Chapters
“Drawing is never reproducing - in order to see, you have to know how to look, and you have to know what you’re looking at.” - Olga Tokarczuk
Drawing is something that both children and adults can enjoy. Comics have never been so popular. A lot of people get into drawing because they want to draw their favourite characters. But can you quickly learn to draw?
What Do We Mean By Learning to Draw?
Whether you’re drawing a horse, a face, or a landscape, there are many ways to show that you’re capable of drawing.
Identify Why You Want to Learn to Draw
To say you’ve learnt how to draw, you need to set your own goals for what that means. Whether you’re teaching yourself or learning with a teacher, you need to have clear objectives. Ask yourself the right questions:
- Why do you want to learn?
- What techniques do you want to master?
- What types of drawings do you want to do?
- What’s the end goal?
- How much time can I commit to drawing?
The answers to these questions will help shape how you’ll learn to draw and how you measure your progress. Once you have your goals in mind, you can start planning how you’re going to start achieving them. Find out more about getting good at drawing
Learning to Draw Depends on Your Motivation
Learning how to draw can take months or years as it depends on your motivation. However, staying motivated is easier said than done.
Your Progress Depends on Your Skills
Not everyone is born with the same innate talent for art. Similarly, some of us won’t have drawn since our childhood. Others might have never stopped. This doesn’t mean that novices can’t make a lot of progress, but it doesn’t mean that they can’t set themselves the same goals as those with some training will probably need less time to achieve some of their goals. Even if you haven’t attended any classes, that mightn’t mean that you’re an absolute beginner. You might already have some useful art skills from drawing diagrams, for example. Think about any useful skills you have that you could apply to your art. You must be patient, too. Patience will help you to stay focused on your goals and lead to faster progression but don’t just expect immediate results. Find more drawing classes here on Superprof.
Practice Makes Perfect
You have to understand that learning to draw can take a long time and your first drawings are unlikely to be absolute masterpieces. To learn how to draw, you have to be ready to fail and learn from your mistakes and take constructive criticism on board.
Give Yourself Time
It’s all about the time you’re willing to put into learning how to draw. Are you prepared to practise regularly? Are you willing to challenge yourself? To improve, you need the means and the time and we don’t necessarily mean financial means. You need to set aside the time and give yourself every possible chance to improve. Pick a time during the day where you’ll be focused on your drawing. Make sure you have the materials you’ll need, too, so that you don’t have to keep getting up to look for them. Finally, you can also invest in books on how to draw. There are absolutely tonnes of them so shop around before choosing the right one for you. If you’re on a budget, you can always borrow books from the library or watch video tutorials on YouTube for free. Find out more about learning to draw
Work Out How Much Time You’ll Need
Once you’ve set your goals and the steps you’re going to take towards achieving them, you can start to estimate how much time you’ll need to achieve them. You can define this by steps, lessons, or in terms of time. If you’re going to set aside one hour a week to draw and each step is going to take around an hour, then you’ll easily be able to work out how long it’ll take.
Can You Learn to Draw in a Month?
The short answer is "YES"! Consider a daily drawing challenge like Inktober and see how you get on. Inktober was launched in 2009 by Jake Parker and it now takes place every October. The list is published online to encourage people to draw daily throughout the month. There’s an overall theme and daily themes for what to draw. The advantage is of this is that you’ll practise regularly, get into the habit of drawing, and be able to see what other artists are doing. Try not to compare yourself to professional artists but rather look at improving your work over the month. Take your time and by the end of the month, you’ll probably see quite a difference between your first and last drawings! Consider getting help from one of the many talented and experienced tutors on the Superprof website. There are tutors for almost every academic subject and skills and hobbies like drawing, too. You can get face-to-face, online, and group tuition and since each type of tutoring comes with its pros and cons, you'll need to think carefully about which is best for you and your budget. Don't forget that many of the tutors on Superprof also offer the first hour of tutoring for free so you can try several different tutors out before deciding upon which one is right for you.
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