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Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

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Re: Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

#81
You don't need anything to learn to sketch from scratch. Just start sketching and keep at it. Think about it, even children can do it. Perseverance is the key. Now if you want to improve, refine your skill, etc, then you may need help. But not to start sketching from scratch.

People use "material" as a crutch sometime. Once I buy the new sneakers then I can start exercising, once I get new laptop then I can start programming, once I get some money, I can start living, etc. You can start anytime you want.

I'm not judging. I do it all the time myself.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

#82

Commercial artist for 45 years. Also a developer, FWIW, mostly graphics programming since the late 1970s. _Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain_ is actually one of the best places to start. I know you said you tried it. But try it this way: Ignore all the theory and the stories the author tells. It’s mostly nonsense. But the exercises are actually very good. The trick is to not care about the result and about makin…

_Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain_ is fantastic. Helped me enormously when I learned to draw. I'd encourage you to do the exercise in order, and spend some time with each one, and then draw a lot between them, trying to integrate what you've learned. You'll get there!

Re: Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

#83
From personal experience, the most important thing is to do it every day. 15-20 minutes is enough. Your brain will work on technique issues overnight. The jump in skill after 30 days of daily sketching can be substantial.

With respect to drawing people, viewers respond strongly to particular parts being "wrong", so break the learning process down into parts. For example, focus on over-all proportions, then focus on hands and wrists, then on faces, and then feet. Then put all of it together.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

#85

Two suggestions to add to the many excellent ones already here: Arthur Wesley Dow’s Composition: A Series of Exercises Selected From a New System of Art Education [0] is a wonderful, wonderful book in the public domain – recently submitted here but didn't get much attention. It is well worth spending a lot of time studying its exercises and examples. [0] https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/dow-composition/ My s…

I would second Dow's book. Dow started teaching and his books were written after he had some years of teaching experience. I think that Georgia O'Keefe among many others, praised his instruction.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

#86
Possible red flags:

- "One day, eventually, if all the stars align, I want to maybe be able to X" pattern. Yes it's good to have goals, and socially approved of to be humble; a risk with this is that people who are compelled to do X are already doing it right now, badly, because they enjoy doing it. You could have drawn many people in the time it took you to write that post, and then said "draw better action scenes with people fighting" or "more realistic faces" or etc. Something specific. The possible red flag is: "I want to be in a band" imagining being on stage and being worshipped, instead of "I strum on the guitar and enjoy it and want to be able to play Stairway to Heaven". If by any chance you don't like the action of drawing already right now, why will you want to draw people later if you have the ability? What will change?

- You want to draw "people or landscapes". Also good to have goals and range, but possible red flag is that the goals are suspiciously vague. Could it be that you don't know what you want because you don't really want to do either of those things very much? Would you know if you wanted to draw wooden furniture that you are planning to make, or illustrations for a nightmare Lovecraft book? Instead of "I want to play Stairway to Heaven on the electric guitar" you're saying "I want to do music or singing is there a good tutorial for that?". What specific people are you drawn to? Portraits? Action movements? Cartoon style? Anime style? DC Comics style? Or what landscapes? Like Bob Ross, Bill Watterson, Studio Ghibli, or what? If you don't know and don't care, it's back to liking the idea more than the activity. If you do care, maybe choosing and focusing can give you something specific to look for in a tutorial - no point in getting one that covers hands if you want to draw mountains, no point in one which covers plants in detail if you want to draw steampunk, just because you'll be more compelled to work on things you want to work on.

- "I tried X and it didn't work". Yes guides and tutorials and things can help, red flag interpretation is also that's is such a vague comment. "I want to build websites. I tried 'Javascript the good parts' but it didn't work" as if the book 'worked' you'd be able to code and if you can't code after reading it, the book didn't work. As if working is a thing books can do or not do. Did it not give you anything to think about? Anything to practise? Did you do the self portrait at the start and end and not improve?

- "I am willing to pay hudreds of dollars" - Is that coming from a place of "expertise and coaching is something I respect" or from "can I skip the hard and boring bits by throwing money at it?". Only you can know.

- Analysis paralysis. I understand it, and I suspect a common reason for it is that people "want" to do things, but don't really want to, so there's nothing to force any action one way or another. Consider: do you want cake or ice cream? Hard decision. Do you want cake or dog poop? Easy decision. People who "want to write games" can't decide on the "best way" for months at a time. People who are compelled to get their game idea into reality have no time for analysis paralysis, any tutorial will do, get to the point already, I've got things to create! There's no analysis paralysis in "I want to plant potatoes in my garden this growing season and that gives me 2 weeks and there's one garden center near by". There's analysis paralysis in "growing some of my own food would be nice, but what? should I get an allotment? What's the perfect soil? Which online shop has the ~ best seeds ~? What tools do the pros use? What's the best gardening TV show?".

Do you want to spend your time doing the activity of drawing? Is that something you already do, now? If yes, it makes it much easier: look for the courses which teach the thing you want to improve at, specifically. If no, maybe do that first or ask yourself why you "want to be able to draw" when you don't ever draw?

This post brought to you by years of watching people say "I want to learn to program, what would be the best way(tm)" on the internet, when they could be opening an editor and fighting the parser to get some code working, any code. Paradox: If you don't care what you draw, any tutorial will do. If you do care, there should be little analysis paralysis because most tutorials are irrelevant to what you want, and of all the ones which are targetted at what you want, any one of them will do.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

#87

Commercial artist for 45 years. Also a developer, FWIW, mostly graphics programming since the late 1970s. _Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain_ is actually one of the best places to start. I know you said you tried it. But try it this way: Ignore all the theory and the stories the author tells. It’s mostly nonsense. But the exercises are actually very good. The trick is to not care about the result and about makin…

> I’m in my 60s and have been drawing seriously since my early teens. > I’m just getting started. I think this is intended to be encouraging, but to me it has the opposite effect. If it's going to take me 45 years to just get started, then I won't waste my time on it, I'll do something else instead. Is it possible that you're not just getting started, but you are still learning things, albeit at a much slower rate th…

> "If it's going to take me 45 years to just get started, then I won't waste my time on it"

You'll spend your 45 years one way or another; see also "life is a journey, not a destination" and "find something you love and you'll never work a day in your life". If you hate drawing. If you love doing the activity 'drawing' then 45 years of drawing will seem like a life well spent even if you still consider yourself just getting started.

What are you going to do when you get to "I can draw"? Draw things? Spend your time drawing things? But you don't want to spend your time drawing things to get there? You know you can pay people to do that for you if you just want the result 'pictures of things', right?

Re: Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

#88

Commercial artist for 45 years. Also a developer, FWIW, mostly graphics programming since the late 1970s. _Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain_ is actually one of the best places to start. I know you said you tried it. But try it this way: Ignore all the theory and the stories the author tells. It’s mostly nonsense. But the exercises are actually very good. The trick is to not care about the result and about makin…

> I’m in my 60s and have been drawing seriously since my early teens. > I’m just getting started. I think this is intended to be encouraging, but to me it has the opposite effect. If it's going to take me 45 years to just get started, then I won't waste my time on it, I'll do something else instead. Is it possible that you're not just getting started, but you are still learning things, albeit at a much slower rate th…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

#89

Commercial artist for 45 years. Also a developer, FWIW, mostly graphics programming since the late 1970s. _Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain_ is actually one of the best places to start. I know you said you tried it. But try it this way: Ignore all the theory and the stories the author tells. It’s mostly nonsense. But the exercises are actually very good. The trick is to not care about the result and about makin…

"Learning to draw is much more about learning to see than making marks."

This was the most helpful thing I learned from _Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain_. That book alone took me from "poorly drawn stick figures" to "recognizable sketches of people and simple objects". It's been a while since I've exercised any of this, but it's on my list to re-learn One Of These Days™.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

#90
Get a stylus for your phone - if you don't have a phone that supports pressure, don't worry, just get the best capacitive stylus brands(I use Meko mesh tips). The learning goal here does not involve quality media.

Then use your downtime to trace photos. When you feel more ambitious, hide the original and draw from recollection, or try to modify elements - say, adjust proportions or give figures different clothing or merge multiple photos into one image. Aim to simplify your traces. Try using different brushes and drawing programs. Trace in different ways, e.g. by looking for the lighting values rather than contours, or by trying to reveal underlying forms by seeing "behind" the object with cross-sectional lines.

This is a relaxing way to approach drawing. It gives you a pleasing result immediately and lets you study subjects of your choosing. You are starting from a point of maximal accuracy. You don't have to run out and get a "setup", because everyone has their phone with them anyway and there are plenty of good apps. It lets you experiment and build up mileage across a variety of skills. You can adjust the difficulty as you like by trying relatively more or less difficult things.

When you feel ready to explore the technical aspects further, try Drawabox. You don't have to do the full course, just trying every exercise in Lesson 1 once is a good study on its own. Drawabox, being so completely focused on technical skills, is known as a morale-crusher and one of its admonishments is to use a "50% rule" where you are spending half of your art time on things other than the exercises so that you don't burn out from hours and hours of drawing abstract shapes. That's why you should figure out the fun parts first.

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