Improve my painting skills to professional level

too much emphasis on “success”—I will be placing more emphasis on learning fundamentals. going pro is doable only if I have a solid art background. I was putting the cart before the horse, placing too much importance on the destination.

who am I kidding!! can I do this?? I am in the workshop and totally suffering! Perhaps I should revise this goal to just improve my painting skills…...period. The “professional level” thing MAY be quite a stretch!!
I’ll sleep on this—I am feeling discouraged.

painted today. Just can’t seem to get the darkest darks in soon enough, and wound up with alot of mid tones. Kind of discouraging-but I pledge to make this my business-to work on “weak” areas.
Interestingly, I think I was painting better a couple of months ago when I wasn’t so INTENT on improvement. Making a note of this too.

The idea is to follow along with it in an effort to learn his technique and sequence.