Nowadays, learning how to draw on your own is pretty easy. There are a huge number of tutorials for PCs and tablets and many drawing tutorials by Russian and foreign authors designed for beginners.
Instructions
Step 1
Before choosing a good drawing book, it is worth deciding what kind of materials and techniques you want to use. In general, it is worth remembering that before starting work with any textbook and material, it is worth working out the basic rules of painting and drawing, and only then experimenting based on the lessons given in the books.
Step 2
Academic drawing involves teaching the correct composition, the imposition of shadows, shading and working with forms. At the moment, the most inexpensive and detailed textbook for beginners is the book "Fundamentals of Academic Drawing" by Nikolai Lee. The book contains a huge number of visual sequential lessons that allow you to learn how to draw geometric shapes, the human body, still lifes. At the same time, the textbook contains a lot of textual explanations for this or that action. In general, this is the best edition for beginners and intermediate artists at the moment, designed for ages 15+.
Step 3
Those wishing to learn how to draw with pastels can use a small but very popular tutorial "How to draw with pastels" from the Astrel publishing house. The book is translated, but well enough and well written. There are many examples of using pastels on different paper; methods of applying the material to the paper are shown (shading with a brush, sponge, hands). Another good textbook is How to Write with Pastels by Olmedo Salvador. This book is good for those who continue to learn the technique of drawing artists, since it contains practical advice on using the material, but there is almost no analysis of the basics of composition, chiaroscuro, etc.
Step 4
Working with watercolors, despite the apparent lightness, is quite difficult, especially for beginners: paints dry very easily and quickly, putting the artist in a limited time environment. Therefore, a person who loves watercolors should pay special attention to the selection of good books on teaching. One of the best is considered to be “We Draw in Watercolors” by T. Battalini, with color illustrations and step-by-step tutorials on creating a drawing of water, sky, etc. Other in-depth tutorials include Fenwick's Watercolor Painting Course, which focuses primarily on teaching landscape painting and Alvin Crochaux's How To Paint With Watercolors step-by-step guide for the youngest artists.
Step 5
A good textbook on oil painting is Olga Shmatova's book from the series "Learning to draw with Olga Shmatova". Her other textbooks are also good enough, but the oil painting training is the most successful. The tutorial shows examples of various drawing techniques, shows the sequence of working with canvas, brushes, and other materials.
