Learn Drawing Step by Step: A Guide from Beginner to Advanced Level

Learn Drawing Step by Step. How to Learn Realistic Drawing. Useful keys of learning steps.

When we start to learn a new skill, we need to start from the basics and gradually progress to intermediate and advanced levels. It's the same thing with drawing, we need to learn to draw basic things, do basic exercises and, little by little, we'll advance. In this post, you will see how to draw step by step, that is, you will see the steps to become someone who draws well. Where to start? What exercises to do? What drawings should we do initially? Read until the end and see all these steps.

Topics to cover this article

• 1 How to learn to draw step by step
• 1.1 Beginner Level
• 1.2 Intermediate Level
• 1.3 Advanced Level
• 2 Beginner drawing exercises and techniques
• 2.1 Training the stroke and making simple shapes
• 2.2 Train vanishing point
• 2.3 Shading
• 2.4 Master sketching techniques
• 3 Draw steps by step: intermediate level
• 3.1 Still life
• 3.2 Learn to draw a human head step by step
• 3.3 Learn to sketch human body
• 3.4 Draw eyes step by step
• 3.5 Draw a nose step by step
• 3.6 Draw a mouth step by step
• 3.7 Drawing full face
• 4 Draw steps by step: advanced level
• 4.1 Draw a whole human body step by step
• 4.2 Practice drawing blurred background
• 4.3 Practice designing fabric and garments
• 4.4 Draw/Learn how to draw wood
• 4.5 Draw metal and glass step by step
• 4.6 Practice drawing animals
• 4.7 Make more complex designs with two or more elements
• 4.8 Design landscapes with various elements
• 4.9 Landscapes with multiple elements and two or more vanishing points
• 5 Conclusion

How to learn to draw step by step?

Anyone who wants to draw well needs to master simple drawing skills before moving on to realistic drawing, for example. Every realistic drawing course teaches shading and tracing techniques first. This goes for various types of drawing: manga, classic drawing, technical drawing and even painting.

So, to draw anything at all, where should we start? What to do next?

Beginner level

Let's organize things. A good tutorial on how to draw step by step should contain the following elements:

1. Trace training with the pencil;
2. Drawing of basic shapes;
3. Vanishing Point;
4. Shading with graphite pencil;
5. Sketching techniques.

After these steps, the future draftsman should be concerned about finally making some simple design.

Intermediate level

A good way to start is with still life, followed by people's faces. For this, I recommend training in the following way:

1. Still life (fruits, vases, bottles, among other elements);
2. Proportion and outline of the human head;
3. Proportion and outline of the human body;
4. Human eyes;
5. human nose;
6. human mouth;
7. Human hair;
8. Full human face.

After learning, it was time to practice drawing something more complicated, such as the entire human body, animals, and landscapes. Personally, I find landscape design very difficult.

Advanced level

At this point of learning, it is interesting to try to address the following topics:

• Whole human body;
• Draw blurred background;
• Fabric and garments;
• Draw wood texture;
• Metal and glass;
• Animals (start with dogs and cats);
• More complex designs with two or more elements (a person with a dog, for example);
• Landscapes with various elements;
• Landscapes with multiple elements and two or more vanishing points.

Let's talk a little about the topics already mentioned, remembering that many of these topics are covered in more complete tutorials here on the blog.

Beginner drawing exercises and techniques

As explained at the beginning of this post, you first need to get used to certain basic drawing techniques, and there's no better way to start than by training your stroke.

Training the stroke and making simple shapes

Drawing involves, among other things, controlling the pressure we put on the paper with the pencil, or rather, the weight of your hand when tracing. Moreover, your hand needs to be steady when making the strokes.

Ever notice how difficult it is to draw a reasonable circle or even a straight line? That's what we need right now.

Practice your stroke by making straight lines, circles, and some polygons (squares, rectangles, triangles).

Then start trying to draw those same shapes, giving depth to the drawing. Instead of drawing a square, draw a cube. Instead of drawing a triangle, draw a pyramid.

Train vanishing point

After drawing simple shapes (no shading for now), start attempting to understand the concept of the vanishing point.

As you know, vanishing point is used to give depth to the drawing without losing the proper proportions of the objects. It is an imaginary point where the lines of the drawing will converge.

Note that the red markings in the drawing above represent the two vanishing points we have in the image.

Notice how the cube design was very well-defined because of the vanishing point. Understanding this is necessary to make drawings with a higher technical background.

Shading

After getting good at drawing basic shapes and having a good understanding of the vanishing point concept, it's time to shade the drawings. There is no big trick; all it takes is practice and a few other things. One of those little things knows the pencils well.

We have several gradations of pencils, and it is interesting that you use more than one type in your drawings.

Generally, the sketch of the drawing/outline of the drawing will be done with a lighter pencil (H or HB), the lighter shadows will be done with a darker pencil (B and 2B) and the really dark shadows will be done with really dark pencils (4B) forward. In this post, I talk about drawing materials and pencils you can use.

But what would be a good way to start shading? Here are some tips:

1. start with lighter shades of graphite, moving on to darker layers later;
2. avoid placing too many layers, as the paper can become sensitive and saturated;
3. use a sharpened pencil;
4. Always scratch the paper with a light hand, and always following the same pattern;
5. use a smudger and brush to spread the graphite in smaller areas;
6. use toilet paper to spread the graffiti over larger areas.

By following these tips, you will make better and better shading. To see how to use a smoker, brush, and toilet paper in the best way, click this link.

In addition to following the above tips, try doing some shading exercises, shown below:

Draw basic geometric shapes, draw prisms and 3D shapes, shade them and always consider the direction the light is coming from. Draw a rectangle and start darkening it with a 4B pencil, easing the pressure on the paper and switch to a 2B pencil, continue shading more and more smoothly, until you have a gradient effect, as shown in the figure above.

Master sketching techniques

After practicing numerous strokes, vanishing point and shading, it's good to learn to sketch some simpler drawings.

There's nothing better than training every day, looking at a simple photo or image as a model and trying to quickly reproduce it with a pencil.

This article here explains how to draw fast and how to train your sketching skills.

Some interesting techniques to learn are tracing and gesture drawing.

The gestural drawing consists of sketching the drawings in the simplest possible way, usually applied to human figures.

The decal consists of using a sheet covered in graphite to print the outline of your design on another blank sheet.

In addition to these two techniques, it is also nice to try to trace your drawings by squaring the paper and the reference. By dividing your reference into smaller areas, it is easier to draw square by square, reducing the chances of errors in the proportion of your drawing.

Draw step by step: intermediate level

If you can already make good sketches in a short time, if you already have some basic drawing skills, then it's time to take it a step further.

Still life

Drawing still life can help greatly improve your shading, your stroke, and your drawing in general.

To achieve this, it's good that you can draw basic shapes really well, as they are super useful for drawing still life.

An apple can be sketched as a slightly flattened circle, a bottle can be sketched with some rectangles and triangles, and so on.

If you don't know where to start, why not try drawing the image below?

Learn to draw a human head step by step

Continuing with the learning, it's a good time to learn how to sketch a human head. There are several techniques for this, but the one I recommend the most is Loomis, which is covered in other articles on this blog.

In fact, here on the blog, there are three articles talking about the Loomis method for drawing heads.

Learn to sketch human body

You want to a sense of how to sketch the human body, but that's just the beginning of the journey. Ideally, you would learn the basic proportions of the body and then try to draw a human body in different positions. Another thing that helps here is to practice a little gesture drawing.

This type of drawing can be applied to everything, but it is especially used in drawings of human figures, giving fluidity to your sketch.

Draw eyes step by step

Once you've learned how to sketch the human face and body, it's time to delve into each body part in detail. In this step, you can start with any part of the body. Personally, I remember starting to try to make more realistic eye designs before anything else. See this post on drawing eyes, and you will get a sense of how to draw them.

Draw a nose step by step

Continuing your drawing studies, a good idea would be to learn how to draw a nose. This part of the body doesn't get as much prominence as the eyes, for obvious reasons (eyes are beautiful, noses not so much).

However, if you know how to draw a nose well, your full face drawings will look really cool. In this post, you will find a lot of information about nose drawing, both for realistic drawing and for other styles of drawing.

Draw a mouth step by step

There are several ways to draw a mouth, and in this blog post I explain a simple way to do it, in just 11 steps. It's a good idea to practice a lot of mouth drawing because it's another part of the body that looks very impressive drawn. After mastering mouth drawing, you will be ready to practice drawing full faces.

Drawing full face

Finally, after training to draw each part of the face separately, it's time to try to draw whole faces. I recommend that you start by using decals to draw the first faces, as this is easier to get the hang of.

How to draw faces 12 easy steps

The decal makes sketching the design easier, allowing you to put your attention more on the shading than the stroke/outline of the design. Once you're secure with the shading, then it's a good idea to start doing one or two freehand drawings, to see how it goes.

Of course, to have references of high-quality drawings, I recommend that you download the 265 high-resolution photos to serve as a model for your drawings. In this file, there are many faces for you to print, make the decal and practice drawing a face.

Draw step by step: advanced level

When you already have a base in everything that has been presented so far, you can develop on your own. You don't necessarily have to follow the order in which I present the topics. Learning is different for everyone.

I, personally, haven't done many of the types of drawings I've put on this list, and I don't feel the need to either. I feel that I can learn and develop myself by making simpler drawings every so often.

At other times, however, I want to challenge myself with complex designs… Everything varies from moment to moment. That said, let's go to the drawings that I find more advanced and difficult to make.

Draw a whole human body step by step

Here's a post I've never done here on the blog: how to draw a full human body – and it's not just sketching the body, it's drawing the whole body, shading and finishing the drawing. Making this type of drawing is more difficult than it looks because you need to master the shading techniques and the various tools involved in it (smudge, toilet paper, brush).

Furthermore, you must have a light notion of anatomy, of the proportion of the human body. And it doesn't stop there; it's good that you know how to draw a human face very well, to give that expression and life to the drawing, with expressive eyes and mouth, flowing hair and all the rest. It's not for anyone! Train hard!

Practice drawing blurred background

Blurred background of a drawing appears to be easy to do, but it is a bit of work. In fact, not only a blurred background, but also a homogeneous background, with some shade of gray, or even a completely black background.

This all involves working a lot with tools such as the smudger, toilet paper and the short-bristled brush, precisely to spread the graphite and give it a more smoky, or out of focus, look. In some drawings in this post, you will see this blurred effect, and how it influences the level of realism of your art.

There's no mystery here: the technique consists of shading the shapes that make up the background of the drawing and blending it with the materials I mentioned.

Practice designing fabric and garments

Another thing to draw when you have more experience is drawing fabrics or people with clothes that have some interesting texture. Mastering fabric and garment design makes your designs that much more complete and impressive, but it can be painstaking and tiring work too.

Patience!

Draw/Learn how to draw wood

Learning to draw different textures is superb, allowing you to make more realistic drawings. One of the coolest textures to make is wood, as shown in the drawing below.

Soon I will write a post just about how to make wood effect in your drawings. As a preview, I can assure you that it's not that difficult.

You sketch the design and mark all the dark areas, then fill them in with some very soft, dark pencil. Keep the lighter areas with the same white paper.

After filling in the dark areas, try running the short-bristled brush over the design. The brush will spread the graphite, keeping the black areas of the drawing and slightly darkening the light areas, giving the effect you see in the photo.

Try it!

Draw metal and glass step by step

Another type of design that, I believe, is more suitable for experienced designers is the reproduction of metallic and glass objects. Translucent objects also fall into this category, such as water drawings.

This type of drawing (translucent objects, water, metal, glass) is a little difficult to do sometimes because it requires attention to the transitions between light and dark.

What gives these drawings realism is the contrast, reflections and brightness of the object. Therefore, even the simplest of drawings, such as a drop of water, can present many details, such as reflections from its surroundings and strong glows in contrast to very dark shadows.

When drawing this kind of thing, be aware of the transitions between light and dark. Occasionally, the change between light and dark happens abruptly in metal designs, for example.

At other times, the change is gradual and subtle. It will depend on a lot, so the way is to practice.

Train drawing animals

We arrived at the type of drawing I like the most. I think that, among all the drawings I've done, the best ones were drawings of animals. The difficult thing about this type of drawing is that we don't usually spend a lot of time learning to draw feathers, fur, and claws. Because of this, drawing animals turns out to be a bit innovative and challenging.

Some time ago, I tried to draw a pug, as outlined in the photo above, using realistic techniques. The only problem I had was with the blurred background of my reference, which I found quite difficult to do.

The dog's face is very well focused, while his body is blurred.

In general, the drawing was very complicated to make, but I think I managed to give the pet a nice face, mainly because of the eyes, which were very expressive.

Make more complex designs with two or more elements

This type of drawing is more difficult because it involves more than one element. In other words, I'm talking about composing drawings.

For example, you can draw a man and his dog.

You can draw a couple with their child.

It can also reproduce a car or vehicle of any nature, with the owner next to it. Any drawing that joins two or more topics that have been discussed so far is valid.

Design landscapes with various elements

This type of drawing I've done, and it was one of the most beautiful realistic drawings I've ever done. I've already put it in other posts here on the blog, but I'll show you one more time: This design has several elements that make it sensational.

It has a blurred background, which is very complicated to do, it has a wood texture, which is a very complicated technique to do too, at least until you get the hang of it. In addition, it has a design of a bird, which is also not simple due to the richness of details.

As if that weren't enough, this design also has a vanishing point, which makes the design a little more challenging. It wasn't easy, but without a shadow of a doubt it was pleasurable and rewarding.

Landscapes with multiple elements and two or more vanishing points

Finally, I believe that this type of drawing is one of the most difficult to do, as it involves a lot of prior knowledge.

In general, landscapes can be quite complicated to draw because they can contain people, animals, various objects and, eventually, more than one vanishing point, which makes the drawing complex. And watch out for designs with three (or even four) vanishing points. These require a lot of experience on your part and are a little more difficult to do.

Conclusion

In this post, the steps to elevate your drawing skill were mentioned, with a progression of exercises. The learning process depends more on you and how much you practice.