Tips on Drawing Fundamentals and Learning Anatomy from Stan Prokopenko

Stan Prokopenko's suggested flowchart of learning to draw.

As you know, I am a HUGE fan and student of Stan Prokopenko's drawing instruction. I started with his free instruction that inspired me to purchase his Figure Fundamentals course. When he announced an anatomy course, I snatched that one up, too. For me, his way of teaching has overwhelmingly been the most effective.

For decades, I struggled with improving my drawing because I knew I was supposed to be drawing a lot, but I didn't know what to draw a lot of. This question led to paralysis which led to lack of drawing which led to lack of developing drawing skills.

The internet helped greatly with my what-to-draw paralysis. First, I discovered (initially for free) the Famous Artists Courses instruction. It's because of those courses that I finally learned to see everything as a three-dimensional form. (As of this writing, the Famous Artists School is in the process of migrating their website and will return in 360 days.)

Second, I eventually stumbled upon Proko when I Googled "how to draw the head from any angle." His clear and concise instruction came up and I've been a student of his ever since.

If you want to draw better but are overwhelmed, like I was, about what to study, Proko addresses these issues in the videos "What are the Fundamentals? and "How to Learn Anatomy". He and fellow draftsman, Marshall Vandruff (whose $12 perspective course is one of the best drawing instruction bargains you'll find) developed a downloadable courses/topics of study flowchart that also is helpful.

Here are the top points I got from the "How to Learn Anatomy" video:

1. Know gesture and structure before studying anatomy. [For my purposes, I added figure proportions which I felt I needed as well]
2. Common anatomy mistakes:
• thinking about contours instead of in 3D
• stiff drawings (lacking gesture)
• drawing random bumps instead of knowing what those bumps are and represent
• not remembering origins and insertions of muscles correctly. But you can take liberties with inaccurate anatomy if it looks GOOD
• shading too soon. Don't shade until know how to draw cross-contours
3. Mannequinization of the figure goes on top fo the rhythms
4. Likes learning anatomy outside-in
• even learning gesture and structure is outside to inside. Structure and gesture involve simplifying outside forms. 
• then, learn inside out with bones, then muscles
5. Vandruff: two reasons to put cross contours around bones—
• bones are long you can forget its original shape. The cross contours remind you of the bones shape.
• bones change shape based on their position so the "rubber bands" of cross contours help show the shapes
6. Stay away from Bridgman until know anatomy because his teachings and diagrams need to be interpreted

If you like this post and blog, click the blue "Follow" button on the right to become a Follower! And leave a comment below. I respond to all comments.

Thanks for reading!