Get yourself a copy of Betty Edwards' Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain. Her main point is that drawing isn't your problem, seeing is, because the logical component of the brain gets in the way of the visual cortex, and wants to draw symbols for things, instead of the actual shapes and shades. The book is packed with exercises that will flip your brain into understanding how to see. Then it's just a matter of practice, but it feels a lot less daunting then, because it also gives you the tools to better critique your own drawings constructively.
this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
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I have a copy of that book gathering dust, thanks for the motivation to continue
I'll be honest, I didn't make it all the way through, but the core concepts are explained well on the first few chapters, and some of the early exercises are good enough to give a pretty deep understanding of how it works. The two exercises that really hit home for me were the one where you re-draw the line drawing of the man, and then do it again upside down;, and the excerise where you draw the empty shapes between and around a chair.
I really tried with that book, after a similar recommendation on pigboy's site years ago - and it does have some useful techniques and ideas - but I just couldn't get past her magical thinking proselytism. Every other paragraph, or so it seemed at the time.
Without wishing to put everyone off it: her "why" is (demonstrably and unequivocally) bollocks, but her "how" is good.
It was big when I was going through art school. I thought it was a big heap of bullshit.
I don't really remember, I guess that wasn't a problem for me. Do you mean the left brain/right brain thing? I think I just treated that as metaphorical...
Holy shit. This may be what I've been looking for myself. I very much feel like the reason why I can't draw is because I can't see things the way people who can do.
It's the combination of that, and lots and lots of practice.
We use to draw all the time as kids, and then we stopped, and thats why our adult drawings look like kid's drawings - that's the last time we drew anything.
Civilians don't understand how many times an artist will draw the same things over and over, before they start to get good at it. They don't really question repetition for musicians, so why would they for art? Nobody picks up their artistic tools (pencils or a musical instrument) and starts creating like a pro, it takes lots of "rehearsal."
The musician takes years to train their ears, and an artist requires years to train their eyes. Then it takes years to train your hands to perfect your technique in response to that ear or that eye.
Books or courses may guide you, but ultimately, it's sheer repetition that makes the progress possible.
Good to find out you're right, huh? 😁
Of course there are still lots of technique related skills to learn too, but this is by far the biggest boost I ever got.
There’s an Australian neuroscientist named Allan Snyder who references her while discussing savant-like skills and the systems and processes that impede them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/22/magazine/savant-for-a-day.html
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beautiful-minds/201001/conversations-creativity-allan-snyder
This is really helpful! Thank you!!
I have to disagree. They just totally skipped over how to make the paper look old-timey like that
Fun With A Pencil by Andrew Loomis.
https://archive.org/details/andrew-loomis-fun-with-a-pencil
It’s a fun book for beginners that mostly focuses on drawing characters.
It is an old book though, so it might contain some unpleasant caricatures further in.
Does anyone have good recommendations for someone who seems unable to gain any proficiency at drawing?
Practice. Practice, Practice, Practice, Practice.
You're going to suck. It's okay to suck. You only get better through failure. Drawing and art is a skill that you develop over time like training a muscle. Don't throw away your old stuff. Keep it. Look at it, decide on something you don't like - then focus on doing that better the next time. Repeat. Draw. Like...draw a LOT. Like a LOT A LOT. Draw anything. Try different styles.
The biggest thing to remember is you're going to suck. Everyone sucks. The people who don't suck, are people who kept at something long enough to not suck. Remember also -- you are going to be far more critical of your art and the mistakes you made vs others. Don't get discouraged - especially if you post that shit on the internet. Someone will tell you it's terrible and you'll get discouraged. Surround yourself with people who will lift you up and encourage you.
Procreate on an old iPad 6 + Apple Pencil is what I did for my daughters and they both are so much better at drawing now than they ever were - so you just have to keep doing it.
The biggest misconception that people have is that you're just born with this talent - those people weren't born with the ability to make great art, they were born with the ENTHUSIASM to do it every day, constantly, as an obsession. And then they developed a SKILL, based on that enthusiasm.
You only get better through failure. Drawing and art is a skill that you develop over time like training a muscle.
I've been given this advice my whole life and I've always hated it because it's never worked for me.
I used to love drawing as a kid. I was always sketching things. I got a lot of praise for my artwork and was told that I was highly skilled for my age.
The problem was, I mostly just copied other works of art. I wasn't very good at drawing something unique. And even with decades of practice, my skill never improved. I never figured out how to draw unique styles, shading, or details. Despite my "skill," I eventually gave up drawing altogether.
As an older man looking back, I realize now that I was focused on technical details I could actually see and I could never recreate them from a mental image. I never had an artist's mind. I was just really good at copying exact details from other art. I could've even draw based on a photo, because I didn't know what details to include and what to exclude; there was too much information in a photograph and my brain couldn't parse it all.
To this day, I can mimic other works of art very well, but I can't create unique works, and no amount of practice will fix that. I'm just not artistically inclined. I can't visualize a scene well enough to create it from scratch.
You may simply have aphantasia. The inability to picture things clearly in your "mind's eye". This ranges from being able to VR your imagination into the real world like it's something that's really there, to only 'seeing' a faint idea of what it is you're thinking of, all the way to not seeing anything at all.
My mother was blessed with hyperphantasia, and art came easier for her than most - but it was always better with practice.
I most definitely have aphantasia (trauma based), but I've been able to practice 'seeing' things in my minds eye by taking pictures, practicing remembering the picture, drawing it from memory, and then comparing it afterwards. I'm no photocopier like you seem to be, I mostly deal with engineering drawings all day so I think my mind has simply adapted to putting together sets of rules like a puzzle.
People think you go to art school and the teachers there teach you how to draw. It's not a technical school, you're not a pencil operator. The teachers teach you how to look at what you're drawing and what you've drawn. You are responsible for teaching your hand how to draw. Draw often, draw everything, draw always.
I found fairly early in my art career that I didn't really love drawing and didn't really care that my drawings were a little crude. I found greater enjoyment in other artistic endeavors and so did them instead.
TL;DR draw more.
Not specific to digital art but the “draw a box” series of videos are helpful and as far as I am aware these are all free on their site or YouTube.
Proko has some good content as well I believe they even offer some series that are around digital art. A lot of their content is free on their site but they also offer paid content. I have paid for some of the content but honestly I feel they have plenty of free content that maybe I shouldn’t have paid for it as it’s a bit advanced for my skill set.
These both offer some good information aimed at the foundations of drawing. Such as form and perspective that you need to understand no matter what media/tools you end up using.
Hopefully that’s helpful I am interested in seeing some other people’s suggestions as well.
i didn't learn art from tutorials; it's mainly some passion, some practice, and then going to art school where i learned new techniques, then stopping and finding my true passion in game programming.
anyway, a couple of tips:
- draw what you see, not what you think you see; to illustrate, take a picture, flip it upside down, and try to copy that in procreate
- pay attention to negative space; that's the space between objects. if you're drawing a still life of a fruit bowl, focus on area around the fruit bowl.
drawabox was already mentioned, I've always heard good things and the first few lessons seem approachable.
https://www.ctrlpaint.com/library/ is another one I've heard good things about, though it's focused more on digital painting.
I was in the same boat and read a lot of different books and watched videos on how to draw, and the number one thing that helped me was the frequency with which I drew.
techniques made a difference certainly, but the amount that I drew was the primary factor in how satisfied I became with my art.
if I can share purely anecdotal evidence, something that seems to help me was not drawing the next line until I could see the next line in my head, and project that mental next line onto the paper that I was drawing.
I didn't read that or watch that anywhere, I just thought that if I could picture what I wanted to draw in my head, I could probably draw it, and until that point I wasnt clearly picturing what I wanted to draw in my head.
Not to be a smartass, but... YouTube?
I almost went to art school out of high school, and speaking from experience, practice... a lot. You'll get better. There will be a moment when it starts to come out pretty much the way you wanted, and your confidence will soar, and you'll want to draw/paint/sculpt more, and you'll keep getting better and better.
But, find a good YouTube channel. Best of luck. Don't quit.