Learning how to draw
Why am I learning art?
In July of this year I went on a short-term leave from my job for 3 months. As part of that leave, I had a lot of free time, and I wanted to spend my time doing things away from a computer screen.
Usually what I do to get away from screens is work out or write. While I still keep up the writing, I definitely started to find myself losing passion for working out because I wasn’t eating or sleeping right.
I spent some time thinking about my values and what more I want to get out of life, and I decided that it was as good a time as any to get into art. If I want to get into making my own indie games or just appreciating human art more ( which is important in the age of AI ), I would have to learn how to do art myself.
Constraints
My main goal was to learn how to do “art” abstractly. I had three primary constraints to keep in mind.
- Keep it Physical. I was very stressed out and needed something that wasn’t a computer screen. Whatever I did had to be non-digital.
- Keep it Cheap. I have never been “good” at art. I wanted to not break the bank buying a bunch of supplies I might never use later.
- Keep it Casual. I know I want art to be a casual hobby for me. I don’t want to quit my job or become famous off of art. I don’t want to have an art Instagram or make YouTube content. And I sure don’t want to add any pressure to my natural creative juices.
With these constraints set, I went ahead and did what anyone in 2025 would do when they want to learn something new - open up YouTube.
Getting Started
After a quick run to Blick to stock up on graphite pencils and paper, I took to the park to draw some simple stuff like the birds or pillars. I quickly realized that perspective is very hard, and Art is hard to learn alone.
I began to do a little bit of research on how to learn drawing and start my journey on DrawABox.com . I found it quite useful for just getting some starting structure and learning more about proper art technique. I learned about little things like how to hold the pencil, how to do “ghosting”, and how to think about perspective from multiple points. I spent about 2 weeks on this.
Then, I proceeded with learning about Portraits through DrawLikeASir and SamDoesArt’s YouTube channels. I basically just went through a few of their tutorial playlists and learned quite a bit about the structure of the head and common mistakes. This took a couple more weeks, but in hindsight I didn’t retain too much because I was lacking a lot of fundamentals.
Eventually I just kept doing this and some stuff started to stick. I feel decently comfortable with drawing heads. I know that there is a lot I don’t know, but I definitely know way more than when I originally started. I’m having a ton of fun just learning.
Finding IRL Support
I have a few friends that are into art, and I started going to a local sketch club to just make the hobby more social. It’s been fun meeting new people and watching how their creative process is different from mines.
I also took a couple of one-off classes. They were pretty good learning experiences and a lot of fun.
That being said, I haven’t felt the need to take format art classes just because I’m still at a point where I’m learning a lot off of YouTube.
What’s next?
Well. It turns out I like drawing portraits and I like drawing full bodies, but I am not very good at dynamic poses or full body anatomy, so I am going to focus my next few weeks on understanding anatomy and drawing hands and bodies from multiple angles!
What I learned is that I enjoy drawing and it is a great way for me to just mentally reset.