example, I'm trying to improve my understanding of anatomy and perspective, which is a very technical goal and based in accuracy, so I've decided its better to do 10 attempts right than 50 of them wrong. For things like quick gestures, I think more=better. Further thoughts?

The easy answer is: do a lot but always try to make the best work you can. This allows you to have a lot of practice, make a lot of mistakes and also have good art. In my case i'm studing by myself with the goal of becoming an illustrator, so i'm drawing every day (mostly exercise and challenges that focus on the subject that i'm studing) and i try to make each week a completed llustration appling those concepts that i have learned and trying something that i don't know yet. Naturally you probably won't like your art but this method provides a costant challenge. Also i would advise to use a curriculum of subjetcs so that you can understand at what point you are in and don't get frustrated. Hope it helps XD

Hi Anfissa I feel your pain - I have been through this - feeling like every nugget of info is super important, and making sure that nothing is missed. I have filled whole notebooks this way, before realising that I could be using my time better - something your post suggests you are beginning to realise yourself. The depth of your notes is impressive - it shows your dedication to the subject. The unfortunate thing is that the human body is unbelivably complicated, and the course is very dense, so there is no way you will remeber everything the first time round - even if you do note everything down. But that's fine! And also, time you spend taking notes is time you could be drawing - and that's the best way to learn the subject - not by trying to recycle the information. The good news is that more drawing, not more note taking, will probably help you learn more effectively! My advice would be to take it easy on the note taking - this is how I usually do it - I watch the video, and do my best to remeber as much as possible - THEN, when the video is finished, I take notes - this forces you to use your memory and actually makes you remeber things better. Then, at the end of the day, I write what it is I learned that day - this just reinforces any nuggets that are still there (and is a nice motivation boost). You will forget a lot of what you see in the videos - it takes years and years to learn this stuff - even the very best don't know all the theory off by heart - but that's also totally normal. Just practice whatever subject you are on, and keep rewatching the videos! A lot of people do the courses multiple times even. I I think that this would be a better use of your time. I wish you all the best!

Hi! These aren't in order, and I never intended to post these (so I apologise for how messy the pages are), but when proko 2.0 became live I thought that I really should Mix of straight on, angled and profile views - all from reference. Any feedback whatsoever would be great! Thanks