Top 14 Drawing Books For Beginners Updated 04 /2024

When you're just starting to draw, it can be very frustrating to draw bad all the time. Getting as much practice as you can early on is very important, so don't wait to start. There are some things that are both annoying and bad for your progress if you do the wrong kind of practice, like:

In that case, how do you get started drawing right?

Always, I recommend the Proko figure set, but not everyone likes to watch video lessons. Instead, I think you should start with books that teach you how to draw and measure so that you can draw accurately from life.

There are a lot of great books in this post that will help you become a better draftsman and artist.

Keys to Drawing

This is one of the most popular books for people who want to learn how to write. I'm happy to be a part of that group. It shows you how to draw what you see by using measurements and good marksmanship, so you can make sure your drawings look good.

I can't think of many other books that help you move forward like this one. Keys to Drawing was written by Bert Dodson more than 20 years ago, but it's still useful today.

You'll learn how to control the movement of your elbow and shoulder so that you can make the best lines on the paper. In order to draw things from life, you need to measure and see things correctly. This goes hand in hand with this.

Draw from life if you want to be an artist.

It's hard to figure out what "drawing from life" means and how to start. Keys to Drawing will make this subject a lot easier for people who haven't drawn in a while.

Drawing for the Absolute Beginner

Here's another book that helps people learn to draw from the start. Learn how to hold your pencil, how to make marks on paper, and what materials you should start with.

 

As you learn to see and measure, you'll become more at ease with your marksmanship skills. In Drawing for the Absolute Beginner, you'll learn how to build your confidence and learn about the basics of art. These include things like form, lighting, perspective, and other things.

128 pages make up the book's whole length, which doesn't seem very long. But inside, you get 24 different demos that show you how to sketch, measure, build, and render things.

You'll start with simple things like chairs and cups, but quickly move on to more detailed things like trees and cars.

This is the best book for someone who has never drawn before and wants to get better at it. The book can only go so far. It's up to you to practice and follow the lessons to see progress.

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

Many people say that Betty Edwards' Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is the best book for people who are just learning how to draw. If you want to learn how to see perspective, negative space, and values, this book has a lot of practical exercises that build on ideas from other parts of the book.

This book didn't do much for me. A good text and good lessons are what I think. It didn't help that I didn't understand what Betty was trying to teach or how it was supposed to help me do better at school or at work.

Things began to make sense to me when I read a few other books. That's when Betty's book made a lot more sense to me.

But many amateur artists love this book and say it's great for people who are completely new to art.

Self-motivated artists who know why they want to draw and what they want to do will like this book. If you're completely new to art and have no idea how to even think about drawing them, I'd go with Keys to Drawing.

However, both are great books, so you can't go wrong.

Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner

There aren't any moving parts in still life drawings, so they're good for beginners. In Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner, you will learn how to draw from scratch. A goal of the book is for anyone who wants to learn how to draw realistically from life.

You'll start by making the outside shapes of things, then quickly move on to making shapes and volumes. This is an important part of learning how to draw, and the exercises in this book show you how to do it right.

There will also be brief explanations of what each exercise is about and why it's important before each one. To new artists, this is very important because they don't understand why they're doing these exercises, so it's very important for them.

You may have to read these passages a few times before they sink in, but the lessons are important for new artists.

The author, Claire Watson Garcia, is a teacher, and many of these lessons can be used in real-life classes. If you want to start drawing real still life, this book is a good place to start.

Perspective Made Easy

It's one of the most important art skills that you need to learn. Makes it look like there is more depth in a two-dimensional drawing, just like in a picture.

I like Perspective Made Easy because the title says it all. There are a lot of perspective books out there, but I like this one because it's simple.

 

This book makes the idea of perspective very clear. Learn about vanishing points, horizon lines, and nitty-gritty tricks that will help you build buildings and other objects in perspective from any scene you choose to work with.

Ernest Norling, the author of the book, repeats important points in different ways to make them stick in your head.

Perspective is an important part of every piece of art you make. By the end, you should have a strong understanding of how perspective works.

To become a master of perspective, you need to study a lot more than just this book. There are floaties that will help you stay above water as you learn more about this subject.

Light for Visual Artists

Another important skill in drawing is being able to show light and shadow. This can be put together and called value, but learning how light works is an important part of rendering value.

In the book Light for Visual Artists, a lot of people think it's the best way to learn about the physics of light and shadow and how to use them in art. The author talks about different materials and how they reflect light, as well as the idea of multiple light sources and how they affect things in a scene.

If you start by drawing, you'll have a lot easier time with the basics of lighting and shadow. When you start painting, you'll have to deal with a lot of different colors that make the subject a lot more complicated.

This book also talks about color choices, so it can be your go-to guide for lighting. I'd recommend this to anyone who is really into art because it should answer most of your questions about value.

Vilppu Drawing Manual

People don't talk about the Vilppu Drawing Manual because it's only sold by Glenn Vilppu and his family. But this is one of the most useful guides I've ever bought about drawing people and life.

It's been a long time since Vilppu has been teaching art. He has a very unique way of teaching. This spiral-bound guide talks about a lot of different things, from basic shapes to measuring and building things from life.

I talked about this in a previous post about the difference between realist and constructionist drawing. Vilppu works with animators and concept artists, so he understands why it's important to learn how to do both.

Gesture drawing and form construction are the two main things you'll learn about in this book. For these kinds of things, some people prefer Loomis. But with Loomis, you'll have to buy two or three different books just to cover the same amount of material in this spiral-bound guide to life drawing.

I don't think every artist will need this book. However, it's great for people who are completely new to life drawing or even for people who are a little bit more experienced and want to learn about a different way to draw.

The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study

This book is like a whole art class in print. To get this book, you should plan to draw at least 4 hours a day every day. The author wants a lot from you.

When you read The Natural Way to Draw: A Working Plan for Art Study, you learn how to draw people and things from life with a quick sketch/attitude. animator's There are shapes on 2D paper that you have to draw as if they're in front of you. But it also forces you to make marks quickly with less thought for how good the lines are.

To start with, this book will be hard for you. If you want to make things look realistic, I would not recommend this book. It's not good for someone who has already drawn people.

It's also good for people who want to be animators, because this book will show you how to quickly get figure poses with weight and style. In the long run, it will not help you draw from life more accurately. But it will help you see what you're drawing a lot more than simple lines.

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