Learning something new is not only good for your brain and memory, but if that something new is a creative skill like painting or drawing, you get to relax and unwind while you express yourself in a fun and creative way.
Luckily don’t have to worry about walking into an art class full of professionals nowadays. Art school and art lessons have now also gone online and with a little bit of effort you can find some drawing tutorials, classes and courses that are free and suited to your artistic ambitions and interests.
We’re going to get you off to a good start by giving you a list of some of the greatest websites for free online drawing classes.

This is a site focussed around tutorials in the drawing of cartoons, characters and facial expressions, but they also have a wide range of technical skills covered in their drawing classes. If you are starting out and are interested in animation then you should use this site to help you learn about drawing faces, characters and composition.
DrawSpace
Drawspace believes that everyone can draw and they have a wide range of classes and lessons which are popular among home schoolers and teachers. They believe drawing is teachable and offer a variety of classes through guided learning programmes with set courses, or self-directed learning where you set your own goal and take lessons you feel like. Have a look at their introduction to traditional drawing course (5 weeks) or 3 weeks Introduction to drawing people, both for free and both hugely advantageous to any beginner.
Artists Network
This is a website where your monthly membership gives you access to 1000+ hours of instructional videos. This is ideal for artists who are interested in other mediums like pastel, watercolours, oils, acrylic and mixed media. It's a paid membership and a great as a gift for someone who's only starting out in the arts.
Learn to Draw on Social Media And YouTube
Websites will continue to be popular, but the more modern websites ensure they inspire artists with frequent social media posts and content. Many artists will share their work on Twitter or Facebook, while Pinterest is probably the most popular social media platform for people who learn to draw or do art. Pinterest allows you to follow a specific account’s boards or posts and create your own. So if you want to learn how to draw faces and animals, you can create a board for each and then pin ideas, content and classes to each respective board.
YouTube is one of the easiest, most illustrative, step-by-step platform you can use to learn how to draw or paint. There’s a tutorial video for almost anything and when it comes to drawing you can search and find hundreds of videos around each and every art technique.
YouTube allows you to pause videos and re-watch certain sections while the algorithm of YouTube will recommend similar videos to you so you can explore to your heart’s content. With thousands of videos around drawing classes for beginners, drawing anatomy, landscape or animals, you’d lose out if you don’t give this free resource a go. Be sure you follow the artist or art school's channel if you like them as this will also ensure you see any new content they release.
If you are digitally savvy, be sure you this article about digital drawing, apps or drawing on an iPad.
Are Online Drawing Classes Effective?
In drawing, like most other art forms, you are at your best when you completely get lost in your craft. It is an individual activity and while beginners enjoy and probably need the guidance of an experienced artist, they essentially only need their art materials and their time to create art. It is completely possible to become an artist on your own if you are willing to try it out, practise frequently, try different things and explore art for yourself. Most people however, feel frustrated and don’t know where to start and most students have made leaps in their learning with the help of someone who’s familiar with those techniques.
Online drawing classes for a beginner usually cover the basics of art, such as shape, form, proportion, perspectives and colour usage. An artist needs to understand there before they can have a discussion around the more interesting artistic aspects like composition and balance, depth of field and what makes a good art piece.
A good online drawing course will also allow you to learn at a pace that is comfortable to you. Classes and learning objectives are clearly indicated and with it being online you can learn and practise at a time and place that you find suitable.
It’s important to ensure you are inspired and eager to learn from whoever is giving the classes and with online learning you can conveniently compare them all until you find one you love. Although the technical concepts are all the same, every platform and teacher will have different ways in bringing the learning across, so be sure you investigate a couple before settling on one. There are also thousands of free drawing options to explore.
Lastly, online art classes gives you the immediate diversity and options you never had in a physical art class. You can learn exactly what you want to learn. If you want to draw or paint landscapes, there’s a class for that, and if you want to master oils or acrylics, you’ll find an online course for that too. There’s something for everyone and you can start exploring our proposed list below to see if any of those sites tickles your fancy.

The Best Websites for an Online Drawing Class
Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs)
MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses) have changed the way we study in today’s modern world and it’s no different when it comes to the arts. Online learning is a highly competitive space and sites like Udemy, Coursera, EdX and FutureLearn, offer thousands of courses for free. They either have a trial period or in partnership with some world famous universities they offer a free introduction programme to allow students to try it out with the hope they would enrol for further courses. If you are serious about studying arts or you want to make a commitment, we recommend you search some of these MOOCs for their options around a certified qualification.
Ctrl+Paint
This site was originally developed to help people with the creation of digital art and the basics of digital painting. To paint one has to however understand the basics of drawing and their free online videos cover different technical aspects and complex subjects in short and understandable videos.
Drawing Now
This site is certainly less modern than most sites, but it has the functionality to help you learn how to draw animals, manga, flowers and people. They make use of user drawings and tutorials to guide you step-by-step and the best part is it’s completely free.
Drawing Coach

More Free Online Drawing Inspiration & Exercises
Right where you are, you can grab a pencil and paper and draw something. The pot plant or whatever is standing on the table in front of you can become one of your drawings. Professional art classes start like that where they use still life and objects to practise drawing skills. We'd like to give you a bit more inspiration to get started, so here are a couple of other exciting things you can do to keep momentum on your drawing.
Daily Sketch Challenge
Practice makes perfect, and the daily sketch challenge was created to inspire artists to practise daily. This ensures you become better at what you do and by providing daily prompts or briefs people get to draw something different every day. Be sure you find the site, art school or artist who offer this and check the previous prompts to see if it is something you’ll enjoy. We know it’ll certainly challenge you.
Sketch Marathons
Similar to the Sketch Challenge, art/sketch marathons are there to inspire people to become part of a collective group of artists who connect daily and share their work. Check out SketchCrawl, a concept based on pub crawling where you get to draw different things around your normal day and then discuss it in the forum. They also have special events and months around a specific topic. If you want to do something like that, but on your own, you can search YouTube for topics like ‘learn to draw faces in 30 days’ or something similar to challenge yourself while learning in a new and exciting way.
Drawing Lessons with a Private Tutor
Teaching yourself to draw with the help of all these resources will certainly be an exciting venture, but some of us just prefer to have the face-to-face interaction when we learn something new. With a private Superprof tutor you get to have all the attention of the teacher at a minimal cost when compared to a professional art class. They will customise classes to your level, schedule it at a time that’s convenient for all and they can provide classes online, so it’s safe for children and you don’t have to travel. You can even setup a virtual art lesson with your friends. Find a tutor in your area through an easy search, compare their credentials online and find one that is best suited to your art goals.

The hardest part to learning something new is figuring out where to start and hopefully we’ve given you enough options and online sources to help you find inspiration, connection with other artists and enough technical guidance to blossom as an artist.
Happy drawing and remember to always make it fun for yourself.