What is the best way to improve drawing skills?

Question from Isaac, Drawing Academy student

I don’t know why, but I seem to have challenges with improving my art skills, and I think its because I really can’t figure out how to improve.

Please check my drawings below:

Please help!

Hi Isaac,

Many thanks for your email and drawings.

The reason you’ve lost confidence is because you started from complicated tasks without building basics drawing skills first.

From your drawings, it looks like you are copying what you see in video lessons. That’s not actually the best way to learn drawing.

Please review these articles to understand a better way:

//drawingacademy.com/how-to-learn-drawing-from-video-lessons

//drawingacademy.com/how-to-learn-from-drawing-academy-video-lessons

You can also read the following article:

//drawingacademy.com/how-should-i-study-drawing

It’s good that you want to draw portraits and figures. You have a passion for it and figurative artworks are the best assets that any artist could possibly have.

To draw portraits and figures proficiently, you need to learn basic skills first. Otherwise, your learning curve would be too long and you would never become good at it.

Drawing portrait and figures is not an inborn talent. You have to work on developing it. At your current level of skills, your starting point has to be from exercises I suggested.

You will progress to more complex tasks step by step.

Skipping essential steps would give you gaps in drawing skills and mistakes in figurative art.

So, start from the foundation and build “your house up”.

Since you are a beginner, I would advise that you start from watching this video lesson:

Please follow the video’s exercises for at least 20 hours per each exercise.

We want to see how you draw simple geometrical objects, how you draw simple objects in perspective, geometrical still-life, architectural elements, simple organic items with planes, how you define contours, and finally, how you render tonal values in rectangular gradients.

The “Help, I can’t draw” lesson should take you 200 drawing hours. If you draw 4 hours per day every day, that’s 50 days.

Please make sure to download and read a Student Handbook from the Dashboard that explains what to do and gives the list of assignments.

Your tonal rendering and pencil hatching skills need to be developed in particular. You might need to spend more time than 20 hours on rendering gradient rectangles.

Drawing can be compared to a spoken language. Unlike the language we speak, drawing is a non-verbal language of visual communication.

A spoken language has alphabet, vocabulary, spelling, grammar and stylistic rules. Without truly knowing these components, you will not be able efficiently communicate in that language. It takes years to learn it and practice it.

The same goes with drawing; instead of alphabet, vocabulary and grammar, this language has drawing rules, techniques and principles. Without these fundamental skills you will not be able to depict what you want realistically.

So, invest time and go through exercises methodically. Do not rush. If you skip learning basics, you will continue having difficulties in drawing more complex objects.

You are welcome to send us your artworks for critique if you have any questions.

Kind regards,
Natalie Richy and Vladimir London
Drawing Academy tutors