Art drills

Small, objectively-scored practice reps. Each one isolates a single skill, takes a couple of minutes, and gives you a real number rather than a vibe — so when a drawing goes wrong you can tell which underlying judgement failed.

Nothing reveals the answer until you commit to a guess. Scores live in this browser only.

Progress

The drills

value

• value: swatch

  Judge the grayscale value of an isolated color. Pure value perception, nothing to distract you.

• value: in context

  Same judgement, but the patch sits inside a painting where its neighbours distort it.

• contrast illusion

  Two grays, two backgrounds. Same or different? Proof that context lies to you.

mark-making

• line & curve

  Copy a line or curve stroke for stroke. Trains putting the mark where you meant to.

• ellipse in plane

  Fit an ellipse to a plane in perspective, touching all four sides. Notoriously hard to eyeball.

measuring

• angle & proportion

  Put a number on an angle or a length ratio. Replaces eyeballing with actual measurement.

• vanishing point

  Draw a line that converges correctly. Scored on angular deviation, not distance.