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Drawing is a skill that you can practice at any point in your life. Once you know the basics, you can continually improve your abilities and challenge yourself to take on more complicated subject matter. This type of art will never go out of style, so there’s no limit to the amount of drawing ideas you can sketch over the course of decades!
Many of us had art as a subject in school, but not everyone chose to pursue it beyond their tween years. If you’re in that camp, it’s not too late to learn how to draw. Thanks to the internet, there are plenty of courses you can take online and tutorials you can watch for free on Youtube. They cover a variety of sketching interests so you are sure to find a video (or series) that will pique your interest to put pencil to paper.
Another great resource for drawing lessons are books. Because the basics of drawing haven’t dramatically changed over time, you can pick up texts from fifty years ago and they’ll be relevant today. Just work through the suggested exercises and you’ll build your skills in no time.
Photo: Stock Photos from Ariadna Nevskaya/Shutterstock
Learn How to Draw With Online Classes
Online classes are a great resource for learning how to draw. They offer the convenience of online instruction—you can take these courses in your pajamas—with guidance from professional artists. Typically, each class has a series of lessons that are tied to a central theme as well as an assignment so that you can demonstrate the new skills you’ve learned.
These are some of the best places to take online drawing classes today:
My Modern Met Academy
My Modern Met has brought together some of our favorite artists to share their knowledge on My Modern Met Academy. Learn to draw using colored pencils, inks, pencils, or even a tablet. Courses are à la carte, so there is no pressure to start a membership or pay a subscription.
If you are looking to build your portraiture skills, the Portrait Drawing for Beginners course is for you. Instructor Melissa de Nobrega will go over the basics of anatomy and how to draw the nuances that bring out the character of your subject.
More interested in architecture? Illustrator Demi Lang will take you step by step through the creation of an architectural illustration using colored pencils, pencils, and ink. In Architectural Illustration for Everyone, you will learn about using highlight and shadow to create depth and gain a greater understanding of how to layer color.
Or, if you want to explore the world of colored inks, join Anna Sokolova in Animal Portraits in Colored Inks: Tell a Visual Story That Conveys Emotion.
Skillshare
Skillshare has classes that teach you how to draw with graphite, colored pencil, and more. Join their monthly subscription service and take as many classes as you like—including some to download and keep forever.
If you are just beginning your drawing journey, we suggest their ‘Staff Pick’ class called Learn to Draw: Daily Practices to Improve Your Drawing Skills. Instructor Gabrielle Brikey, portrait artist, shares the essential techniques for drawing.
Know the basics? Try these classes to take your skills further: Start Drawing: Techniques for Pencil Portraits; Become a Better Artist: Drawing Essentials; Drawing for Personal Growth: 5 Exercises for Self-Discovery.
Creativebug
Creativebug is great at demonstrating big-picture techniques and giving you the tools you’ll need to draw a variety of things. Creativebug’s selection of classes, which also work on a subscription model, is more project and challenge focused. So, once you have the basics down, try one of their classes to take your imagination to new heights.
Finding your artistic voice is one of the most challenging but rewarding things you’ll do as an artist. Classes like Treasure Hunt Your Artistic Style will help you figure out what and how you like to draw, whether that’s in a realistic manner or with a cartoonish-edge.
Creativebug offers a lot of daily drawing challenges that allow you to push the boundaries of a subject like faces, objects, animals, and flowers.
Udemy
Udemy offers a bevy of courses about drawings. They range in skill levels and subjects, and there are many classes that cover the basics. Unlike other e-learning sites, Udemy is extensive with their programs. Their Ultimate Drawing Course, for instance, is 11 hours long and includes 63 lectures!
For more drawing courses on Udemy, try some of their best sellers like The Art & Science of Drawing: Basic Skills and The Secrets to Drawing. If you’re interested in drawing digitally, instructor Austin Batchelor teaches Ultimate Guide to Digital Sketching: Beginner to Advanced.
More Ways to Learn How to Draw
Photo: Stock Photos from DavidFerencik/Shutterstock
How to Draw for Free with YouTube
Not sure you want to commit to an online class subscription? Fear not—there are other options available. YouTube has many channels where you can learn how to draw for free. Here are some of the top videos. For even more, check out our comprehensive list of YouTube channels that’ll teach you to draw.
Schaefer Art — The Schaefer Art Youtube channel introduces the very basics of how to draw in a lifelike way. Some of the highlights include clever tips and tricks for obtaining accurate and realistic proportions. They are the type of things you’d learn in a class at art school!
Alphonso Dunn — When you’re looking for guidance on how to draw a nose, flowers, mushrooms, and more, turn to Alphonso Dunn. His videos are subject-specific with step-by-step instructions that break down even the most daunting topics.
Dan Beardshaw — Artist Dan Beardshaw has a meticulous drawing style that showcases incredible texture using pencils. Because of this expertise, he’s the one to look to for hyperrealistic drawing. Realism isn’t the only style of art that Beardshaw produces though. If you want to stretch your imagination, he has advice for drawing fantastically, too.
Emmy Kalia — Visit Emmy Kalia’s channel if you want to learn to draw realistic human faces. She offers tutorials on drawing facial features as well as hair (including braids). Colored pencil is one of her strengths, so be sure to check out her videos on drawing skin tones and an eye.
Photo: Joyce McCown
“How to Draw” Books You’ll Reference for Years
Want to build your creative library? Because drawing is a timeless activity, it’s perfect for collecting hard copies of books. The following texts will offer introductions to the basic techniques of drawing. Think of them like reference materials that you can turn to as the years go by. They have another benefit; unlike online classes and tutorials, these publications come with exercises—some of them to complete in the book itself.
Keys to Drawing by Bert Dodson — Written in 1990, this book is proof that these reference guides will be helpful for decades. Author Bert Dodson has a drawing system featuring 55 “keys” demonstrating how to sketch any subject—no matter your skill level.
You Can Draw in 30 Days: The Fun, Easy Way to Learn to Draw in One Month or Less by Mark Kistler — Mark Kistler offers the ultimate crash course in learning to draw. Taking a fun, lighthearted approach, he has you drawing from day one. In the span of a month, you’ll learn how to make your drawings look 3D and delve into more challenging lessons.
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: The Definitive, 4th Edition by Betty Edwards — This is the world’s “most widely used instructional drawing book.” It’s intended to give you greater confidence in your art and “deepen your artistic perception.” Great for left-brainers, the exercises will help make you into a drawer, both on paper and how you view the world. “One day I was walking down the street,” one reviewer writes, “and was stunned to realize I was really SEEING the faces of the people walking toward me—the shape, the proportions, the perspective—as I had never ever seen them.”
Perspective Made Easy by Ernest R. Norling — Perspective drawing can be tricky, but it’s made simple with the help of this book by Ernest R. Norling. It clarifies the laws of perspective and over 250 lines drawings to illustrate the concepts. By the end of the book, you’ll know how to draw interiors, shadows, and more.
How to Draw What You See by Rudy De Reyna — Drawing what you see is one of the hardest things to learn. It takes years of direct observational sketching to get to that point, but it’s the only way to truly capture the world around you. How to Draw What You See shows you how to do this with exercises in perspective, landscape, figures, and more.
Online Drawing Guides
If you are looking for a basic drawing tutorial that you can refer to online, My Modern Met has a comprehensive archive of drawing guides to select from. Our tutorials on how to draw eyes or how to draw a butterfly will help you get down the basics. From there, practice makes perfect.
Human Anatomy Drawing Tutorials
- How To Draw Lips
- How to Draw a Face
- How to Draw Eyes
- How to Draw a Skull
- How to Draw Human Hands
- How to Draw Different Kinds of Hair: Short, Long, Straight, Wavy, and Curly
- How to Draw Three Different Types of Braids: Three-Strand, French, and Fishtail
Animal Drawing Tutorials
- How to Draw a Cobra Snake
- How to Draw a Dog
- How to Draw a Cat in Two Different Ways
- How to Draw a Frog
- How to Draw a Polar Bear
- How to Draw a Tiger
- How to Draw a Giraffe
- How to Draw a Bottlenose Dolphin
- How to Draw a Sleeping Arctic Fox
- How to Draw a Dragon
- How to Draw a Great White Shark
- How to Draw a Sea Turtle
- How to Draw a Bat Flying in the Sky
- How to Draw a Beautiful Bee
- How to Draw a Spider on a Spiderweb
- How to Draw a Ladybug
- How to Draw an African Elephant
- How to Draw a Lion
- How to Draw Koi Fish
- How to Draw a Monarch Butterfly
- How to Draw a Wolf Howling at the Moon
- How to Draw a Horse Head From 3 Different Angles
- How to Draw a Magical Unicorn
- How to Draw a Deer
- How to Draw a Panda Holding a Piece of Bamboo
- How to Draw a Cow Lying Down in a Field
- How to Draw a Snowy Owl
- How to Draw a Realistic Emperor Penguin Adult and Its Chick
Nature Drawing Tutorials
- How to Draw Water in 6 Different Ways
- How to Draw Three Types of Trees: Oak, Pine, and Palm
- How to Draw a Sunflower
- How to Draw a Rose
- How to Draw Thousands of Flowers
- How to Draw Feathers
- How to Draw a Pumpkin in a Few Easy Steps
- How to Draw a Beautiful Rose in 10 Simple Steps [Infographic]
- How to Draw Perfect Flowers in 3 Simple Steps
Object Drawing Tutorials
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This article has been edited and updated.
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