Drawing-Reference Art School
Stop collecting tutorials. Start following a plan.
A 3-year art curriculum built from the best free lessons online, with a plan for every week, exercises with exact numbers, and a tracker that shows you’re improving.
No subscription · pay once · 14-day refund on paid editions
You’re putting in the hours, but it feels random
- Your bookmarks are full of tutorials you never finished
- You practise, but you can’t tell whether you’re getting better
- You never know what to study next: anatomy, perspective, colour?
- Art school costs thousands, and most online courses cost hundreds
It’s not the lessons. It’s the order.
Some of the best art teaching in the world is free: Drawabox, Ctrl+Paint, Proko’s free lessons, and public-domain classics by Bridgman and Harold Speed. What nobody gives you is the plan: what to learn first, how much to practise, and when you’re ready to move on.
That plan is what Drawing-Reference Art School gives you. We put the free lessons in the right order and added the parts self-taught artists usually miss: exercises, checkpoints, projects and a way to measure progress.
Every week has three steps
Learn
Watch or read the linked free lessons for the week. Usually a handful of short videos or chapters.
Do
Exercises with exact amounts, like “50 boxes this week” or “10 figure studies at 2 minutes”. No guessing how much is enough.
Check
A short checkpoint tells you what “good enough” looks like, so you know when to move on.
Every 12 weeks: a term project, and you redraw the “before” drawings you made in week 1. Side by side, you’ll see exactly how far you’ve come.
Where you’ll be in three years
Year 1 teaches you to see and construct. Year 2 adds colour, materials and free digital tools. Year 3 turns your skills into your own work and a portfolio.
Seeing & Building
Confident lines, boxes in perspective, 3D forms
Light Begins
Value, composition, rooms and streets in perspective
The Figure Moves
Gesture, anatomy basics, figures in light
Harder Things
Complex forms, perspective III, composition II
Colour & Digital
Colour theory, Krita, your first paintings
Surfaces & Light
Metal, cloth, skin and foliage under any light
The Figure, Deeper
Figures from imagination, heads, hands, drapery
Worlds
Environments with mood, painted from your own ideas
Your Voice
Storytelling, personal style, a portfolio
What you actually get
A clean PDF workbook: each term opens with its goals, then 12 weekly lessons, a term project and a full resource index. Click a page to see it larger.
Watch yourself improve
Motivation fades when progress is invisible. The tracker lists every lesson and exercise: type an x when you’re done, log your drawing sessions, and the dashboard fills in your progress per week and per term, your hours, and your balance between study and drawing for fun.
Works in Excel, Google Sheets and LibreOffice.
Made for self-taught artists who want structure
It’s for you if
- You’re starting out, or restarting after a break
- You’ve tried random tutorials and want a clear path
- You can give it about 45-60 minutes a day
- You’d rather spend money on paper than on courses
It’s not for you if
- You want one teacher on video for every lesson
- You need personal feedback from a tutor (we point you to free critique communities instead)
- You’re looking for a quick shortcut: this is real practice
I run Drawing-reference.com, and the question I get most isn’t “where do I find references?” It’s “what should I learn next?” The free lessons out there are brilliant, but on their own they’re a pile of puzzle pieces. This school is the box with the picture on it: the order I wish I’d had, with the exercises and checkpoints that turn watching into actual progress.
Nico Konings, artist and founder of Drawing-reference.com
Get Term 1 in your inbox
Enter your email and we’ll send you the Term 1 workbook and tracker straight away. Start drawing tonight.
- 12 weekly lessons with exact exercises and a check before you move on
- A term project: draw a real room in two-point perspective
- The tracker spreadsheet for your progress and hours
You’ll also get our occasional email with new free reference packs. Unsubscribe anytime.
Try Term 1 free. Keep going when it clicks.
Term 1
- 12 weekly lessons: line work, perspective, form
- Term project + before-and-after baseline
- Term 1 tracker
- 44 free resources
Year 1
- Terms 1-3: 36 weekly lessons
- 3 term projects + baselines
- Tracker for the whole year
- 98 free resources
- Free updates to Year 1
Full school
- Year 1 now
- Years 2 and 3 as they’re released, at no extra cost
- Every update included
Prices include 21% VAT. Gumroad charges the VAT rate of your country, so the final price can differ slightly. Outside the EU you pay €15.70 (Year 1) or €32.23 (full school).
Already own Year 1? Use the upgrade code on the last page of your PDF.
Drawing-Reference Art School FAQ
Quick answers to what people ask most about the art school. Click a question to open it.
Why pay for a course built from free resources?
You’re paying for the structure: the order, the weekly plans, the exercises with exact amounts, the checkpoints, the projects and the tracker. That’s the part that takes years to figure out on your own. Term 1 is free, so you can try the structure before you pay anything.
How much time does it take?
Plan about 5-7 hours a week: roughly 45-60 minutes a day, six days a week. A term is 12 weeks and a year is three terms. Going slower is fine.
What do I need?
For Year 1: cheap printer paper, a fineliner or ballpoint, a couple of pencils, an eraser and a sketchbook. Digital tools start in Term 5, and they’re free too (Krita, and later Blender).
I’m a complete beginner. Is this for me?
Yes. Term 1 starts from your first confident line. If you already draw, the weekly checkpoints tell you when you can move faster through a topic.
Is there nudity in the figure drawing lessons?
The figure terms use timed poses from our free gesture drawing tool. Tick “Only covered models” if you want clothed poses only. The linked lessons come from established art teachers.
What if a link stops working?
We check the links and send updated files through Gumroad. Updates to the edition you bought are always free.
When are Years 2 and 3 coming?
Year 2 is being written now. Early-access buyers get each new year in their Gumroad library as soon as it’s finished, at no extra cost.
Can I get a refund?
Yes. If a paid edition isn’t for you, ask within 14 days for a full refund.
Your first week starts with a mug, a pen and 30 minutes
Term 1 is free. Follow it for 12 weeks, redraw your week-1 drawings, and see the difference for yourself.
Start Term 1 freeDrawing-Reference Art School isn’t affiliated with the creators of the linked resources.