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“I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies.” - Le Corbusier
Drawing is a powerful skill. You can use it to convey information, as a hobby, or to create art and comics are art in their own right, which is why a lot of people love them. Comics are also big business and for most children who enjoy them, it’s their parents that end up buying them. Of course, there are also libraries and websites where you can access comic books.
Why not create a comic series?
You’ll have to learn how to draw first, of course.
So how can you learn how to draw?
Is It Easy to Learn How to Draw?
Drawing is often seen as a simple activity that doesn’t require much equipment and can be done anywhere, any time. This means that there are a lot of people who take it up as a hobby since you just need a pencil and some paper and you can start creating beautiful drawings.
Isn’t it more complicated than that?
Not really. While you won’t be Leonardo da Vinci on your first attempt, drawing is an exercise anyone can do with a bit of practice. The most complicated part of drawing is to recreate what you have in your head accurately on a piece of paper.
However, drawing is about progressing and each drawing you do is an opportunity to improve. You’ll always be learning when you draw, even if it’s just a sketch done in a few minutes. As for how quickly you progress, that depends on what you’re doing and your talent.
Are you regularly drawing or just picking up a pencil whenever you fancy it?
This is what will affect your progression the most. If you want to improve quickly, you need to be drawing often. It’s a simple solution, but it's about setting some time aside to draw, which can be tricky for a lot of adults with busy lives.
If you want to improve, you might have to schedule some time to draw. It’ll take longer to improve if you’re teaching yourself than with a teacher or tutor, but it does give you more freedom as to when and where you can practise.
If you don’t feel up to it, it might be worthwhile getting in touch with a drawing teacher or tutor. Having a set time to attend the class can also encourage you to go. There’ll be no excuse for skipping your drawing practice.
Find out more about how easy learning to draw is
10 Tips for Quickly Learning How to Draw
To learn how to draw quickly, we’ve got some advice for you. These tips should help you to learn more quickly. However, keep in mind that learning to draw will still take a long time.
The first tip is to start with the basics of drawing. A lot of artists start too hastily by trying to copy the styles they enjoy. However, learning the fundamentals is important. You should start by learning about proportions, perspective, colours, light and shadow, etc. as once you do, you’ll learn the rest more quickly.
Our second tip is to use your eyes as drawing is about observation. You need to take the time to look at what you’re going to draw, especially if you want to accurately recreate it on paper.
Don’t hesitate to draw simple things when you first start learning. You don’t want to attempt a complex and detailed landscape as even though it might seem like a good idea, the result could be discouraging. When you begin learning any new skill, you need to build up confidence.
This won’t stop you from drawing the things you like, it just means that you should start with drawings that are more suited to your level before moving onto more complicated things. Copying other artists can be a way to learn new techniques and develop your style.
If you want to learn quickly, don’t forget to get feedback and criticism. Of course, you’ll need constructive criticism. Outside opinions should let you know how you can improve. You can ask your friends and family for their honest opinions or even professional artists if you know any. Don’t forget to keep an objective in mind, too, as you can focus on what the end goal is every time you sit down to draw and use this as a source of motivation.
Finally, try focusing on drawing using a single technique or material at first as this will help you master it more quickly rather than jumping from one to another and never really getting any better at any of them.
Last tip: Never use a rubber! You need to learn from your mistakes. By not using a rubber, you’ll also be more focused on every mark you make.
Find out more about improving your drawing skills
10 Things You Should Draw
In addition to our advice, there are a few exercises you can do to help you improve your art.
Start with still life. This is a group of objects, often fruits, vegetables, or flowers, that makes up a composition. You can create a still life yourself or even just look for a photo online. You then draw and colour the objects. This exercise is a useful way for people to start understanding different shapes as well as studying light and shadow.
The second exercise is to draw a face. When learning to draw, drawing faces is really important. Faces are complicated, but they also tend to follow a lot of rules. Of course, you still need to draw the unique features of every face, but knowing the rules can also help you see where you’ve gone wrong. You’ll also want to draw heads and faces from a variety of different angles.
Why not draw a house?
Houses and buildings are useful subjects for learning about perspective, a concept that you’ll be using in a lot of different situations. Vanishing points and perspective lines can help you better understand the concept and how to get better at representing it.
You can also draw a landscape to improve your drawings. Drawing a countryside will allow you to improve your observation as well as better understand colour, which is ever-present.
Drawing animals can also help aspiring artists get better at drawing.
What can you learn from drawing animals?
Much like life drawing, which is highly recommended for aspiring artists, drawing animals is useful for understanding anatomy. Whether it’s a horse, dog, or lion, drawing animals can help you understand proportions and details while working on your observation skills.
You can also recreate another artist’s work. As we explained before, reproducing artists’ works can help you develop a lot of skills. A lot of art students will spend their time in museums copying great works.
Finally, consider sketching. Sketching is more about getting the general idea of a piece before you start working on the details. A sketch can give you a better idea of what your drawing will be like before you sit down to do it properly.
You can also practise sketching on the fly to get you used to the idea.
Why not bring a sketchpad with you wherever you go?
Discover the best exercises to improve your drawings
How Long Does It Take to Learn How to Draw?
This is a complicated question to answer as it depends on the artist and how they approach their drawing. As we explained before, we start becoming artists from the minute we start drawing. You can spend your entire life learning how to draw, even if you’ve been drawing for years. There are so many aspects of drawing that an artist can improve upon.
The more motivated you are and the more you draw, the more you’ll progress and it’ll depend on where you’re starting from. Generally, give yourself the time to improve. Set aside some time to practise and the whole thing will become a lot easier. If you’re teaching yourself how to draw, you need to be strict.
To see how much time it’ll take you, it’s a good idea to make a list of everything you want to achieve with your drawing and then break down the goals into smaller hour-long sessions, for example. If you’re drawing for just one hour a week, imagine how much you could get done if you could double that.
Find out more about how long it takes to learn to draw
Go for it!
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