I have been really bad at drawing since my childhood. How do I get started?

“Practice practice practice” is overrated.

It’s truly important, but that’s Not the main rule to success. Before that, you need Motivation, or your might end to Practice, practice, practice for a month only. 😛

Sander Gerinckx – Drawing child

I met some students at Design school who didn’t know how to draw when they started. However, they practiced hard with method. And today they do very well and some are hired in great companies as designers.

Learn step by step

You may want to be artist, designer, or just draw by passion. You can learn how to sketch without a school. Most important is to Learn how to sketch smartly. By practicing without method, you will lose confidence getting low or zero improvements. It’s like looking for somewhere without a map. You may walk a lot, but you may end nowhere.

It is the same for music. Give anyone a guitar, and ask him to learn with no instruction. What you will hear even a year later doesn’t look promising right ? So relax.
Start by learning something simple, with the Basic fundamental’s of drawings. Start drawing, lines, square, circles… your eyes and your hand will start to calibrate each other. These sketches are not made to be shown, so fail as many time as you need. For that reason yourself will be proud when you’ll succeed. There will be your First victory. It will motivate you to challenge something bigger!
That something bigger will be Assembling all these simple shapes to something more complex. You’ll get familiar to how volumes can be combined.

If you study well with methods, Your Progress will be exponential.

---

Draw what you like

Choose a Subject that you would enjoy to draw. Something you will show to your friends who will appreciate your improvements. They may not be objective saying that your drawings are always wonderful. At least it makes you happy and keep motivated.  
Best is having friends who like to draw as well. Then you could exchange critics to improve together.

Be proud of yourself

Instead of being discouraged thinking that people are always better than you. “Be your own star”. Keep track of your drawings. Crappy or not, the day you feel bad, just look at your previous sketches and remember where you come from.* 🙂

* Add a date behind the drawings you like the most. Keep them in a safe folder along the years. Then the  future you” could remember, and say: Wow ! Such a difference.
(Last month, I was back to my hometown. I randomly found back some drawings I did when I was 15. It only has value to myself, but it’s priceless.)

See why the innate talent or “born genius” is also overrated here:

As you can see, motivation has a key role in your progress.
How about you ? What’s your trick to keep motivated at learning drawing ?
Let me know in the comments !