Learning how to Draw - General

So I've decided to take an interest in drawing, something I've wanted to do for a while but never got around to actually dedicating time for it. I'm wondering on how the artists here learned how to draw, if they used books, tips for a beginner and such. I'm basically looking for advice and your guys' input.

google something random and start drawing it. The result isn't important, what is important is the effort and the knowledge gained at the start

[url]http://www.drawspace.com/[/url]

Above. Just try to follow the tutorials. It's not THAT important that you exacly follow them if the subject is horribly boring, but rather apply them on whatever you are drawing. Just find whatever you want to draw and try and enjoy it. Your first stuff will not be anything good or intresting but if you keep at it you might get somewhere, tough if you draw for a month you can easily impress your real life friends. Try and draw alot form the photos and life cause you first need to learn how to see properly. Lots of resources and such I and lots of else are in posession of. Just ask. Keep this thread so we can easily track your progress and aid you. But basically: Don't be afraid to erase, don't be afraid to use long strokes rather than short scribbles. Try to see easier shapes and practise alot. Get yourself a sketchbook or something, keep it with you all the time.

Don't strictly follow any style btw; develop your own is a better approach.

Especially keep away from tablets and anime. They just don't work.

I don't really want to start a new thread for it, given that question threads are generally pretty pointless. Wheres a good place to start with acrylic paints? I've got experience in art, drawing.

Well, I suggest buying them first.

I've already got the stuff, I've got dozens of brushes, red, yellow, blue, white paints. (I know how to mix the paints, but anyone know of any decent tutorials? I've only done very basic stuff with it in art class)

Start simple, start cheap. Do not blow a bunch of cash on artistic tools and mediums until you have some grasp of basic paper and pencil art. [url]www.conceptart.org[/url] I always post this site and I cannot stress enough that this site has literally everything you will need to learn any mainstream medium.

[QUOTE=Biotoxsin;28752952]I've already got the stuff, I've got dozens of brushes, red, yellow, blue, white paints. (I know how to mix the paints, but anyone know of any decent tutorials? I've only done very basic stuff with it in art class)[/QUOTE] Why not watch Bob Ross?

Unless i'm mistaken horribly, he's not that good of a source cause he's only good at landscapes. Technique, he might be useful, idunno, never done much painting and what I have done has been horrid, really.

First you will need a pencil. [editline]22nd March 2011[/editline] I found in my years of drawing that it boiled down to Practice. [editline]22nd March 2011[/editline] And crippling perfectionism.

Learn some basic colour and composition theory. Don't worry if your first paintings won't have such a good colour harmony, it's all about learning. I suggest you get a cheap canvas to learn how you master the brush strokes and color transitions. Basically plan out something that will keep you busy experimenting. As other people have said DON'T BE AFRAID. Get something with a huge surface so you're forced to use big lines. It really helps to break out of the A4 format that so many artists seem to cling onto.

Whenever I asked my dad how to draw, he'd give me a pencil, paper, and tell me to draw circles until I could make a perfect circle. It really boils down to the artist, but repetition is great training for me, I'll just say that I want to draw something, then dedicate a few pages in my sketchbook to perfecting that image, the shading, the tones, the texture, it takes an hour to get good at it, and maybe a week to master something.

Drawing is more about training the eye. The key to drawing is unlearning the symbol approach to imagery that people have gotten used to. I would say start by trying to draw the hand you're not using. It's a great model, and it helps you get the hang of transferring life/a 3d object onto a 2d surface. The problem with working with images is that the flat nature of them has already taken away a large part of the work. Also try in 3 different ways 1. Modified contour: This is where your draw the shapes of the light and shadows. Since what we see is simply light reflected refracted and obscured, learning how it behaves against various surfaces is key. [img]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IBhRRDToWYI/S2wygIsqnjI/AAAAAAAAAAs/2a3uwJ2k14o/s400/art+1+contour+shoe.jpg[/img] an ok example 2 Blind Contour: It's basically the same as Modified contour, but your eye follows the lines and shapes of the object your drawing. This helps with the unlearning of the symbol approach of "this is an eye, this is a hand" and helps you see the objects for what they are. With this it doesn't matter what the drawing looks like, what's more important is that you don't look at the page and correct your line. The key is following the lines, and if you can slow yourself down it's better. When doing blind contour a single finger could take 10 - 15 minutes. Also never take your pencil off the paper Another thing that blind contour does is it begins to attach your hand to your eyes. If you practice it enough, you'll be able to get fairly close representation without even looking at the paper...Again this is just for practice and doesn't produce the best results. [img]http://www.learn-to-draw-lessons.com/images/blind-contour-palm.gif[/img] 3. Gesture: This is more of a feel rather than a well rendered image...although it sometimes yields great results. The key to the gesture is to get a general sense of the shape weight, emotion and movement of the object. Alot of times this looks like scribbles, but can grant some of the most exciting results when done right. A gesture drawing should rarely take longer than 30 seconds to 2 minutes max. [img]http://th09.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2010/125/0/b/Gesture_Drawing_Studies_by_studionap.jpg[/img] Not the best examples, but you get the gist... so here's an animation that shows gestures of a higher level. There's also a great example near the bottom of this page [url]http://conteanimated.com/the-figure/[/url] that I can't link to by the same guy. [media]http://vimeo.com/14803194[/media] Sorry for taking up so much space... Hope it helps. All these are just to train your eye and hand. Do these for a while then start thinking about shading and the like. Also time...I heard once everyone has 10,000 bad drawing in them, so start drawing and get them out.

Get a pencil, then grab a piece of paper, then draw a shape until you get one that is perfect, do this with all of the shapes: Circle, square, triangle, octagon, hexagon, ect. Really simple but it really helps.