Best way to learn sketching/drawing?

May 20, 2021 2:38 AM

Last year I had a job that included weekly 3 hours of mind numbingly boring meetings where I had nothing to contribute and was only there because everybody was there. I started idly doodling around but over the year discoverd that this doodling gave me quite a bit of pleasure. Then the job ended and I forgot about this, until I recently rediscoverd my doodles. By leafing through them in chronological order I can see progress and also felt a bit proud of them. I would like to start again, but with a bit more guidance. At the moment what I draw looks a bit like Picasso doodles , but I would like to be able to sketch, better? More realistically? I don't know, I just want to be able to sketch a face? Person? Tree? that resembles more the real thing. What would be a good ressource for an absolute beginner? I don't care if its a paid online course, a book, whatever.
posted by SweetLiesOfBokonon to Media & Arts (9 answers total)

Best answer: I think that different things work for different people (as with learning everything). So Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is loved by loads of people but never really clicked for me (I tried the workbook too, which some people might prefer), while I love my randomly-picked-up-in-Hobbycraft copy of Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner.

While again it didn't click with me, if you want to treat drawing as a D&D style skill to level up, there's always Draw Like a Boss.
posted by Vortisaur at 3:56 AM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]

Learning to draw can sometimes work like photography in terms of acquiring materials. Just as the only effective camera is the one you have with you to capture a particular moment - so it is with drawing. So better to have a small sketch book and pencil you can take everywhere with you - than some elaborate set up that you will only both with a few times. And better, I think, to make many quick, smaller scale sketches that you can learn from and move on - then fewer more elaborate drawings.
posted by rongorongo at 4:56 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

Oh - and for a specific gadget that is worth its weight to carry around: would recommend a water brush pen - if you take a water resistant ink pen and a non waterproof ink pen - then you can use the water pen to add painting effects to your sketches - shadows, shading, etc.
posted by rongorongo at 5:21 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

Domestika offer loads of online art course for about £10 a pop - I’m signed up to a Drawing for Beginners course, only a couple of lessons in but it’s OK so far - mostly doodling, penmanship and simple sketches so far. (It’s in Spanish, with English subtitles, in case that matters).
posted by penguin pie at 5:41 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Seconding Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner, which helped me go from what I would have described as "can't draw a stick figure" to drawing realistic images. It was a really fun process!
posted by omnie at 6:43 AM on May 20, 2021

Best answer: On skillshare and udemy, you can get Brett Eviston's Art and Science of Drawing series, which is a great intro course for drawing realistically. Note that there's a difference between his regular Art and Science series, and his Art and Science of Figure Drawing series. You don't want to start with the figure drawing series, because it assumes you're at least an intermediate drawer.
posted by crLLC at 11:42 AM on May 20, 2021

Best answer: Art Prof is a really good free resource. There are many different tutorials so maybe start with the fundamentals before moving on. The major caveat is that the videos tend to be fairly long and very chatty, which is not everyone’s thing. They also do live draw alongs responding to questions on chat.
posted by Cuke at 12:46 PM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Sketchbook Skool offers fun and helpful classes, and Danny Gregory's books are wonderful too.
posted by MelissaSimon at 12:47 PM on May 20, 2021

Best answer: I really love Creative Illustration by Andrew Loomis.
posted by moons in june at 12:48 PM on May 20, 2021