Change of Pace: New direction for art

So over the past month or so I've been coming to terms with the fact that my art is essentially no where near where I want it to be.  I've been studying up on art more and practicing more than ever, but if I honestly look at my art on an objective level I'm falling short in many areas.  The dilemma for me has been in deciding just whether or not I really want to bother putting in the effort that I would need to improve to the level I want my art to be at, or take the easy route and just slowly improve over time and probably never get close to reaching the level I want to be at.  I've looked into art schools and the ones that I honestly feel like can teach me what I want to know and help me improve my skills are super expensive (and I'm super poor) so that's out of the question.  However, I do know that if I put in the time and effort, I can improve my own art skills; the trick is having to put in the time and effort.

I've decided to try and go for it.  The basic plan being studying things like tutorials online, reading books, studying art in general, assigning myself hw, and drawing, drawing, drawing.  I'll be using this account to help myself keep track of some of the art I do.

I've noticed a lot of week areas in my art, and so the main things I'll be focusing are:

1)Basics.  All the basic fundamentals of art. (lighting, perspective, anatomy, composition, etc. . .)  Almost everything I've heard from professionals and teachers is that if you're wanting to improve your art, improve your fundamentals - so this will be a big focus for me.  (And, of course, what I least want to do )  From what I can tell, most good art schools spend at least 5 days a week for 6 months, ONLY working on the basics.
-Lighting.  I think lighting is one of my stronger areas, but I definitely to implement it to it's fullest extent in my pictures.  I need to learn more about lighting as if I was directing a movie.
-Perspective.  I understand perspective pretty well, but I'm not very good at it.  I want perspective to just be second nature for me.
-Anatomy.  Let's face it, studying anatomy can ALWAYS be a good thing to study.  I don't want to practice drawing human anatomy, though.  I also want to work on drawing anatomy of animals as well, since that's something I've only studied before on a very basic level.
-Composition.  I hope to study how to improve composition in my own art, and practice implementing it more effectively.

2)Thinking in 3-d.  I understand the concept of thinking in 3-d, which is basically visualizing objects as various basic shapes, (cylinders, boxes, pyramids, etc. . .) understanding how the objects work and then using that knowledge to more quickly and efficiently draw objects/scenes.  Currently I think about drawing by just drawing what I see.  I don't analyze objects and actually THINK about them in 3-d as well as I should.

3)Camera/shot design.  Looking back over my pictures I've noticed that the vast majority of my pictures are relatively stale in terms of my camera choices.  While this makes the actually DRAWING easy, it ends up making my pictures look rather boring at times and not very dynamic.  It also makes them tend to come across looking flat.

4)Lens types and distance from subject matter.  Recently I've learned that different camera lenses can have a significant impact on how a photograph looks.  It can affect things like mood and how the subject matter appears in the shot.  I know absolutely NOTHING about cameras and lenses, however from what I've heard from some professionals in the art field, it's something that can be very useful when helping establish shots for pictures, but also for helping to render objects correctly.

5)Digital painting/coloring.  My digital coloring is very weak, especially the further it gets from cell shading and the closer it gets to painting.  I hope to learn as much as I can in this area of art and hopefully learn new techniques to improve my own abilities.

6)Drawing, drawing, drawing.  I'm aiming to try and draw more than ever before.  The more drawings a week, the better, the focus is not necessarily quality, but quantity.  They say you don't get better at something if you don't practice, so I can't ignore this one.  If I want to get better at my artwork, I need to do MORE.

7)Speed.  I have always tended to be very, very, very. . .s. . .l. . .o. . .w. . .when it comes to my artwork.  Recently I've gotten faster in some regards of my art (simple, cartoon drawings) but I can tell I have so much more to go.  Many professional freelancers can do large, detailed concept paintings in 4-8 hours.  Me?  Give me a week or two.

8)Value.  I don't use value in my pictures very well.  I want to be more intentional about implementing value effectively in my art, since a lot of times if the value of a picture isn't great, it doesn't matter how good the coloring, or draftsmanship is, it still won't "read" well.

I put all this up here in this journal mainly for my own benefit, so I can reference back to it when I need to.  I'll also update this journal with things I'm studying as time goes along.  I don't expect anyone to, but if anyone wants to join me in trying to further their art in any or all of the fields listed above feel free to join me!  I'll be studying each of the areas listed above and trying to practice each area.