Menu
Proko studied at the Watts Atelier starting when he was in high school, and later was a teacher there. His way of drawing and teaching is like a 21st century version of art instruction legend Andrew Loomis. Now he is polishing up the next series, which will be on figure drawing. The first episode of the new series will launch tomorrow.
This post is a long one, but one of my favorites. Maybe because it’s all about meFor the past seven years, I’ve been keeping a record of all the classes I took, and I’ve kept every single drawing. I’m going to do something different and post my schedule from the past 7 years. This post is NOT to show people what path to take, it’s just mine. Everyone’s journey is unique.
That is what I love about the atelier program – you create your journey and your future. You are not part of a curriculum. This post IS meant to be used as an example to help you develop your own path.This post shows my entire school schedule, but it doesn’t show the working and studying I did at home.
I put in at least another 20 hours every week working on my own projects at home.I don’t plan on leaving the atelier anytime soon. Even though I’ve gotten much more than I could ask for from a school, it would be stupid of me to leave this environment unless I absolutely have to. Being in an environment of like-minded, hard working artists pushes me to keep growing. I think it’s essential.So here’s my schedule for the past 7 years I’ve included sample work and an overview for every year.
![Review Review](/uploads/1/2/5/5/125567455/138526719.jpg)
2003 Winter ’03. Intro to Tonal DrawingSpring ’03. Intro to Tonal DrawingSummer ’03. Quicksketch. Intuitive Anatomy.
StoryboardingFall ’03. Quicksketch. Features & Facial Expressions.Click to ZoomOverview2003 was a slow start.
High school obligations allowed me to take classes only on weekends. But that’s OK.
I got the ball rolling in 2004. I’m glad I took the Intro to Tonal Drawing twice. But the storyboarding and features classes were way too early. At this point I was still trying to become an animator.
I thought that taking those classes would get me there faster. In the storyboard class, I ended up struggling with basic drawing problems rather than focusing on the art of storyboarding. 2004 Winter ’04. Quicksketch. Figure Drawing. Art of the CaricatureSpring ’04. Quicksketch.
Figure Drawing. Head Drawing. Environmental Design. Uninstructed WorkshopSummer ’04. Head, Figure, Quicksketch.
![Figure Figure](/uploads/1/2/5/5/125567455/479345833.jpg)
Figure Drawing. PerspectiveFall ’04. Figure Drawing. Advanced Head Drawing. Gouache Painting.
Dynamic Animal Sketching. Uninstructed Workshop.Click to ZoomOverviewThis was a great academic year for me. Every semester had 2-3 core drawing classes along with 1 fun specialty class. In the fall I took gouache as a transition from drawing to painting. It’s great to start painting with gouache before oil because gouache trains you to tile.
Place a stroke and leave it. Gouache dries so fast that you don’t have time to blend it. When transitioning to oil, I already had the habit of tiling my strokes rather than mushing the paint around. I made a lot of good decisions this year. Posted April 23, 2014 at 1:23 pmParticularly beautiful landscape painting, as seen very early on in your painting career.
Had you been using the Zorn palette for the landscape painting shown? I am interested in Watts online painting program and may register as soon as I get the answer to some of my questions. I had taken Reilly classes as a younger student. No where else have I seen such beautiful brushwork taught. I was under the assumption that brushwork was particular to the artist but I can see the Watts atelier does emphasize this. As well as impressionistic color, which the Reilly system does not teach. Posted April 24, 2014 at 12:09 pmThank you Julia.
I almost never use Zorn palette for landscapes, only portraits. Zorn palette can get you chromatic warms, but it’s very weak in the cools. So a landscape that requires some nice blues, purples, greens wouldn’t be possible with Zorn palette. If you’re looking for a limited palette for landscape try using the 3 primaries – yellow, red, blue and add white and black.
You can get a very good range with those 5 tubes.If I remember correctly, Scott Christensen uses something similar. Cadmium Yellow Pale, Cadmium Red Medium, Ultramarine Blue, Titanium White. He then mixes a bunch of grey tones from those, for convenience. You can watch his video for a better description and demonstration of this palette. Posted March 22, 2016 at 6:24 amAn artist friend of mine told me about your YouTube videos last year and I have enjoyed them a great deal. More recently, I stumbled across the Jeff Watts Friday night live videos, then found the video of Jeff interviewing you.
Now I’m seriously considering trying out the Watts Atelier online drawing course – and must say you get some credit for that. Seeing the improvement in your drawing that you shared is very encouraging. I’ve looked at some of your more recent paintings and drawings online and consider you an accomplished professional.
Having said that, the first figure drawing you shared from 2003 is about where I consider myself now, which is why I am so encouraged. I’m 56, have a business to run, so I have no delusions about how fast and far I can improve my skills. What I do know is that I can improve them a lot. Keep up the good work.
I’ll be referring to your videos frequently.