When I first started out as an artist, I thought true art came from pure imagination. I believed that the best artists were the ones who could create entire worlds from scratch, without relying on references or techniques like copying or drawing from real life. As a young, rebellious artist, I scoffed at things like life drawing or using photo references. It felt like cheating. To me, art had to be raw and imperfect, free from the constraints of technique. I prided myself on not being “academically” trained.

Well, I grew up.

It wasn’t until my mid-30s—after stepping back and revisiting the basics—that I realized how much I had been missing. I came to understand something essential: no matter how stylized or whimsical your art may look, it helps to have some technical knowledge beneath it. And it was this realization that opened my eyes to the value of "boring" art exercises: studies, life drawings, and master copies.

In this post, I’ll talk about how practicing art has influenced my style, and how it can have a similar impact on yours.

Drawing from Real Life: Not Just About Copying What You See

Drawing from life is a game-changer for developing your observational skills and understanding of form, light, and proportion.

Take gesture drawing, for example. Gesture drawing is all about quick, time-restrained sketches where you focus on the basic outline of the model and the energy of the pose. When I first took gesture drawing classes in my 30s, I didn’t see the point. I wasn’t drawing realistic figures, so why bother? But I realized early on that understanding how the human body moves—how it balances, stretches, and shifts weight—gave me a stronger foundation for creating stylized characters. They were no longer stiff and lifeless. The ability to add movement and dynamic poses allowed me to add a lot more personality into my characters.

It’s important to note that it's one thing to create a character with exaggerated features, but without a solid grasp of anatomy, those exaggerations might fall flat or feel unconvincing. For children’s book illustration, this is crucial. Even though your characters may not look like real humans, understanding how they move allows you to give them features that feel grounded and believable.

Still life exercises were another area I underestimated. I thought they were just boring compositions of fruit and objects. Nothing exciting. But the more I practiced, the more I realized how much these exercises taught me. How they improved my ability to create depth and dimensionality in my illustrations, even when drawing cartoonish, stylized characters. How paying attention to contrast, composition, and proportions has improved my ability to create fictional worlds in my illustration. I write more about my sketching process here.

Color Is a Whole New Game

As I gained more confidence with my pencil sketches and a deeper understanding of contrast and composition, I moved on to color and light studies. This was probably the most challenging phase for me. Suddenly, all the confidence I’d built up felt like it was slipping away. Understanding how to set the mood with color and light is something I’m still learning and will likely continue to learn for the rest of my career. There’s a reason art courses recommend starting with black-and-white sketches before diving into color. Pencil drawings provide a solid foundation, but color is a whole new game.

Children’s book illustrations often rely on bright, bold colors to tell a story just as much as the characters themselves. But achieving that vibrant effect requires a strong understanding of how color interacts with light, how shadows create depth, and how light can set a specific mood. I found that grasping these principles—something traditionally taught in classical art schools—has helped me make more intentional choices in my work. Even though I don’t paint in a realistic way, understanding and being able to work with light has improved my ability to add visual storytelling to my illustrations.

I write more about what I learned about color and storytelling in children's book illustration here

Master Copies: Learning from the Modern Masters

The next big shift in my artistic journey came when I started doing master copies. At first, I resisted the idea. Why copy someone else’s work? I thought if I wanted to be a true artist, I had to create something totally original. But after learning that so many successful artists—both old masters and modern illustrators—studied and copied the work of others, I decided to give it a try.

Master copies didn’t just mean replicating classical art; it also meant studying the work of contemporary artists who inspired me. I started with character designers from Disney and Pixar. The more I studied, the more I realized how much I could learn from analyzing how these artists stylized their work. I focused on how they used shape, color, and human anatomy to create characters. I paid attention to how exaggerated features could still work if the artist used believable anatomy.

Master copies help you build a deeper appreciation for technical skill. But it’s not just about mimicking someone’s work. It’s about understanding the choices behind the design. With every copy I did—whether it was a character design or a full illustration—I began to see how each decision was rooted in technical knowledge.

Mastering the Basics is Key to Unlocking Creativity

Looking back, I can’t believe I ever thought practicing the fundamentals of art was boring or unnecessary. Now that I’m more focused on drawing from life, doing master copies, and studying color and light, I see just how essential these exercises are to developing a strong, stylized art style. Even though my illustrations are far from realistic, I hope they come across as grounded in technical knowledge. Whether it's anatomy, perspective, or lighting, understanding these core principles lets me break the rules with a little more confidence.

So, if you’re like me and once thought that art was all about imagination and originality, it might be time to embrace the “boring” stuff. Drawing from life, copying the masters, and color studies may not seem like the most exciting activities, but they really pay off long term!

How do you improve your skills? Do you sketch from life, observe nature, or find inspiration in other forms of art? Let me know in the comments!

Mila