Drawing Tips - Getting Started

In my opinion, drawing is a skill that can be developed like any other. Some may begin with a head-start, but I believe anyone can learn how to draw if they want to, and even for those with a head-start so much work goes into improvement.

I don’t feel that drawing is very fun if the very act of drawing a single line is filled with anxiety, choppiness, overthinking, and over-worrying about not doing a good job. When you’re first starting out, and as you’re learning, you’re not going to be able to put to paper what’s in your head, and you aren’t going to draw perfectly — this is being human!

Something that’s talked about a lot when beginning drawing, is that there is the tendency to draw a line slowly and having it not look good (if literally anyone does this, even experienced artists, the line will be very wobbly and won’t look good), or by picking up the pencil/pen from the paper a lot and drawing a bunch of overlapping small lines on the way, or not having an idea or plan of where that line will go and what you’re trying to do with it specifically. These are all things that sabotage your efforts to learn to draw, and make drawing less fun overall.

Learning to draw a line where you want it to go is a great starting point. Here’s a lesson on Drawabox (a free drawing resource) about getting started with drawing lines. Although I don’t agree with all of the strict rules of this learning method (i.e. you MUST draw a perfectly straight line, it MUST be drawn from the shoulder, it MUST have no wobble and be drawn quickly in one stroke), this lesson is a good demonstration of gaining the skill of planning where a line will begin and end, and practicing making this happen. I personally don’t always draw from the shoulder, I find some wobble in the line not a big deal at all and even prefer it visually, so please approach this any way you like.

Here’s a page of me doing this lesson. Lots of mistakes here, as you can see. I aim to draw the line well enough for me, at a speed I like to draw, in the way I like to draw it. Many lines met my goals but many didn’t, and that’s okay. This is information I can use to improve. Learning doesn’t need to be painful!

Using this lesson as a non-judgemental way to gauge your ability to draw a line where you want it to be, how you want it to look, is a great first step to learning the skill of drawing.

If you do decide to learn to draw, please make sure you draw things you enjoy! It’s really important to have a balance of learning fundamentals and drawing things you have fun drawing. Do a lesson, and draw something you like. If you do decide to give drawing a try, please have fun with it, and I wish you the best of luck!