I think it's unfortunate that drills in art have been culturally moved away from recently. There is an active sentiment in the amateur art community that drill

I think it's unfortunate that drills in art have been culturally moved away from recently. There is an active sentiment in the amateur art community that drill is bad, and that you should just draw/paint/whatever things that you enjoy, and you'll just naturally improve over time. This is part of why you see countless online artists who draw for thousands of hours and still can barely manage a likeness. There are very few activities for which scrimmage improves you faster than drill. Whether it's sports, art, chess, video games, cooking, or anything else, doing the actual activity is a relatively poor way to improve at it.