Beginner advice

Hello!

I think I'm improving slowly, but my drawings are still very messy and inconsistent — here is the 30-minute session I just did:

Most of the time they end up looking worse than that, my results are… about as random as my practice schedule, haha. I feel like each line I draw is a bit of a guess, though they've been getting less inaccurate with time.

Anyway, any advice would be appreciated! Thank you!

Slow Down
Get consistent in your practice

The longer sketches show the sketchy lines of someone who is not confident in what they are doing. But you do have a good grasp on the fundamental proportions. And that is good. That is one of the most important things.

timed drawing practice is wonderful because it helps you get warmed up, it forces you to sort out what is important and what isn't as you go, and it's really good practice. It also can lead to a race against the clock. Next time you do a class mode - starting at the ten minute drawings put your pencil or drawing utensil down. And just look. Spend a minute just looking.

Plan out the drawing, observe the shapes and proportions you see.

Imagine the lines in the figure as you go along, and draw them in your head. Then take a deep breath in and out, and start drawing again. And do it for everything 10 minutes or longer.

Your goal is not a finished drawing - it is 10 minutes of practice. Let go of perfection and focus on progress.

Get consistent in your practice.

Human figure is my favorite subject.

But I use this site to practice animals and now scenes as well. I am Hornet Of Justice on Instagram and Hornet Of Justice Art on facebook if you have any interest in seeing what I'm all about. And I encourage this - because the best advice I ever got was before choosing a teacher make sure you like their art. They will teach you how to do what they do. So when I get advice from an artist I like to see what they are all about. :)

My practice was all over the map and so was my progress
And then I started doing sketches in the morning and they solidified in using line of action to do 10 minute sketches most mornings. I rotate through the subjects - and I find this useful for more than one reason.

10 minute practice starts my day and it's like morning meditation. It starts my day out right.

Rotating through the subjects helps me learn more and keep things fresh. If you draw the same subject too long it gets stale.

To get good at drawing people you need to get good at foreshortening and proportion. Hands and feet are that amplified and getting good at hands and feet gets you good at drawing people.

drawing animals forces me out of my comfort zone and has caused me to learn many new skills.

drawing the scenes put me WILDLY out of my comfort zone and that is my current challenge.

drawing 10 minutes most mornings means even when I'm too tired or busy to do a longer practice I get in 10 minutes a day and it helps my creativity and consistency.

You did well getting the pose right on the last three and you have a good sense of movement with the warm-up sketches. I think I would suggest adding a bit of the background into the sketches, at least with the longer timed sketches when you have enough time. Shading around the figure ad getting the values of the space around them can help shape the figure without relying too much on the lines.

I’m gonna second the advice to slow down. 30s drawings ALWAYS feel like a flailing push to get anywhere. Take a deep breath. Really look at it. Let go of a finished drawing, and focus on getting down some good lines. Not lines that other people like, good lines for you to be going on with. It’s ok if it’s messy, jagged, ugly, incomplete. If you know what comes next or have a sense of how to continue, that’s good enough.

The other thing I’d try is really look for straight lines. Yeah humans are mostly rounded, but there’s more straight lines than you probably are thinking, and it’s easier to work with straight lines in a lot of ways.

The most important thing is to keep practicing. No single practice session is gonna do much. It’s the practicing regularly, so you are building a habit of drawing. With lots of sleep. You can’t learn if you don’t sleep.

Thank you very much!

Imagining the lines in my head is difficult, I remember trying it when I began to draw and not really seeing how I could do it — but it's been a while, so I'll try again next time.

I like to shade and add minimal background when I can, I was planning to shade the longer poses here but I think I spent too much time correcting the lines.

Thanks for the point about straight lines; at first I was drawing too many of them so I'm probably overcorrecting now!