How do i get better at drawing?

Question

i like to draw but mi drawing don't look that great i can draw pictures by looking at them but i still need help

Answer 1

take a class. they'll show you ways to improve your technique/find your style, and also how to use all the different drawing inplements.

Answer 2

I'm sure it's just one of those thing that takes practice. But you could always take a class at your local community college.  

Answer 3

Practice and classes are two things which are often recommended -- and usually underrated by people not informed about it.  The truth is drawing is a craft.  The two most useful things to have are experience (practice) and someone to keep you honest (a teacher).

Now there is a common piece of advice among people serious about art which is don't bother with books, just draw.  In fact, this goes two ways.  I haven't said it here (though I do sometimes agree with it) but I have recommended a lot of books which provide tricks for this or that aspect of drawing.

The basic discipline is tough to explain unless you are with a person, talking face to face.  Nevertheless there are two books -- which take different approaches to the subject -- that have helped many people come to a basic understanding of what they are trying to do.  Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, by Betty Edwards is one.  The Natural Way to Draw, by Kimon Nikolaides is the other.  Nikolaides is the one I am more familiar with.  He recommends two exercises in particular, gesture drawing, which is drawing what the object is doing, not what it looks like, and blind contour drawing, which is drawing the edges -- not the outlines -- of whatever you are looking at without lifting your pencil off the paper and without looking at it until it is done.  That latter is especially frustrating for n00bies.  Among other things, the result shouldn't give you a "likeness".    That is not the point of it.  The point can be better described as an indication of the volumes of the forms, and it is strongly suggested you look at the samples in his book (and the drawings in Betty Edwards's) before you try either exercises.  Then draw the contours or edges, not the outlines, and don't look at the page.

EDIT:  Oops.  Forgot, sorry.  Unless you decide, that having read and used one of these books you are using it again and again and MUST own it, borrow it.  Go to your local library and if they don't own it, get it through inter-library loan.  And do support your library.  Spend your money on art supplies (and supporting your local library ;-))

Drawing things is something there are many tricks for, but you can very easily do an accurate drawing of something which is still a bad drawing.  Nevertheless, there are classic how-to books out there such as Jeno Barcsay's Anatomy for the Artist or Burne Hogarth's Dynamic Figure Drawing which I like to joke the Figure Drawing Police will come to your house, search for and confiscate your art supplies if they don't find.  There are three websites I recommend for the beginning artist.  There are many more than three great ones out there, but these, which have been up for a while, are full of the tricks which can help you make a good drawing while they promote a good understanding of the underlying discipline.

Ralph Larmann, of the University of Evansville, has two of them at that school.  

The Figure Drawing Lab has a little about contour and gesture drawing, and a lot about anatomy.  FInd it at:

http://drawinglab.evansville.edu

The Art Studio Chalkboard has a lot about shading and perspective. Again, Larmann did it:

http://studiochalkboard.evansville.edu

Finally, while the subject matter is D&D type fantasy, dragons, elves, etc., Elfwood.com's fantasy art resource project is full of tutorials about all kinds of traditional subjects, be it media (computer or paper), anatomy -- both human and animal, including dragons -- and perspective and color.  Very few of their tutorials lack material which can be applied to any subject.

http://www.elfwood.com/farp

Okay, now you know all you need to know about getting better.  Go out and by an 18x24" newsprint pad, a soft carbon pencil and some spray fixitif and practice.

Answer 4

Why do people insist that tracing will teach you to draw?  Put away the pictures you are trying so unsuccessfully to copy, and start drawing from life.  NOTHING will help yo learn to draw faster than observation!  

Set yourself a goal for each week. . . maybe week #1 draw five trees from life. . . week #2 draw five houses . . . #3 draw three people. . . .you get the picture!  Teach yourself to simplify what you see into shapes and shades.  sometimes just draw the outline (contour drawing) and sometimes just draw the shades (value sketching.)  If you are overwhelmed by detail, narrow down what you are drawing.  for example, if you want to learn to draw cars, start with the front grills of cars, or the bumpers, or the wheels. . . . If it is people you want to draw, start with the basic shapes of bodies doing different things. . .

Look at these gesture drawings and see how they could help you ease into drawing people. . . you can do this with almost any subject!  

http://www.tpub.com/content/draftsman/14...

http://mb043.k12.sd.us/gesture_drawings....

http://z.about.com/d/drawsketch/1/0/z/A/...

Gesture drawings of bottles:  http://kms.kapalama.ksbe.edu/art/lessons...

Answer 5

Practice, practice, practice.

Maybe get some tracing paper and use that first, then put it aside and try drawing on regular paper.

Answer 6

Drawing more and more.

You must look the things not as things, but only as lines and volumes. When you want to draw a person, the first thing you must do is to forget it's a person.