“Practice practice practice drawing” is overrated.
It’s truly important,
but that’s Not the only rule to success.
Before that, you need Motivation and method, or you might end to Practice, practice, practice for a month without progressing fast.
- Practice as often as you can, but remember that you will need help to acquire skills.
- No one has the innate talent and no one can succeed without any mentor.
I met some students at Design school who didn’t know how to draw when they started. However, they practiced hard with the method. And today they do very well and some are hired in great companies as designers.
“If you study well with methods, your Progress will be exponential.”
1- Learn step by step
You may want to be an artist, designer, or just draw by passion. You can learn how to sketch without school. Most important is to learn how to sketch smartly. By practicing without method, you will lose confidence in 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 fundamentals 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 times as you need. For that reason, you 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 with how volumes can be combined.
2- 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 keeps motivated. 
Best is having friends who like to draw as well. Then you could exchange critics to improve together.
3- 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 over the years. Then the future you” could remember, and say: Wow! Such a difference.
(Last month, I was back in 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!
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Hi,
I really like hoe you teach drawing. Some time I started by using some book on technical sketching and your method really hooked me.
I hope getting better one day.
Thanks a lot
Oliver
Hi Oliver,
I am glad you enjoy the drawing tutorials :).
Sure, keep going learning and practicing sketching often.
You will naturally improve a lot!
Whenever you have a question, do not hesitate to ask me in the comments or by email.
See yah!
Cheers,
Chou-Tac