The answer to the first question:
"What are some of the best places to find art references?"
I've been drawing for a while, and I find that good references depend on what you're drawing, but if you like to draw people, like I do, I find references for people on Pinterest for one, but I also use real people as references (especially using my siblings :) )
A good way is to see how people work and practice anatomy and proportions, trust me, they are a BIG part of drawing, especially people!!
Hope this helped!! \(^u^\)
P.S. sorry I don't really paint, (cuz I'm bad at it) so I can't really answer that question (^w^')