When you’re just starting to draw, it can be incredibly frustrating to draw poorly every day. it’s crucial to get as much practice as possible early on. but the wrong kind of practice is annoying and a hindrance to your progress.
so if you are a complete novice, how can you start drawing properly?
You are reading: Best books for learning to draw
I always recommend the proko figure series, but not everyone wants to take video courses. Instead, I would recommend starting with books that cover the basics of drawing and measuring to draw accurately from life.
All the books in this publication will radically improve your knowledge and technical skills to help you become a better draftsman and artist.
keys to draw
This is one of the most recommended books for beginners and I’m happily apart of that bandwagon. Keys to Drawing teaches you how to draw what you see using measurements and proper marksmanship.
I can’t think of many other books that guide you in the same way as this book. Author Bert Dodson first published Keys to Drawing more than two decades ago, but it remains relevant to this day.
You will learn to control the movement of your elbow and shoulder to make the most precise lines on paper. this goes hand in hand with measuring and seeing things accurately to get them out of life.
If you want to become a professional artist, you need to draw from life.
The hard part is understanding what “drawing from life” means and how to get started. the keys to drawing will make this topic much less difficult and a little easier for anyone with little or no experience.
drawing for absolute beginners
Here’s another title that helps the reader learn to draw starting from step one. You’ll learn which materials to start with, how to hold your pencil, and how to accurately make marks on your paper.
As you learn to see and measure, you will become more comfortable with your aim. drawing for the absolute beginner helps you build this confidence and pushes you to study fundamentals like shape, lighting, perspective, and other related properties.
In total, the book covers 128 pages, which seems very short. but inside you get 24 unique demos covering a wide range of drawing, measuring, building and rendering objects.
You’ll start with basic objects like chairs and glasses, but quickly move on to more detailed elements like trees and vehicles.
This is the perfect book for anyone with no prior experience who really wants to get good at drawing. but remember that this book can only take you so far. it’s up to you to practice and follow the lessons to see improvements.
drawing on the right side of the brain
Many people recommend Betty Edwards’ Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain as the perfect beginner’s book. It has a lot of practical exercises that build on previous ideas in the book until you learn to see perspective, negative space, and values.
I personally didn’t get much out of this book. I think the text is excellent and the lessons are well-intentioned. But I just couldn’t figure out exactly what Betty was trying to teach or how it was supposed to improve my performance.
Once I switched to a couple of other books, things started to click, and that’s when Betty’s book made a lot more sense to me.
but many novice artists swear by this title and would recommend it to complete beginners.
I think this book will be great for motivated artists who know why they want to draw and what they’re trying to do. if you are completely new to the art and really have no idea how to understand how to draw them, I recommend a gentler introduction like the keys to drawing.
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both are amazing books though, so you really can’t go wrong either way.
drawing for absolute and absolute beginners
Still life drawings are perfect for beginners because objects don’t move like the human figure. This is the purpose of Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner. It aims to help anyone learn to draw from life with accuracy.
You’ll start with building the outer contours of objects and quickly move on to building shapes and volumes. this is a crucial part of learning to draw and the exercises in this book teach you how to execute it correctly.
Also, before each exercise you will get a brief description of what you are trying to learn and why it is important. this is very helpful for new artists who just don’t know why they are doing these exercises.
You’ll probably have to reread these passages several times to really absorb them, but the lessons are invaluable for new artists.
The author Claire Watson Garcia is a teacher, and many of these lessons apply to her real-life courses. Her teaching style is very accessible to children and adults, so this book is a great start to real still life drawing.
simplified perspective
One of the main fundamental art skills you have to learn is perspective. This creates the illusion of depth in a 2D drawing in the same way you’d find this in a photograph.
There are dozens of books on perspective and the reason I like Perspective Simplified is that the title says it all.
This book makes the concept of perspective very easy to understand. You’ll learn about horizon lines, vanishing points, and finicky tricks to help you build buildings and objects in perspective for any scene.
author ernest norling repeats important points using different exercises to get these concepts into your brain.
By the end you should have a solid understanding of perspective and how it applies to every piece of art you create.
This book alone will not make you a master of perspective. but it will give you a big push into the deep end of the pool with some floaties to keep you afloat as you get deeper into this topic.
light for visual artists
Another fundamental skill of drawing is rendering light and shadow. This can be grouped together and labeled as value but learning to render value inherently means understanding how light works.
the book light for visual artists is perhaps the best introductory guide to understanding the physics and artistic techniques of light and shadow. the author covers different materials and how they reflect light, as well as the concepts of multiple light sources and how they affect objects in a scene.
starting with drawing first will make it easier for you to learn the basics of lighting & darkness. when you get to painting, you’ll be dealing with colors that make the subject that much more complicated.
Fortunately, this book also talks about color selection, so it really can be your ultimate reference guide to lighting. I highly recommend this to anyone serious about art because it should answer most (if not all) of your stock questions.
vilppu drawing manual
Not many people talk about the Vilppu Drawing Manual because it’s published privately by Glenn Vilppu and his estate. But this is one of the most helpful guides I’ve ever bought on the subject of life drawing and figure drawing.
vilppu has been teaching art for decades and has a unique teaching style. This spiral guide covers a host of topics, from basic shapes to measuring and building objects with life precision.
I covered this in a previous post explaining the difference between realistic and constructionist drawing. vilppu works closely with animators and concept artists, so he understands the need to learn both techniques.
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gesture drawing and form building are the two main concepts you will study in this book. some people prefer looms for these subjects, but with looms you’ll end up buying 2 or 3 different books just to cover the material in this spiral guide to life drawing.
I don’t think every artist needs a copy of this book. however, it’s definitely great for complete beginners or even semi-experienced beginners who want to study a different approach to life drawing.
the natural way of drawing: a work plan for the study of art
This book is like a full art course crammed into print form. The author expects a lot from the reader and if you grab this book you should plan to draw for at least 4 hours a day every day.
The natural way to draw: An art studio roadmap teaches you how to draw figures and objects from life with a quick sketch/animator attitude. the author forces you to see beyond the 2d paper to draw the forms as if they were right in front of you. but he also forces you to make marks quickly without worrying about line quality.
If you are a complete beginner, this book will be difficult. if you’re looking to render realistically, I’d absolutely avoid this book. It’s also not great for someone who already has experience drawing figures.
But if you’re an aspiring animator, this book will teach you how to quickly capture figure poses with weight and style. it won’t help you draw accurately from life. but it will help you see what you are drawing beyond simple outlines.
figure drawing for all it’s worth
We finally get to the one and only Loomis book that I’ll drop in this post. Yes there are many incredible books from Andrew Loomis, and yes I would personally recommend most of them.
but figure drawing is the one book that can have the biggest impact on a beginner’s mindset. learning to draw the figure is hard and honestly annoying at first. it can be stressful to understand what you’re trying to do, let alone how to do it.
loomis breaks down the process in this book, teaching you how to see the figure, how to build it, and finally how you should apply these techniques in the figure room.
You can find much more information about this title online because it is one of the most recommended books to learn how to draw figures.
is a great option for new artists, but only if you’re serious about figure drawing. if you’re just drawing chairs or park benches, I’d recommend a simpler art book to “learn to see” like cues to drawing or drawing on the right side of the brain.
how to draw what you see
Lastly we get to an older book that was first published in the early 1970s. It has since been reprinted and amended with more info and more up-to-date writing.
how to draw what you see is one of the best books to help you see objects correctly and capture them accurately. it runs to just over 170 pages and the writing is exceptionally detailed. You will learn about shapes, shadows and perspective through a series of realistic drawing exercises.
I would define this book as useful but incredibly simple. It really is made for novice artists who have never drawn from life and have no idea where to start. the reason it’s so low on my list is that it not only covers drawing, but also includes charcoal and watercolor. this is not necessarily bad, but it is not good for beginners.
if you just want to master drawing, then you won’t want any other mixed media. this book covers drawing for the first 18-20 chapters and then quickly switches between mediums.
If you want a unique drawing book, I recommend the first 2 or 3 books at the top of this list.
However, I wouldn’t say this book is bad or wrong in the way it teaches drawing. it just goes way beyond mere drawing, and this can be off-putting for some artists who just want to master a pencil.
everyone jumps into drawing from different stages and it’s hard to recommend just one book for everyone. but the titles on this list are fantastic, some cover more specific topics while others are broader and more generic.
but either way i guarantee there is something on this list to help you improve.
Whether you’re looking to become an animator, concept artist, illustrator, comic book artist, or even a fine artist, these books will help you get started and teach you the proper way to see and draw accurately.