How to get better At Drawing? 5 tips to Improve your Drawing Skills

Hi guys,
In this article, I want to share with you my thoughts on how to learn art on your own.

My (short) story

As a lot of kids, I liked drawing. I vaguely remember thinking, back in junior high school, that maybe it would be cool to go to art school. However, that seemed too risky and unfounded back then (I wasn’t an “art freak” drawing 24/7 everyday; more of an enthusiast) so, in the end, I’ve never gone to any type of art school.

I picked up drawing again many years later, when I was around 18/19 years old, and that’s when the actual “story” begins.

Below, I’ll try to recall my journey, discuss the mistakes I’ve made along the way, and share the best advice and resources to help make your learning process easier, less frustrating, and more fun.

List of things to do to learn art on your own

1 Create a personalized art curriculum

Not knowing where to start, what to do, what to learn, and in what order is the biggest challenge every drawing adept must face. 

You don’t know what medium to choose.

And you probably don’t really know what you actually want to draw. 

Fashion and clothes with ink? Anime fanart on an iPad? Portraits in graphite pencils? Vintage pen illustrations?

Yes, you need different sets of skills for each of the things mentioned above. But those sets overlap, and the overlap is the basics of art theory you need to focus on.

I still can’t say what the perfect order of learning things is. It might not even exist tho. But here are two approaches I can recommend:

My art curriculum

STEP 1. Choose one skill

Here’s the list of skills I believe are key:

List of art topics A Self-Taught Artist Must Cover

1. Form → to make things look 3D
2. Composition → to arrange elements of your artwork so that they look good
3. Value → to create depth, dimension, and mood
4. Color → to evoke emotions, convey meaning, and create visual interest
5. Light → to light objects and scenes
6. Perspective → to create depth and dimension
7. Figure → to draw dynamic figures in various poses
8. Anatomy → to draw people
9. Shape → to define objects and forms 
10. Space → to create depth and perspective
11. Line → to define shapes and forms, create movement, add texture, lead viewer’s eye
12. Texture → to imitate surfaces realistically

*Topics 1-6 are super key, 7-8 might be more or less important to you depending on your specific interests, and 9-12 are universal, but so closely linked to 1-6 you’re gonna hear about them when studying the top 6 (and there will be fewer videos about 9-12, too). 

STEP 2. Learn theory

The next thing you do is taking the list above, going to YouTube, typing…

“[element from the list] in art”

…and watching all the videos that show up one by one. The goal here is to learn as much as you can about one given topic. By watching multiple videos about the same thing explained by many people in different ways, you’ll get the best understanding of it. Of course, you can also read articles or books, or do an art course dedicated to a specific topic at that time.

Let’s say you’ve given yourself 2 weeks to just watch videos about composition in art… and now what?

STEP 3. Practice

Now take what you’ve learned and turn it into practice. For the following 2 weeks, draw. Split the time between practicing what you’ve learned (there will be a bunch of exercise suggestions in these videos, you’ll see) and creating finished illustrations. And if that’s not enough, a great way of exercising is doing master studies (more on it in a while).

Tyler Edlin created an Instagram carousel about how to split up your time between these two, if you’re interested:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Tyler Edlin (@thetyleredlin)

Remember: 

• Done is better than perfect. Create a curriculum that fits into your current life situation. Don’t strain yourself too much, or you’ll burn out quickly. Do as much as you can, and tap yourself on the shoulder even if you think what you did today was not enough.
• Learn by chunks. Don’t rush. Don’t try to learn everything at once, because there’s simply too much to comprehend. Give it time.
• Don’t stick to one topic for too long. Don’t spend too much time on one topic (learning just about texture for a crazy-long period like one year definitely isn’t a good idea). It’s better to spend 2 weeks exploring a subject, then move to another one. In the end, when you finish the entire list, you can (or maybe even should?) go over it again some time later, and then once again, and again, every time discovering and learning something new. 
• Turn theory into practice. I know I sound like Captain Obvious saying this, but I think many people suffer from the so-called short-lived enthusiasm. To get better, you need to practice, you need to draw. Sometimes it will be more exciting, sometimes it might seem boring, but it’s the only way to get better.

2 Copy other artists (= do master studies)

Copying other artists is a piece of advice you might have already heard. And although this seemed super counterintuitive to me (I’m the little miss independent type of person), I must admit it really works. 

A more “graceful” way of naming it is saying you’re doing a master study. 

Why copy?

By studying an artist’s work, you can analyze their techniques, tools, and materials. This helps you understand how they drew something–and literally borrow it and use it in your artworks.

Let’s say you want to draw a tree, but you’re having a hard time doing it. You can draw from nature, which is a great exercise, or draw multiple videos on how to draw trees, and never get it right. 

So, what you can do instead, is find 3-4 tree artworks of your favorite artists, and copy the way they drew these trees. They’ve already dealt with the problem and figured it out! So instead of “preaching to the converted”, you can learn from them and save yourself lots of time.

• However, when you’re an absolute beginner, you might not understand what actually makes the illustration by your favorite artist so good. That’s why I would recommend you take one short “round” of my curriculum (e.g. watch 2 videos for each of the topics) so that you can get some understanding of the elements that make up that artwork you admire so much.

Examples from my life proving master studies work

Some time ago I studied drawing gestures. I watched lots of videos by Proko and tried my best. However, it was when I copied his drawing from this video…

…that I actually understood what he was talking about. And, which surprised me a lot, I saw a massive, sudden improvement in my gesture drawings.

Another example: I was struggling with drawing grass. Field grass is quite a hard thing to nail since that’s a very big, undefined shape you need to somehow interpret to make it visually interesting. I liked how @tektober did it in her illustration ⬇️ so I studied it and used it many times to represent grass in my paintings.

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A post shared by Arina (@tektober)

3 Mix various ways of studying

Let’s combine points 1 and 2, and add something extra.

Throughout my path of being a self-taught artist, I’ve tried out various approaches. I’ll say it again: I don’t think there’s one perfect way of learning how to draw, and I think you should mix various ways of studying art. This way, you can make sure you won’t get bored and tired too soon.

What do I mean?

Here’s an example mix:

• One round of my art curriculum (for 13 weeks)
• 2 weeks just drawing for fun
• Break (1 week)
• 3 weeks doing a Proko course on drawing fundamentals
• 2 months doing a summer art course in your local art studio
• 1 month doing just master studies
• Participating in October art challenge for 30 days
• Break (2 weeks)
• Second round of art curriculum (13 day speedrun)
• Reading James Gourney’s Color and Light for 1 week
• Etc.

Combining online and offline, longer and shorter, or more theoretical and practical ways of studying is like a full body workout where you’re working on various muscle groups which benefits your entire body.

You don’t need to plan everything 5 years upfront; rather adjust to changing circumstances and stay flexible to what everyday brings.

4 Don’t get ready forever

A  mistake from my beginnings I don’t want you to make: Don’t get ready forever and don’t overspend on art supplies–you won’t magically get better at drawing overnight just because you bought a new set of expensive colored pencils.

Get yourself a basic set of a pencil and a sketchbook, and start learning the basics. If you know you want to go into digital art, this can be an iPad + Apple Pencil + Procreate set. (BTW, here’s my post on best free Procreate brushes if you don’t know what to start with). Whatever you choose–don’t procrastinate! Create a simple curriculum, and go through each topic one by one. 

Drawing is a skill as any other, and to attain it, you’ll have to go through a bunch of repetitive, mundane exercises to get better, and you don’t need another pretty sketchbook for that. 

Check: How to draw everyday?

Better tools don’t equal better art. Don’t wait until you have them–start with what you have today.

5 Stay inspired

After the initial hype passes, you might lack motivation to learn art. In such case, it’s good to have a set of things that get you inspired to grab the pencil again.

List of useful resources for self-taught artists

Throughout all these years, I’ve come across a plethora of art-learning resources: books, YouTube videos, online courses, articles, etc. Most were okay, some were a waste of time and money, others–gold. 

Below, I’ve picked up those I can say were the most useful.

COURSES

1. PROKO’s courses
2. School Of Visual Storytelling
3. Alex Huneycutt’s Internet Curriculum for the Solo Artist – (RadioRunner)

ARTICLES

1. Avoiding Tangents: 9 Visual Blunders Every Artist Should Watch Out For 
2. Karla Beatty Art, Landscape Composition. A Few Basic Rules
3. Greg Newbold, Creating Visual Balance → Andrew Loomis’s “Fulcrum Level Principle” for composition

VIDEOS

1. Evolve Artist, How to Create Depth & Form in Art with Edges
2. Sinix Design, Design Theory: Big Medium Small
3. PROKO, Top 5 Shading Mistakes
4. BaM Animation, GOOD vs BAD Character Design: Tips and Tricks!
5. Art with Flo, Composition in Art Explained
6. YanSculpts, The Scientific Way to Improve your Art FAST! – How to Practice and Remember Efficiently

BOOKS

1. Mark Gurney, Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter 
2. Joseph D’Amelio, Perspective Drawing Handbook

CONTENT CREATORS

1. Doug Swinton & his blog
2. Marco Bucci
3. PROKO
4. Alex Grigg // Animation for Anyone

How to Get better at drawing & learn Art On Your Own? Conclusions

You know what’s best about this text? It let me realize how sh*t my current approach to improving my art skills is. 😂 Because I’ve been basically just creating full illustrations for the past months!

Anyway, now I feel super-motivated to actually implement my own advice:

1. Create a routine (more everyday quick sketches)
2. Do master studies
3. Find art classes near my to learn & socialize

I hope you’ve found the text useful. I’ve you’d like to keep up with more content like this, I encourage you to subscribe to my quarterly-ish art newsletter.

Good luck!