What is the Hardest Part When you Start Learning to Draw?

When beginning to learn to draw, one of the hardest parts of the whole process, and something you will still deal with even when experienced is having to overcome all the voices in your head saying that you can’t draw.

You just need to remember that “every master was once a disaster”. Your hand is only the servant of your brain and mind, the scariest part is seeing that blank sheet of paper and having your mind freaking out by going “where do I start, what should I draw, and this needs to be an amazing drawing”, but that is where a lot of people fall foul, is that when you’re starting out, you think that everything you draw needs to be absolutely amazing, and needs to be a masterpiece; but you need to fail in order to improve, and so in every mistake you make, just be sure to learn from it, and that will help you progress so much faster. In fact, maybe less than half the ideas I have of things to draw actually make it onto the paper, and even less are actually posted and shown online. Don’t be afraid of failure, because it is just a learning curve that everyone must go through if they wish to succeed.

Almost all the struggles of when you first start learning to draw are in your mind, and overcoming all those negative thoughts, and the frustration of a drawing not turning out how you expected, but no drawing ever really turns out the way the artist wanted, throughout the process of drawing or painting the initial idea remains the same, but tiny things will change. For instance, if you are painting a landscape, the initial idea (painting a landscape) remains the same, the secondary idea (painting a landscape of a mountain) remains the same, but your smaller ideas of the composition may change, such as changing or removing a tree in the painting.

This is exactly what many people enjoy so much about art, is that they can pretty control what happens in their works, and they can change a vast amount, and no one will criticise them, because it is their work, and it is their choice.

That….. is exactly what you need to know, and remember, is that unless you are doing a commission, your work is YOURS, and you have control over it, which means you shouldn’t;t be scared of learning or trying to draw, even if it’s something you wish to do as career, or something you just want to do when you’re bored. Learning to draw, seeing that blank sheet of paper, yes…. it can be scary, but you just need overcome that fear and lay down that first pencil mark.

So, how exactly do you overcome these fears?

I won’t say it’s simple, because even I still get nervous when laying down the first few pencil marks. For this example, I’ll talk you through how you might go about creating a landscape painting (but the same idea and principle applies to any work you do)

1. Gather inspiration, I suggest using Pinterest, or going for a walk, don’t just sit there trying to come up with ideas. Gather some references to work from
2. Once you have found your idea and gathered reference, make some thumbnail sketches in your sketchbook (these are small rectangle boxes that you draw, that only you see to come up with your composition, and how the lighting works in this painting you’ll do).
3. Before even squeezing out your paints, take a deep breath, and relax. Often, before I start any work, I will do maybe 10-30 minutes of meditation to get myself in the right headspace.
4. Don’t be scared of criticism, if you’ve been putting off wanting to learn how to paint or draw because you’re worried about what other people will think of you, then that’s silly. What can some man child sat in a basement who just gets a small thrill by leaning mean comments on a post do to you? Absolutely nothing! You don’t even need to share your work online, if you just love drawing or painting, then just do it for yourself and enjoy it.
5. Paint away!