Drawing is more important than painting

[vlada]

To add to this -- learn to paint traditionally.

You may not be aiming to become a traditional painter, but trust me, there is a world of difference between picking colors off a digital canvas and thinking through the practice of manual mixing. All these subtle shifts in value and hue cannot be faked with digital techniques, when they are on your palette in front of you and when you are learning to make true neutrals your ability to *see* color and light changes entirely.

Taking something to a high level of polish is about hours and patience -- all these sexy blends, they are a result of technique (look at all that terrible 90s fantasy fairy art floating around). Any turd polished long enough starts to shine. The reality of this industry is, you usually do not have that time.

IMO, drawing skills come with sketch practice, with focus on accurate replication and the gut feeling that will carry through to the final. Plein air and traditional still life painting combine EVERYTHING, engage EVERY part of your brain at once; since the shapes are there for you to interpret you are dealing with color, with design, with composition. Good painting is about CHOICES, poor painting is about COPYING. By sitting down and making these decisions, even just a couple of days a week, you are expanding your shape and visual library which will lead to better designs. You will be improving your drawing skill as well -- to put down an accurate stroke, after stroke, you only have one chance to get it right. And paint is expensive D:

I didn't really get how -important- traditional painting is until I had to do four still life studies a week at college. With a time limit of about 2 hours, you level up REALLY fast.

Spoiler