Drawing for Beginners

Whether you're messing about or not, an important place to start would be simply copying illustrations and photograhs from books on anatomy and scenic places. Copying, as they say, makes the world go round. With anything, the important factor is to dedicate. Fuck all those 2XXXDSD Pencils and shit, just grab a HB a sheet of paper and learn to draw bone-structures and the sort. Draw whatever, just draw.

We live in a world of artists who are brilliant at procrastinating because they do it so fucking much. I think, and this is to everyone in general, we as a bunch of people need to shut the fuck up and just do it. I'm probably again mostly speaking to myself, but yeah, that's what we need to do.

I had to draw a dragon for a project and I went on google and typed in "How to draw a dragon" I got it in 5 easy steps and it looked awesome, This probably won't be any use to you, but its fun to do.

I'm such a shitty draw-er that when I draw something good, it makes me feel happy.

The words of wisdom from my drawing teacher:

"You take these here melons, and you put them on your page and youve got apples."
--Mr. Paxton on drawing cones, pyramids, cubes, and spheres.

But what hes really taught me, aside from dont listen when hes speaking in metaphores, is to take your time. Draw what you see and then go back and change it. Practice first on what you see in front of you and then you can translate that to what you see in your head. After you do that you can distort it any way you want.

But seriously, and I cant draw worth a shit, after working for four hours on one still life, I really did get kinda better. Practice practice practice.

Also, Im a photographer so what the fuck do I know?

I know you probably don't want to hear this, but all art starts from observation.

Corellion's advice is almost right, except instead of copying illustrations or photos, you should be drawing from real life.  This is harder, but it makes more sense...a camera doesn't capture things the same way your eye does.  You have to train your eye to see, not a camera.
 

Every single great artist, whether he be a sculptor or cartoonist, oil painter or fashion designer, starts with drawing from life. 

I'd start by taking plain old white paper and pencil and practicing shading.  Take your pencil and make the darkest black you can (try to layer rather than pressing as hard as you can) on one side of the paper, and then make the lightest light you can on the other side of the paper.  Then, between those two areas, try to make the shades of grey in-between.  (Something like this, but obviously don't do a whole page, you can just do a one-inch strip or something: http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/SimCity4/HbgPA/24x16_GradientHeighMap.png)

After you do that, take a simple object, such as a white mug cup, and put a strong light source (a lamp?) on one side to establish a light source.  You can even turn off the lights in the room and just keep the lamp on for a more dramatic effect (it'll make finding shadows easier as well.)  Then draw the cup in lights and darks.  Try to do it without using lines, because there are no such things as lines in real life!  The "lines" you see in real life are defined by darker areas coming right up against light areas.  See this picture for a good example: http://www.suzanastojanovic.com/drawings/myway.jpg

See, there are no lines.  The horse's face is defined by a darker background.  It's muzzle is defined by a "white line" which is actually a strip of white (a shape, albeit a thin one) that becomes a highlight.

I know I'm telling to you do all these things, and you're probably thinking, "Dayumn, what the hell, this is much more complicated than I want it to be."  I know this sounds stupid, but in art, there are rules.  Once you learn the rules, you can bend and break them as much as you want.  It's like writing, you have to know grammar and styles of writing in order to start breaking the rules or whatever...

But of course, whether you decide to learn the rules now or later is completely up to you.  This is, afterall, art!

Some other excersizes:

-Negative space drawings
http://blogs.salon.com/0004217/images/2005/08/01/Chairs.Colour.negative.1.jpg
Just draw everything around the object you are trying to define (the object is "positive space", and the space around it is "negative space.")  Essentially you are just drawing the sillouette.  This will help you see the distance between one side of an object and the other, how far things are in relation with other things (this is the basis of all drawing.  For example when you are drawing a face, you will draw the eyes a certain distance away from the nose, away from the mouth, away from the chin and the sides of the face.  The more you draw, the less you think about this stuff, and the easier it will come to you...)
 

-Contour drawings (just drawing in lines with no value/shading)
http://z.about.com/d/drawsketch/1/7/9/B/sandals-contour.JPG
It will help you see shapes of objects, the relationship between one object and another; a more complex cersion of negative space drawing.

-blind contour drawings
http://cumuseum.colorado.edu/MFS/MUSM5061/Images/PardoGesturesSm.jpg
this is REALLY fun.  It'll help you focus.  You are doing contour drawings but WITHOUT LOOOKING AT YOUR HAND OR PAPER.  It's better the less you "cheat."  It helps to go slowly, and to keep the pen on the paper (draw with a single line, without lifitng your hand.)  Drawing the hand is the best because it has a lot of detail, and it's easier to keep your eye on your hand which you can hold still.  The hand is also "curvy" rather than full of straight lines, and it's much easier to draw curves when you're not looking at your paper...keep in mind, this blind contour drawing doesn't have to look anything like your hand.  In fact, it probably won't, the first time you try (although you get better the more you do it, because you get better at seeing.)  This is just an exercise that will help you see.

Just as a reference, here is my artwork (my username is travwell on satellitesoda as well):
http://satellitesoda.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3356

My artistic background: I'm 17 and have been doodling forever (I grew up on Pokemon, and I used to draw them all the time in Elementary school...I was brainwashed by Disney, and still am...well, you get the idea.)  I took art classes throughout middle school and high school.  My formal art education came my first summer in high school when I attended NYSSSA (New York State Summer School of Arts) for visual arts.  In my junior year I started attending the Huntington School of Fine Arts (where I did most of those pieces you see in the link above) after school and on weekends.  I've been accepted to SAIC and RISD (art schools,) and my portfolio was accepted to MICA (another art school,) but I didn't apply there.  I also have an acceptance from the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts in Washington University of St. Louis (an art school within a regular university.)

I do a lot less "serious" work on my own, but trust me, you can go much further when you get the basics down (still lives, figure drawings, all those things I used to think were boring as hell...I always hated museums until I started doing oil paintings myself!)  After you get the basics down you can use your skills to do crazy abstractions like Ralph Steadman.  When you draw without any understanding of human anatomy or lighting, you end up drawing like this: http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/5947/bodyproportions1yq4.png

You can use online guides on "how-to-draw," but there's nothing better than having a REAL understanding of the subject you're trying to draw...as you can see from the "body proportions" guide above, just KNOWING facts isn't going to help you, you're going to need to see for yourself how things look, not how you THINK they look.

If you're still curious about Ralph Steadman's style, it seems like he is using a Rapidograph pen.  But I can go on another whole tangent about style, and I don't think you need me to...in short, draw draw draw from life, draw as often as you can, carry a notebook to draw in wherever, and no matter what anybody tells you to do, you are going to make mistakes and sometimes they will be bad, sometimes the mistakes will actually be good, and follow your intuition (you can even choose to ignore everything I just said and copy Ralph Steadman's drawings - everybody learns differently!)

I hope this helps someone :) 
If there are any other art questions I can answer, I'd be happy to try to help!

Oh, and if you got tired of me talking, here's a guy with a pretty cool blog:
http://journalfodderjunkies.blogspot.com/2007/06/encountering-blank-page-part-3.html

This guy is absolutely right, everyone has the ability to draw and you definitely shouldn't feel intimidated by paper.  The only wrong attitude you can have is "I can't draw!"

 All right Justin, I'm not going to sit here and give you a step by step and all that jazz, it takes too long.  But I do have a BFA in painting with a minor in drawing.

Where do you start?  You draw from life, you draw what you see.  draw your hand, your mouse, your chair, your shoe, anything and everything nearby.  Try to draw with the paper at an angle, don't sit with it flat in front of you because that will distort the image on the page.  You won't notice it until you step back from it, but then it will be blaringly obvious.  First concentrate on contours, just the outline of the shape.  Don't get overly complex and try to include shading or texture.

Do about 100 of those simple drawings.  Thats a pretty common assignment in Drawing 1 classes.

How to draw Stewie from Family Guy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7XBnojAGDQ

here's some advice bearboy, cultivate your lack of skill and people will soon consider it a style. Please enjoy the portrait of tom cruise i mean brad pitt i did just for you!

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v491/rudeguy/art/shrimp.jpg[/IMG]

I draw! Just some stupid doodles, but they make me happy.