I learnt to draw long ago but I started dancing at the age of 45 and got decent. It helped a lot that I'd learnt a few things about how to learn: * give yourse

I learnt to draw long ago but I started dancing at the age of 45 and got decent. It helped a lot that I'd learnt a few things about how to learn: * give yourself permission to suck, you don't know a goddamn thing yet and you know this * if you notice that you're terrible at doing some part of the work, don't keep making excuses to avoid it - dive into it, embrace the suck, watch closely to see what you're doing wrong and try to not make the same mistake the next time * keep doing it, find a way to make it a regular thing specific to drawing: * you have a few major tasks: install a simple 3d renderer on your brain, learn to break things you see down into simple shapes and build them back up on the paper, and learn to move your body so as to control your favorite mark-making device (pen, brush, stylus, sponge, spray can, etc) * the first two tasks carry over to any medium but the last one may not - I've been experimenting with paint lately (after 25y of working in Illustrator) and I have absolutely no real idea of how to efficiently use brushes and other objects to put paint where I want it, so right now I have a few canvases that I'm much more concerned with experimenting with different ways to make marks on then I am concerned with making a nice image on. that said, pencil/pen on paper is a great medium to start with, it's easy to get a decent array of marks out of them without much practice, plus you can easily carry it around in your bag and take it out wherever you go with very little hassle * study masters, think about what they're doing, copy/work over their stuff - trying to make your hand move the same way as someone much more skilled than you is very powerful, if you know enough to make some guesses about how they made the marks you can see. "How would [master artist you love] handle this image?" is a great question to be able to ask yourself when you're stuck on something. I hear drawabox is pretty good for the "install a simple 3d renderer and some basic models on your brain" part of this task list. Me, I mostly learnt from the Preston Blair book on Animation, Bridgman's Constructive Anatomy, Loomis' Figure Drawing for All It's Worth, and a life drawing class with a teacher who was largely following Glenn Vilppu's Drawing Manual. That last took me from "you seriously want us to start with 10-20 second poses to start each class?" to "noting down enough of a pose in 10s to turn it into a full drawing later is a blast". also, take care about ergonomics, you can fuck your wrist up badly, learn to "draw from your arm" instead of "drawing from your wrist", once you do it will let you draw faster and larger, and it will help you keep the Carpal Tunnel Fairy away from your wrist.