Forums → Art, Music, and Writing → How would you start a beginniner off?

To be honest, some people have a fantastic talent with drawing portraits or drawing from reality, but can't for their life draw from imagination, and some have the opposite issue and can't draw from life without having an urge to punch their pencil through various objects (and subjects). So, if you can't draw from imagination, perhaps that is not the best place to start.

Anyway, I can't really tell you how I started. I have always been drawing when I could, and I just kept doing that. Then I started picking up various techniques and ideas various places... I have tried both art classes, which never did me well, books on various ways of drawing, which can be somewhat boring at times, tutorials, speedpaint videos, glaring at people jealously because they had better skills than I had...
And I can't recommend any of it directly, because any of that might be helpful to you, but not to others.
But, well... Depending on your interests, I will recommend learning anatomy and proportions. You can get really far with no talent and no skill, as long as your humans have the right proportions (and thus will look vaguely like humans still), and from there, it will be a bit easier to correct your drawings than it would anything else. Shading comes later, colour theory comes even later.

So, get a good art instruction book (for once I will recommend Christopher Hart's 'Human anatomy made amazingly easy', it covers the basics without looking so good that you get discouraged), look it through, then sit down and try to remember what you just read. If you get in doubt, don't go for the book, instead, get up and look down yourself, it is far easier to understand how the proportions works when you are practising on yourself, and keep the rereading to other times.

Other than that, deviantart.com has a good amount of talent and many of those talents have made tutorials and guides to drawing pretty much anything, so that might be the best quality place for no money you can encounter outside of speedpaints and staring masterpieces down.

If you're in high school, I highly suggest taking an art class. I mean, if you love drawing and your school has a class, it's a no brainer. If your school doesn't have any I can understand not wanting to join a class somewhere else, but working around other people is just a huge help. Draw with friends, that helps. Find a picture and just try and draw it the best you can.
And of course what cen said.

Aw, no capital?
I really dislike drawing around people. It might be all fun and games, but if it has to look good, I start getting stressed when others are around to see an unfinished drawing and tell me I am doing stuff wrong, at least until I am mentally ready to get those comments.
It might be a help for some, but it can be rather stressful if you are not that social of a person, you are surrounded by people with more skill or you have a crappy self-esteem.
Even if it is your friends.

Same goes for art classes. I have seen people take them without being somewhat practised in drawing, but I have never seen them move on from there. It helps having a foundation to build on, otherwise there is a whole lot of time where you will stare at your paper and wonder what the heck you are doing.
At least, with a basic understanding of stuff, you can sit about learning new things (as far as I am concerned, all the art classes I have gone to have focused on perspective (but not as much drawing from reality), shadows and staring at someone else while you try to draw them) and use more energy on that.

Wow! Thanks so much for the great responses guys!

I'll check out that book you recommended Cen, and my school actually has a amazing art program and classes... But im sort of a nerd and have no time on my hands...(AP Chem ftw!) but anyway, it was pretty interesting to learn how helpful and important anatomy was, I originally imagined to be one of the last things masters work on... Guess not

Summers around the corner so ill have tons of time on my hands, so ill be sure to get to work and ill try and post my progress on here!

About anatomy: You would be surprised how important many artists actually find it. Mainly because you need to know the rules to break them while cartooning or drawing more stylized. It's the same reason people tend to glare and facepalm when lesser artists throw a fit and claim that 'it's their style' when someone critiques their (lack of) anatomy and proportion.

But always nice with some new artists around, so I will look forward to seeing your progress.

You're right Cen, you kinda need an eye for art before you take an art class. I learned quite a bit on mine, and that amazes me because my teacher wasn't a very good teacher (atleast in the traditional sense). She was very nice to look at, that probably helped - ummm, but anyway you make some fair points about not liking a social enviroment. That just goes back to your 'everyone is different' point.

@heyjude
Good luck with your classes and I'm looking forward to seeing your work. Don't expect to much feedback on here though. You might want to try out deviant art or another site too.

@Bronze I never realized deviant art had a forum, I come across it all the time on stumbleupon and there are some really cool artists there, and of course, here