How learn posts work: lessons, exercises and takes
A learn post is a lesson, finished by marking it done, or an exercise, finished by posting a take: a portfolio post that names the exercise and joins its gallery. With a difficulty, a goal or brief, and a time.
Guide · 5 min read ·
Every art community teaches, usually in the replies. A learn post gives the teaching a shape of its own, so that a good lesson does not scroll away and a good prompt collects its answers in one place. This post walks the two modes; the take at the end of an exercise is a portfolio post, which has its own post.
What is a learn post?
A post with a title, the media that carries the teaching (a marked-up image, a process clip, a voice note over a sketch), and a handful of settings that tell a reader what they are looking at before they open it: the mode, the difficulty, the topics and the time. It runs in the feed like any post and shows “learn” in its container, with the difficulty beside it. On Explore it has a scope of its own, and on a profile the owner can show a Learn gallery of everything they have posted.
Lesson or exercise: which one?
One switch, fixed when you post, and it decides how the post is completed.
- A lesson explains. Its optional goal is the one sentence a reader should leave with, its duration is how long the lesson takes, and a reader completes it by marking it done. The count of people who have is public on the post.
- An exercise asks. Its optional brief is the rule set, the way a prompt states one (a palette, a time limit, no tracing), its suggested time is how long to give it, and a reader completes it by posting a take. The takes are the exercise’s gallery, and their number is its count.
The test is what you want back. If the answer is “nothing, just read it”, it is a lesson. If the answer is “show me”, it is an exercise.
What does a take look like?
A portfolio post that names the exercise. The only door to it is the exercise’s “Post your take” button, which opens the composer with the exercise already attached; you add your title, your work and its categories, and post. The take appears in the exercise’s Takes gallery, counts as a completion, wears a small “take” mark that links back to the exercise, and lives on your profile under Takes as well as in your Portfolio. It is a portfolio post in every other way: it can be original or fan work, and can tag a character.
What do difficulty, topics and time do?
They sort. Difficulty is one of All levels, Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced, and rides on the card so a beginner can skip the advanced lesson before opening it. Topics are the same categories portfolio posts use, up to three, typed in your own words and offered back to everyone as suggestions, so a lesson on hands files under “hands” next to the portfolio work on hands. Time is minutes, up to 600: a lesson’s duration, an exercise’s suggested time. All three are optional except the topics, and none is enforced; a time is a suggestion, not a timer.
How is this different from a course site?
A course platform grades you, by a machine that scores your line or by a critique queue, and charges for the course. A learn post does neither. Anyone can post one, completing one is free, and the only output of an exercise is the takes, which are public work with replies under them. That makes it worse at measuring progress and better at the thing art communities are actually for: seeing thirty answers to one brief, and adding yours. A lesson worth paying for is sold as a sealed post of its own, never as a learn post; pay to reveal was built for exactly that.
What are the rules?
A learn post and a take follow the content guidelines like any post. A lesson that teaches by tracing someone else’s work should say so, and a take that is fan work should use the switch. There is no way to buy a completion and no leaderboard, so there is nothing to game. The count on an exercise is the number of people who did the work.
The other way artists here set each other a task is a duel, where the answer is an attack rather than a take.