Learning to draw. Any tips?

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

I've been writing all my life, and I've gotten fairly good at it. However, my friend Cody recently inspired me to expand my skills and learn to draw.

I have very little experience, but understand basic concepts such as perspective and shading (although I'm not very good at either). I can't get close to drawing people more complex than crappy stick figures, and I have no art supplies other than some pencils, some paper, Inkscape, and a drawing tablet.

I'm also not sure what style I want to do. I dislike manga, am daunted by realistic, and underwhelmed by cartoons.

Can you give me any tips, suggestions, or ideas?

[Domochevsky]

Boom.

[littlekKID]

Just drew, whe it comes to art experience is the best teacher

[Kaytara]

Domochevsky has it right.

On one hand, there's already someone trying to do the exact same thing.

On the other hand, there's already someone trying to do the exact same thing.

:P

The simplest route is: find something you WANT to draw. As in, really, really like drawing, and will try to draw, and keep drawing even if you're not satisfied with the results. Do you have a favourite show or book or game you're completely bonkers about? Draw that.

I mean, it's no coincidence that a lot of people who grow up with anime start out by trying to draw anime, or that a lot of girls who love horses start out by drawing horses. What you need is a source of *passion*. Everything else will come with time and practice (mostly practice).

[leakingpen]

Why do you want to draw? WHAT do you want to draw?

Also, especially if you tend to draw stick figs, I highly recommend the book , Drawing on the Left side of the brain.

[Domochevsky]

Why do you want to draw? WHAT do you want to draw?

Also, especially if you tend to draw stick figs, I highly recommend the book , Drawing on the Left side of the brain.

That book has been called into question in the thread i linked, rightfully so, i'd say. You might want to check that out.

[leakingpen]

Hunh, i hunted through the thread and found no refference to the book.

[Trazoi]

I brought the book up as something I've looked at, and Irbis pointed out a link to some issues. As a beginner myself I'm not sure off-hand what bad habits the book might teach you, but I do admit it's chock full of dodgy pop-pyschology that I ignored.

[Kaytara]

The book is debunked thoroughly (and, speaking as someone who draws, to my eyes quite plausibly) in this article.

[Darklord Bright]

One of the most important things is to make sure it stays fun. Because if it ain't fun, why do it as a hobby?

Don't worry about "Styles" of drawing too much starting out. I will say though that a knowledge and practice of anatomy always helps, especially when you want to know how to do it wrong right. Oddly, knowing anatomy makes it easier to ignore for stylistic purposes.

And that's the thing. Don't look at styles as "That's anime, I don't like it" and such - look at parts of styles you like and adapt them into your own, and you may find that helps. When you don't know what 'Style' to draw, then don't pin yourself down into a style.

Still, this stuff may not work for you. The same thing rarely works for everyone, after all, but hopefully I'm at least mildly helpful.

[NikitaDarkstar]

Honestly, figure out what you enjoy to draw, but start out trying to draw as realistically as possible. (And yes even fantasy creatures can be drawn in realism) Once you got a hang of that experiment with other styles, but since msot styles break various rules of anatomy and proportions you really do need to understand the rules before breaking them. :) (And no I'm not good at drawing.. I tried it, but after a few years I found that writing worked better for me. :))

And keep drawing, and save everything you draw, then when you're feeling like you're not getting anywhere you can pull out all your old stuff and actually see the improvement for yourself. :)

[leakingpen]

Thanks for the link, i coulda sworn it was called "left side" not right, which is why I failed to find it.

As someone who naturally CAN draw, it is indeed worthless, for the reasons listed. Because the techniques in the book are for moving someone that draws stick figures , which is to say, draws symbols, how to see and perceive lines and draw lines and shapes, rather than symbols. After you get to that point, THEN you take art classes on perspective, and how to draw better, but thats a HUGE stumbling block for most people.

Imagine being tone deaf, and trying to learn music. you have to learn how to hear TONES first , hear the notes rather than just random sound. The book teaches that, but, you know, for drawing.

(I say this as a reformed symbolic drawer. Yeah, I still suck, but at least I can now draw PEOPLE rather than stick figures. That book was literally like opening up a new sense, a new way of using my eyes. )

[Fri]

Yeah, I was going to say that. Honestly, except the part about how left brain-right brain is pseudoscience, I thought that article is nitpicking, and flaunting that 'I'm an awesome artist, this book is worthless for me.' The article said it that the exercises and lessons there are taught in art schools. Then doesn't it's worth it to follow those?

OF COURSE if you want to be a professional, super awesome artist, or already a professional artist. the book is worthless. That's what art colleges are for. But it's a good book for starter, and if the starter want to move on to be better artist, he can learn other techniques, learn anatomies, and such.

[Kaytara]

Yeah, I was going to say that. Honestly, except the part about how left brain-right brain is pseudoscience, I thought that article is nitpicking, and flaunting that 'I'm an awesome artist, this book is worthless for me.' The article said it that the exercises and lessons there are taught in art schools. Then doesn't it's worth it to follow those?

It does make sense to follow those lessons - the article's argument was more "But the book doesn't explore those lessons in enough detail and litters them up with pseudo-science stuff as well as outright harmful advice, so those lessons are better learned from actual classic tried-and-true art books". If it were the last art book in the world, then yes, buying it might be worthwhile (though it's up to debate). But there are enough excellent art books out there that actually teach you what you're supposed to learn.

The way I see it, the way these people in the studies were taught to draw, they'd be pretty much helpless to draw anything for which they do not have a direct reference. This doesn't have to anything as exotic as dragons or sci-fi stuff or an ancient locomotive - they'd be helpless to draw a complicated human pose or angle, whereas an artist taught to envision things in his head and then draw from imagination would be able to get his bearings.

I can also sympathise with the snarky tone of the article because, honestly, the book's stance of "Actually, you know, artists are slaves to reference and can't just draw anything they like" feels vaguely like an insult to me, too.

In short, the book is bad because it gives harmful advice that can stunt a person's progress after that leap of miraculous improvement, and the things it does do well are done much better by other books.