Answers to Frequently Asked Questions 

There are two ways to cancel your monthly payments depending on which course you pay monthly for (Draw Awesome or Sketch Awesome)

1. For DRAW AWESOME:

• Log in to your Draw Awesome account.
• Click on your Avatar (little head and shoulders icon) at the top of any page.
• Select Settings from the dropdown.
• Click Billing Info in the top-right of the page.
• Click the 3 dots next to your active subscription and click Cancel this subscription or Cancel in Paypal.

NOTE: If you joined using Paypal, you'll be redirected to your Paypal account and you'll need to sign in. Once you've done that:

• Click Payments in the top menu.
• Select Manage Automatic Payments under the "Automatic payments" section.
• Select the agreement you want to cancel in the left sidebar (i.e. Draw Awesome).
• Click the Cancel button.
• Click Cancel Automatic Payments.

If you get stuck at any point, please email us here.

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2. For SKETCH AWESOME:

 We'll need to do this on your behalf. Please email us here and let us know that you want to cancel your Sketch Awesome membership.

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What Happens After You Cancel?

After you cancel, you will still have access to your account up until your next billing date. That will include any new projects released up to that date.

After that date, you will lose access to your account and all the projects. 

However, you CAN download everything to keep it, before your account cancels. 

Just bear in mind that downloading lots of large video files can take time and may require extra storage.

If you cancel your monthly payments before you've made them all (either 12 or 13 payments depending on the course), you'll lose access to your account after the next billing date is due.

However, you can still download all the projects released to you so far and keep them, even after your account is canceled.

Just be aware that downloading lots of large video files can take time and usually requires extra storage (like a hard drive or cloud storage service). 

Draw Awesome and Sketch Awesome are about being consistent, NOT perfect! So there is absolutely no need to keep perfect pace with the release of the projects (which are released weekly).

In fact, most students will be at least a few weeks behind the latest project, especially the longer the syllabus goes on.

Both Draw Awesome and Sketch Awesome are finite courses, which last about 1 year. That means it will be much easier to catch up when the projects are no longer released. 

But what about monthly payments? If it takes you longer to finish the course, won't you end up paying more?

No, because you only pay a fixed number of payments in total (13 for Draw Awesome and 12 for Sketch Awesome). So it doesn't matter how long it takes you. 

Relax, and work at your own pace. 😊 

We don't offer the option to pause monthly payments because you only need to pay a set number (with Draw Awesome it's 13 monthly payments, with Sketch Awesome it's 12). 

Once you have made all 12 or 13 payments, you'll have lifelong* online access to the projects.

This means there's no benefit to pausing payments and you can just follow the projects at your own pace.

Of course, if you need to cancel the payments completely, you can do that at any time. Please see the other FAQ in this section for how to do that or contact us here.

*Lifeloing in this case means as long as we're still in business. We've been here since 2008 and not going anywhere soon!

if you purchased Sketch Awesome though a one-off, upfront payment, you'll never be billed again (unless you buy another course from us of course!).

Buying a course upfront gives you lifelong* online access to it.

* Life-long in reality means as long as we exist as a company. You can always download videos to keep them forever - regardless of what happens to Draw Awesome in the future!

Changing your card details depends on the payment method you used for your initial purchase - either credit/debit card or Paypal...

If you used a credit/debit card to sign up:

1. Sign in to your Draw Awesome account.

2. Go to the Settings page by clicking or tapping on your avatar (the little head and shoulders icon) and click or tap on Billing Info.

3. You'll see an option to add a new card as well as the card being used for your Active subscription.

4. Go ahead and add a new card.

5. Click the 3 dots next to your Active Subscription and select the new card you've just added.

Unfortunately, you can't remove old cards but we can do that for you if you like. If you want us to do that, please email us with which card to remove (we just need the last 4 digits of the card).

You can contact us here

If you used Paypal to sign up:

1. Sign into your Paypal account.

2. Click Payments in the top menu.

3. Select Manage Automatic Payments under the "Automatic Payments" section.

4. Select the merchant whose agreement you want to cancel in the left sidebar (we will show as Draw Awesome or Paintbox Art Media).

5. You should be given the option to change your payment method. If not, you'll need to contact Paypal support as we don't have any access to your Paypal account.

There are five currencies to choose from when purchasing from Draw Awesome - USD, GBP, CAD, AUD and EUR.

While you can choose any currency (your card issuer will just convert the amount automatically), you should choose the currency of your country where possible, to avoid your bank charging small conversion fees.

If you live outside of the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia or the EU, you should choose USD as your currency as this is the least likely to trigger any small conversion charges. 

Assuming you've rejoined, please send us an email and we'll reset your account so that you can pick up where you left off. :)

If you haven't rejoined yet and the course you want isn't currently open for new intakes, send us an email and we can get you setup right away so you don't have to wait 'til the next intake.  

If you join one of our courses via a monthly membership or monthly installments, you'll be billed on the same date each month thereafter, automatically. So if you join on January 6th, you'll be billed on February 6th, March 6th and so on. Occasionally, it might be a day either side because of time zones. 

Yes! All of our courses and memberships come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

The same 30-day period applies to our sketching journals but they must be returned unused.

Please see our full refund policy here.

 We have private community groups for Drawing Essentials, Draw Awesome and Sketch Awesome. These all live on our art community site called ArtKula.

For instructions and a video guide on how to access the private group for your course, please see the Community video in the Start Here section of your course.

If you're not sure how to post an image to the group, we've created a video showing you how to do that here.

We've also added a short video to that page for using the free ArtKula app.

Yes, you can download any of the project videos at any time. And you can keep these even if you cancel your monthly payments!

Just bear in mind that downloading and storing lots of large video files can take a long time and may require extra storage (if you're downloading lots of videos).

To download videos please see this guide.

For Sketch Awesome, using the same materials as Phil really isn't important. 

For Draw Awesome, the more closely your materials match what Phil uses, the better your results will be.

On the materials page, we state when it's important to get the same brand and when the brand isn't that important.  

See the materials lists for various courses here.

In a word, no. Draw Awesome is designed to be followed exactly as is and a lot of planning has gone into the syllabus to make it as effective as possible.

Many of the techniques work across different mediums. There are lessons we cover in say, the graphite drawing module, that will apply to say, the coloured pencils module.

Each Module builds on the one before and this is why they can't be reordered.

Projects are not grouped into modules in Sketch Awesome as the emphasis is on variety and having fun. 🤗

The best place to ask questions about lessons is in the private group on ArtKula. Either Phil, a colleague, or another more advanced student will be able to answer you there.

Of course, if you're not on ArtKula, feel free to email your question using this contact form.

Unfortunately, Phil can't give one-to-one critiques of project artwork.

All of Phil's courses are about steady, consistent practice over time. Like the magic of compound interest, this is what leads to massive results and transformation!

Most online courses give you access to the full course straight from the start - but this can lead to being overwhelmed and rushing through lessons to get a sense of completion.

Drip-feeding you the lessons means you're much more likely to complete them thoroughly and get the most from them. It's also the best way to prevent burnout by doing too much too quickly. 

Absolutely! You can post the artwork you make from any of Phil's lessons or projects, anywhere you like. You don't need to ask him for permission and you don't need to credit him or Draw Awesome - although that would nice. :)

Your challenge artwork is obviously your own creation, so as long you've not broken someone else's copyright in creating your images, you can obviously do with them what you want.

Yes and no...

If you want to sell artwork you've made from a course lesson or project to someone who's asked to buy it, then by all means go ahead and we'd love to hear about it! After all, one of Phil's goals for you is that you reach a point where you're making commission-worthy artwork!

The only thing we ask that you don't do is make digital copies or prints of the artwork and sell those. It's okay to sell the original (and we'd encourage it), just not duplications of the original, if that's okay. 

The reference photos Phil uses for lessons and projects are either taken by him (so he owns the copyright and gives you permission to do with those photos what you want), or they're from Pixabay, Pexels or Unsplash (where photos are made to be used freely).

There are some restrictions on the photos at those sites, which won't affect most artists, but it's worth taking a quick read of their licenses:

Unsplash

Pexels

Pixabay

If you can't sign in, it's down to one of three issues:

1. You don't have a Draw Awesome account

2. You are entering the wrong email and/or password

3. The web browser you are using has a setting that is interfering with the Draw Awesome website

Step 1: Are you sure you have a Draw Awesome account? A lot of people can mixed up between Draw Awesome and ArtKula (our free community website). Draw Awesome is a paid-for course so if you're sure you have a paid account at Draw Awesome more to Step 2...

Step 2: Try resetting your password here.

Make sure you enter the email address you use for your Draw Awesome account. If the reset email doesn't turn up, check your spam folder. If it's not in there, the issue is with your email address. Please contact us with your full name and any email addresses your account could be under so we can do some digging.

Step 3: If you DO receive the reset email and resetting your password doesn't help (or you keep having to reset your password), the problem will be with your browser. Try using a different browser on the device you're having an issue with (i.e. use Firefox or Safari if you're currently using Chrome, or vice versa).

Nine times out of ten, you'll be able to sign in okay using another browser.

If none of the above works for you, please contact us here. 

If you know your existing password and simply want to update it, here's what to do:

1. Sign into your Draw Awesome account.

2. Go to the Settings page (by clicking or tapping on your avatar).

3. Update your password and/or email address on that page.

If you've forgotten your password, try resetting your password here

The first project will unlock itself when you watch and complete the videos in the START HERE section.

Beneath each video is a Mark As Complete button. This will automatically "complete" when you reach the end of a video. Or you could cheat and click or tap it any time. But don't do that. ;) 

Please see this guide for getting and using the free app for ArtKula (where we host the private Draw Awesome community).

Please see this guide.

When you have issues playing videos on the web, is almost always down to one of two things:

1) Temporary Internet speed problems, which cause videos to stop and start (buffer).

2) Something on your web browser that interferes with the video player.

1) I'm having issues with videos stopping and starting (buffering):

It's an Internet speed issue. Speed issues can happen at any place between your location in the world and where our videos are hosted. So even if videos on the likes of YouTube play okay, it doesn't rule out Internet speed issues.

If you don't have speed issues at other sites like YouTube, any buffering on Draw Awesome videos will resolve itself and usually quite quickly.

If it doesn't resolve after 24 hours, please contact us here and we can run through more detailed checks.

2) I'm having other issues with the videos, like getting them to play at all or no sound:

This is almost certainly down to a setting on your browser (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge etc,) interfering with the video player.

Even if the video played fine yesterday and not today, it's still likely to be a browser issue because they're always updating themselves in the background, and those updates can stop other stuff from working.

The fastest way to resolve this is to use another browser. So if you normally use Safari, for example, try Chrome or Firefox. 

All the main browsers are free and very easy to install. Here's a handy webpage with download links for all the major browsers.

Not at the moment, unfortunately. But I will be adding these over time.

Sorry, not at the moment.