Here's a site forwardslash gave me a while ago: http://artists.pixelovely.com/practice-tools/

I took a 2D Design class last semester that was all drawing and the Elements and Principles of Design

I failed at keeping the tag up to date but here's the two posts I did do: 1 2

The next project was really cool. We first had to sketch "leave the middle open" so your eye goes around the outside of the frame.

Then we did this "unpredictable division" that was all stencils and tracing of objects and combining and overlapping them.

Then we combined both and added texture, pattern and value to create some really amazing things.

full album

If you want, I can grab the PDF assignments for the line drawings etc so you can see how we were taught. The PDFS really contain just about everything substantial from the class. The actual class was all brainstorming and coming up with ideas and working together and getting feedback and improving.

My advice is to just do it. Just get motivated, find some assignments or an end goal and do it. Practice, practice practice. Trace a lot, then try to draw without tracing. See how things come together and work together or against each other to create interesting things. Never think that tracing is a bad thing. It's learning.

It depends what you're interested in drawing.

If you're interested in cityscapes, landscapes, buildings, architecture, the thing you should start learning immediately is perspective. There's a lot of good youtube videos about it. Let me tell you something - I have a pretty wholesome art degree, but at no point in art school could anyone explain perspective to me beyond 1 or 2 point. It's that tricky, and once you get it - it sticks. The people on youtube got it down. (Also, you're more likely to learn about perspective and lighting at a 3D art school, ironically.)

If you're interested in drawing people, portraits, animals... Then you really need to learn the anatomy of your subject. It's also kind of tedious and tricky, but it makes drawing a lot less confusing and more of an innate process. Find some anatomy books, draw real people and animals, take a class in anatomy for drawing if you can.

I took a course recently with a matte painter, and he spent the whole course emphasizing how correct lighting makes artwork almost instantly good and more believable. Lighting is one of my weak points, and I really saw what he meant by that when he helped me fix my mistakes.

Anyway, those are general long-term pointers. If you're just starting out, the most important things are: to not be hard on yourself (you're supposed to have fun right?); don't let anyone tell you their way of doing something is the right way, because there is no such thing; don't obssess over getting THE BEST pencils/paints/whatever other material - it doesn't matter in the beginning; and practice a lot and as many different ways possible. I'd say draw is a lot more mental than mechanical actually, and it's almost like learning a new language.

I also feel like saying "Just accept your first drawings are going to suck", but it's not true necessarily. Some of the first drawings I ever did were the most imaginative and most thought out, even though they looked horrible on a technical level. Just don't worry about them being 'good'.

Here are my two cents: I feel like being artistically gifted is so rare and esteemed that it is commonly associated with natural talent and a sort of genius that you are born with. Clearly, most of us don't have the fortune of being born an artistic whiz who can just pick up a medium and make a masterpiece.

In my opinion, the first step to getting better at drawing is getting the mentality of "either you are born with it or you are not" out of your head. That way you don't get frustrated and quit (this is what happened to me in High School art class).

All that said, here are two tips for you. The first: art is a skill anybody can develop. It is a lot like learning an instrument--the more you put time into meaningful practice, the better you will get. My second point would be to learn as much from other artists as you can. Take a class. Watch someone who is better than you draw and have them give you pointers. Watch people make art on youtube. I feel copy-catting is generally looked down upon, but it is a great way to improve to be honest...and there is nothing bad about it as long as you branch off to do your own thing when inspiration strikes!

Hope that helps!

There's a book called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain which is centered around the idea of drawing from life as a purely logical exercise--and it is.

Beginner artists tend to draw what they think a thing should look like rather than how it is. For example, if you draw an eye you might be tempted to draw something like this, but a real eye would look much more complex.

Learning to draw like that is a matter of drawing from life, photos, and what you see. You'll learn things that go against your tendencies as a beginner: that there are no hard lines, the way light hits an object and where dark and light should be, etc.

You eventually build up a library of knowledge on how these different things really look and you'll begin to be able to manipulate these things without needing photos or references.

I find that just concentrating on what I'm going to draw, almost meditate on it, helps me. I draw what I feel not see. Almost remember that its almost never gonna look perfect, so don't get stressed. Learning how to draw includes making the mistakes into positives. Good luck

it may not help too much, but another person said this to me and it really stuck: "Draw what you see, not what you expect"

- Keep practicing. The most obvious advice, but will also return the best results if you stay motivated enough to follow.

- Explore a lot of different styles. I like comparing things like graphic novels, web-comics, animation, etc., and seeing how they differ.

- Explore resources. You can get Youtube tutorials for just about anything these days.

- Don't be afraid to "cheat". This might not be a problem for anyone else, but it was for me. I used to look down on certain techniques like using tracing and photoshopping to create a piece of art because it "wasn't made from scratch" and "didn't reflect the natural skill of the artist". But I soon realized that it's all about the end result, regardless of how it's made.

- Seek feedback. You can spend hours scouring over and analyzing your own work, but there are always things that only some fresh eyes will see. Even if the person isn't a particularly arty person. - If you're using graphite pencils, ALWAYS keep them sharpened and learn the differences between the grading.

- Practice drawing lines. Seriously one of the best exercises. Like warming up before you play a sport, I like to warm up before I draw. Sometimes I practice drawing straight lines while playing with different pressures. This helps me to draw more confident lines.

- If you're trying to draw things realistically, getting your proportions correct are quite important. I used to suck at drawing faces, but once I learned how to scale and position everything properly, they started to look more like real faces and less like aliens. For example, the eyes are usually positioned in the middle of the head, but for some reason people tend to draw them a little higher. Same goes for hands, a lot of people seem to make them a little too small (although hands are notoriously difficult to get right).

That's about all I can think of right now. If you post some of your stuff, I could give you a little feedback if you like.