Drawing Exercises

I need help with drawing?

I'm just starting to draw, and I'd like to know the very basics to drawing. I'd like to know some helpful exercises to begin with as well. I unfortunately tried drawing without learning the basics, and quite frankly, I've found myself in ruts because I didn't know how to draw a good circle, or how to really hold the pencil correctly. Any help would be helpful, thanks :) Haha, thankfully I'm patient, I've taken guitar lessons, and you have to practice a whollle lot with that.

Public Comments

1. start with shapes, lines, shading, etc.. then move to 3d shapes using the shading. then start with the basic face with the circle and cross through it to help you guild yourself. many youtube videos are available that will show you some good tips.
2. try this site alienthink.com they have some free lessons on there. hope it helps
3. Ok, start off by focusing on a curved line anywhere in the room, like a mouse on your computer. try and draw the curve as close to it as possible, but don't rub out. This helped me draw circles :) Then, everytime you are sat bored, pick up some paper and focus on something, such as pet (as long as it's still) and draw it exactly with out rubbing out. You should be pretty good when you've finished that! :D
4. Take a pencil and shorten it a lot, so it fits in your hand. Hold it only with your fingers (that's why it has to be short, otherwise it rests on your hand). Don't touch the paper or table with your hand, only with your pencil. Now draw, draw, draw, let the movements come from your shoulder. At first, it's terrible, but you want to practice the basics right? Now draw circles, spirals, lines that start thick and end thin, ore vice versa, traversing in various directions. And keep on practicing until you're done. Then practice some more :)
5. I would try Contour line drawing exercises. You start with just paper and a good drawing pencil and have some sort if still life you want to draw. For example a desk and chair, a guitar, blocks with different shapes. These all have simple lines and that is the only thing you focus on. Follow and draw how you see the lines without picking up your pencil. The lines will flow into each other but that's okay. The more you do these exercises the more comfortable you will get and you can slowly get into being more precise with your lines and details such as shading. I would suggest using charcoal as well instead of pencil it works great and I think you can get more depth out of it.
6. well my friend .... i am a great artist if i do say so my self and to be honest you don't need to know that much to be a good artist but if you do want to take up art i would practice drawing cartoon faces or characters like sponge bob or any cartoon like that i would draw about 10 dawings evry day and soon you will be a verry good artist as you get better try harder things like drawing a train or a fast moving image to see if you can get it to look like it is moving and as for holding your pencil just hold it as you feel comfertable just like holding a pen hope i helped you a little bit good look in your drawing hobby for the futer =]
7. Alright man....listen....lol take it from a guy who was completely self taught....searched hundreds of video tutorials...sites and books. and everything u name it. If u really just want to start getting a hang of everything just take a paper and pencil and start drawing Nothing intense but just draw Stick Figures....Not like plane old stick figures but those stick figures which will help u with body proportions. Now pay close attention to body proportions. Once u got that down start drawing Them in movement. In actions poses and excetera. Now i want u to do this on 1 Page. Then i want u to repeat that 5 times. So a total of 5 pages. Or is it 6?Ya 6?(now i noe y i am doin so bad in math. Trusttttttttttttttt meeeeeeeee mannnnnnnn this wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllllllllllllllllllll help!!!! Then u will start getting a hang of #1drawing #2 drawing body proportions. Then Go on youtube and search drawing tutorials on how to draw eyes and stuff and then once u start getting the idea start drawing details in those figures. Than once u got a round about of ur own style. Practice Practice Practice. Each time u draw try drawing even better the next time. Visualize ur images. Think about ur clothing than once u got your clothing thing about the wrinkles in your clothing. Think about the emotions and body language u want ur character to show. So if u are making a character who is mad Go In ur bathroom and look in the mirror and make a mad face and look how u can make it simpler in ur drawing.(u do draw manga Yes?No?Perhapes?) Alright what elsee...............make sure u visualize ur characters but dont over think making ur drawings simple but make them have ur style,ur individuality. Wooooooooooww long response. Anyways hope this helped. Now im telling u just look on the internet books everything and u will learn and start incorporating that in ur manga or w/e then add ur own style u noe what i mean man.
8. Begin with simple drawings of objects you see: an apple, a banana, a box, a chair. observe the different shades or values and the shapes that they make. also observe the shapes the "hole" or negative space, make . . . these are important. Hold your pencil about half-way, loosely, and just lay the point on your paper to make light makes as you block in your shapes. Here is a nice simple site on learning to draw people and figures: http://tearain.tripod.com/hp/draw/draw.html here is a site with a lot of good basic drawing instructions: http://www.wetcanvas.com/ArtSchool/Drawing/BasicDrawing.old/index.html
9. You know... I'm a self-taught artist who has been drawing for maaaanny years (I'm 22) now and I can't for the life of me draw a neat circle or square or even a straight line. lol. As far as holding the pencil, hold it like you would were you to write a letter. That's how I do it, anyway. And I hold it really low, close to the lead point. The way to get drawing is to practice drawing whatever your most beloved/favourite thing in the world is. My earliest memory of any drawing I did was of horses. Needless to say, they look super crappy now, lol, but I moved onto anime and realistic portraits and those are turning out alright because of two important things: 1): I have an undying interest in anime, specifically 2): I practice all the time. Eventually you'll have so much practice that even if you stop drawing for a month or so, it won't affect where you are ability-wise. I find, actually, that when I take, say, a few days break from drawing, the drawings I DO create after that are sometimes better than how I drew when I left off. Hope that helps. :) Good luck!