Beginning drawing

General Forums
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Hello I hope this is the right section to ask such questions, if not I apologize I’m not sure where this would have fitted and I tried to look each section before posting this.

Where do you begin when you start drawing? What are the basics of drawing? I bought a digital tablet and started using krita for a bit, but I lack structure and I really don’t know what to focus on.

When I look online I do find a lot of videos, but most of the time it tends to be very generic which doesn’t really help me or skills above my level which I cannot make use of. Overall it’s been frustrating trying to look tutorials/video online.

I tried to look online for places which would help beginners but it’s hard. So I’m sort of looking for pointers, tips etc on what I should really focus on, really basic stuff, exercises that helps what to do and so on.

How did you start out? Are you self taught? Did you attend art classes? If you feel like sharing your story I’ll be sure to read it.

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Hello @art4fun, I started drawing traditional art at a young age I watched Bob Ross shows with my grandmother and immediately was inspired to do art my parents bought me how to draw books and I practiced doing the exercises in the books but I felt constrained so I ventured out on my own and just looked at the world around me and studied things in it. I never really was a sketch and color it person I just try and let everything come together by color and shading. My advice is to start small, be inspired by the world around you watch videos of people painting or drawing and don’t stress about recreation but just practice trying to let the creativity flow through you just have fun with it. I am my biggest critic and you might be as well. Being self taught vs attending art classes isn’t what defines us as artists our love for art is all we need.
Sorry for rambling. I truly look forward to seeing your creations.

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Thank you for the reply @Artist78 ! I sort of struggle with inspiration in general, so I can’t really take that much inspiration from the world around me.

What I’ve been doing is take a random reference and then try to draw it but it’s not that much fun because it lacks structure, and the proper method on how to go about it. Beside having to fight the invasion of those trashy ai images which is depressing.

Thank you for sharing your story!

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I do agree that AI images are tearing at the beauty of true art and I know that sometimes it’s discouraging. But basically just step out side and look at the sky and notice the beauty in the simplicity of the clouds and sky. Let that be a muse of sorts. My inspiration comes from good music and things I find beauty in. Building things is where the joy of art is. I’d say paint a block form and try imagining it as a lump of clay and paint over it on a different layer and see if you can make a simple rock or mountain out of it. Think of all the little cracks in it and folds the textures and everything in it. Or just choose any brush paint a simple sky and add little peaceful clouds just start small. I’m sure in time it will all come together. If you look at my portfolio on here you’ll notice my art has progressed. As I am sure your art will. I’ve only been doing digital painting for about 7 years and I still struggle. I say just keep trying little simple exercises and use those as building blocks to strengthen your skill set.

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Hi @art4fun

Sometimes it’s easier in the beginning to draw from a photo reference than choosing scenes from real life because the photo has already visually flattened everything.

You can get really nice copyright-free photos from unsplash.com. Use the search box to find things you like such as cats, birds, landscapes, etc.

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I took a peek at your portfolio yeah you did progress for sure. I’m not sure what you mean with the “block form” part in your example I’m a bit stumped.

Even choosing a paintbrush is actually kind of hard because I don’t know which one is the right one it feels too aimless, like I’ve been doing so far but I’m tired of it.

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Thank you for the site! That’s what I’ve been doing for the most part. I take a random picture from the web and then trying to draw it just to see how it goes

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It doesn’t matter which one you choose. Just play with them and decide which one(s) you like! Write down the names of the ones you prefer. Then use those for a while, and after that, explore more brushes. :grin: :+1:

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I decided to do a video of what I was referring to with the block thing. The drawing is a bit rudimentary. https://youtu.be/wT-3Peshf20?si=df0QQJ0MdtSmN2Ge

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I drew a lot as a kid so I already had a foundation of sorts. But coming back to it as a retired adult after so many years, I had similar questions. Where do I start? What do I want to draw? Where are the online tutorials? All the same stuff. I bought a Huion 22" pen display - like a computer monitor, but with a stylus for drawing right on the screen. I was more concerned about learning the software and getting around the learning curve. That took me months. And frankly, I’m still learning new things. But I have a nice confidence, along with plain ol muscle memory, where I’m getting actual meaningful work done. I started by doing tracings of other people’s work. It’s easy to do on these pen displays. I was just learning about the pens and brushes and layers and such. So all my earliest work was just simple black and white (pen and ink) style. I literally traced every pen stroke from the original drawings. Really complicated, esoteric stuff. Some of those drawings took days to complete. Then I moved on to color rendering. Again, easy with the pen display. I was capturing colors from the imported layer image. It was just a matter of trying to find the right brush to duplicate the feel of the original. I got pretty good at that. I was using the air brush a lot to do my blending/fading. After my confidence took over, that’s when I started doing original stuff. It’s not a lot different of a road map as compared to musicians. Most musicians start out playing other people’s music. The ones that excel will likely want to write an original song. And so on and so forth. For me it was more important to be doing something, anything and every day! Anyway have fun, it’s the journey that counts

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Thank you for the reply, I’ve been messing around with 2 mostly like, ink 7 brush rough or basic 5 size opacity

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Thank you for the video, I appreciate the gesture. I’ll watch it now!

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Thank you for the very detailed reply!

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I think trying to learn from free materials may be difficult precisely because it is difficult to maintain structure. If you already know what type of art you want to do then it gets a bit easier because you can find matching tutorials.

However, from what you are saying you really want a structured, from the ground up course, so maybe you should look at something like Marc Brunet’s course? I haven’t tried it personally, but judging by his free stuff, I’m sure it’s good.

Unfortunately, paid materials tend to be expensive but maybe it would be worth it for you.

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Beside all the things that were highlighted in this topic so far, I want to add the following, hoping it will be an additional source of information and perhaps inspiration for you.
Maybe the below following excerpt from an older post of mine, and the topic about Best Tutorials?, could be points for you to find ideas, where you can look if they offer something for you.

I would particularly like to highlight the first and last mentions in the following quote: both Corinne and the 35-part tutorial for children are worth their weight in gold!

For anyone just starting out on this journey, I highly recommend the excellent tutorial videos by our forum member @CelticCoco, also known as Blade & Quill on YouTube! Corinne offers an excellent introduction to Krita as well as an introduction to creating artwork with Krita, in my opinion.

And also, please don’t take me wrong here, the tutorial video series for kids I mention in the excerpt, because they can be a good starting point for some, others won’t know what they can do with that series, but it is not to fool anyone, it can be a real aid for some.

Excerpt from an older post of mine:

In the meantime, I only can recommend to you the best tutorials I know.

Very good are the tutorials from Corinne, here on KA known as @CelticCoco or “Blade & Quill” on YouTube, among those tutorials I like, these are those on the top-rank, mainly because they are so calm and informative.
Here you find her channel “Blade & Quill”, it has lots of good stuff, from a complete Krita course, over tips and tricks to challenges.
Maybe you like her Playlist “How to paint using Krita”?

Also, more than worth a look are the in between a little aged but nonetheless solid tutorials by “The Age of Asparagus”?
The Beginner-Course

Or the (even older?) series “Learn Krita with Bob Ross (Updated for Krita 4)”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FfVnEIkA3I&list=PLaGRTLvEbVzybijtYZRy4EoGrx6Bq_xOG

Additionally (and probably later on, because of their “density”), you may take a look at the videos from @RamonM, made for the official Krita-Channel on YouTube. These are comprehensive tutorials, packed with lots of information.
The official Krita-Channel

These were the tuts I had fun with and learned from.

And as a last tip, and this is no joke, there is also a very special series meant for Kids I haven’t mentioned so far even because it is for kids, but if you can ignore that these videos are addressed at kids, and maybe have a learning disability or ADHS/ADHD, then these can be great, because the vids are short and well explained, not too technical and good to grasp.
35-part Krita course for kids, but I think not only suitable for children:

35-part Krita course for kids, but I think not only suitable for children

Even I didn’t need them anymore at the time I discovered that series for kids, I had a lot of fun watching the whole series.

Michelist

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Thank you for the reply! I’m not sure what I really want to draw at this point, it can be a bit vague like, pretty stuff, but there’s a lot of pretty things aren’t there? Paid courses are a bit off limits for me but thank you again!

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Thank you very much, I appreciate this and no worries, you do learn from basics usually so kid tutorials can be ok since they’re supposed to start from the basics, so why not! It’s better to be open minded I think.

Now on a side note I’ll open krita and try to do one thing based on rstreeter art, since he’s been very polite and he went out of his way to make a video.

P.s the music in the video is chill, when I watched the video I felt relaxed it was very pleasant @Artist78

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That’s awesome. I look forward to seeing what you create.

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mountain
mountain1920×1392 51.5 KB

that’s based on your mountain video, but it was actually hard to replicate, so here’s the result!

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That is awesome.