I need some lorem ipsum to set my blog up, so here’s an essay I wrote a year or two back. I was asked how to get started drawing, and I gave this answer:
1. Identify the thing about drawing that interests you – a specific subject matter, telling stories, making art to make friends happy, etc, and start with that. Find the fun, because fun is what keeps you interested, even when it’s hard and nothing you draw looks as good as you want it to and nobody’s paying attention to your work. I think a lot of beginners get discouraged when they approach artists they look up to for advice, who then immediately begin barking about fundamentals, gesture drawings, drawing from life and so on. All of that can wait.
There’s a lot to be said for just having fun drawing whatever you want, in whatever way that you like, because that initial exploratory scribbling is going to build hand-eye coordination and help you overcome the fear of a blank page. Drawing as a creative habit has a very low barrier to entry – all you need is a paper and a pencil, after all – and the temptation among experienced artists to immediately turn that initial spark of interest into a tedious chore is, I think, a fantastic way to scare people off of it.
Continue reading “How to Draw”
