Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

I would say you would not really benefit from actual dedicated courses for the first 2 years (assuming you practice with hobby-time and not full time); you have so much to learn that y ou will do big progress just doing standard exercises. Dedicated tutoring is good, but it's probably easier to get decent feedback IRL as opposed to online courses (unless you pay a fortune, it's easier to get advice from good local artists). James Gurney and Nathan Fowkes are great references.

(For reference I post some of my stuff here: https://twitter.com/wooliondraws I'm not close to any mastery, but given the amount of time I can sink into this hobby since 2015, I'm now fairly happy.).

Although there's no miracle: FZD school claims to bring people from beginner to pro-level in 3 years, but at the price of heart attacks at 30 years old for some of them.

Honestly, I wouldn't spend money on instruction unless it's in person - drawing is ultimately about seeing and it's hard to instruct that online. Other tutorials/lessons tend to be about copying existing work rather than drawing from life, which is the foundation of all drawing/art skills.

Learn about the basic elements of art (line, shape, color, value, form, texture, and space) and the principles of design (balance, contrast, emphasis, movement, pattern, rhythm, unity) and look up exercises to practice them all.

Most people only care about "line" when drawing (forced perspective, outlining the subjects, etc). This is a trap. Think about "drawing through the object" (don't outline and then fill in later, etc) and utilizing all the other elements of art.

Draw still life setups/landscapes/people from real life. A lot. Do long drawing sessions (4+ hours with the same subject). Short time boxed ones (15 mins max, 30 mins max, etc). Draw the same setup every day for a week. Draw every day.

If you want to copy other works, start with copying drawings/sketches from the "masters".

If possible, find a group drawing class to get IRL feedback.

Once you do this for a year or two you should have a pretty good foundation for pretty much any drawing/painting discipline.

Ultimately it's about repeated practice. Make it a daily habit and you'll see big improvements.

Source: art school, drawing/painting for 15 years.

It also depends a lot on what you want to achieve (for example, do you want to draw people in a comic-like art style, or do quick sketches of people on the subway, or do anatomically correct nude drawings). Based on that, you can try to find a book or course that fits you. There's a lot on youtube, I would recommend that over a book today, as you get different angles and the process of doing it much better.

For good and extensive free anatomy lessons, check out Proko on Youtube. There are also "timed life drawing" or "timed gesture drawing" videos which will show you a sequence of nude/non-nude poses with a timer for quickly sketching. You should check out some gesture drawing instructions, e.g. by Proko, before that though, otherwise it might be intimidating.

If you want a more comic book like approach, check out David Finch on Youtube.

Good instruction books for most beginners are Andrew Loomis' books. He was a classical advertising artist.

Books on "urban sketching" can also be helpful, because they are based on doing things quickly and without too many tools. On Youtube, you can check out TeohYiChie, he has plenty of Urban Sketching videos, in a beautiful but very loose style that is inviting to imitate.

And the most important thing is of course to just do it and do it.

Its one of the reasons why people draw monsters (or furries) as they get started. You can make bad proportions, and if your brain doesn't recognize it as "human", your brain is far more forgiving.

"Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" is what worked for me, at least at a basic level. I think the "upside down human" and "upside down face" drawing exercises really worked for me.

After that, its just sitting down and taking the time to draw. As a beginner, you'll have to spend hours to master the strokes of the pencil to make something look kinda-sorta not that good. While a true expert will be able to sketch something quickly in far shorter time.

Just accept the fact that drawing/sketching will take much longer for you (because you're still a beginner), and work at it repeatedly. Over time, things get faster and faster.

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Landscapes are probably better to start off on, if you really want landscapes. Most humans don't see the errors in landscapes, so you can "Bob Ross" it to some extent. (All "mistakes" can be turned to look like something different)

It teaches 3 critical drawing things 1) think in terms of lines.

2) every line is in relation to something (sometimes just the frame). An example of (2) would be, in the face, there is lot of relation between horizontal and vertical (relation to the frame) and for example, the eyes are in relation which each other via an expression, so you better draw them together, with one stroke to start with. Thats the point of relations: draw them at once or one after the other.

And 3) notice the diagonals and horizontal/vertical in your drawing.

Doing nothing but exercises is not very fun so take the things you want to draw like people and landscapes and just get to work. You will probably be unsatisfied with your results but keep the fundamentals in mind and keep practicing.

This isn't a satisfactory answer but I think people who advocate for one basic creative program over another just found some fundamentals that clicked for them.

Here's what I've heard from artists: there's always a stage where you hate they piece, and you just have to push through (goes for writing too). Just push through, remind yourself no one else ever has to see it, and you'll get better with each one.