[SteveJobs]

Well, actually, the title says it all.

Do you know any really good websites, do you have any general, insightful, incredibly important remarks or do you know excellent books on the topic? It's only pencil and colored crayons right now, btw.

Would be neat,
Steve

[Krypton]

The best way to learn would to be to go back to college, or enrol in evening classes. An objective view of a teacher on your work will be far better than anything you will find in a book.

[:XI:]

Practice is as important as feedback.

Draw everywhere you go. Draw anything and everything.

[budster101]

Draw in your sleep.

[jholmes]

I'm an illustrator and the best advice I have is to get the book "Drawing on the Right Side of your Brain" by Betty Edwards. It's a textbook and if you follow the exercises and actually practice, almost anyone can learn to draw.

But the key is practice. Drawing is like music, you have to learn the hand skills and practice them to stay competent.

[SteveJobs]

Originally Posted by budster101

Draw in your sleep.

That I do already, thanks.

As for enrolling in college classes, that's sort of difficult since we have no colleges in Germany and I - out of stupidity - did not enroll into the art classes in high school...

As for the Betty Edards book, I've ordered it, we'll see.

Greetings,
Steve

[budster101]

Here you go!

http://www.drawright.com/

[AB^2=BCxAC]

Oh, I love sucker questions. Me=Born every minute.

1. Get thee hence to a Bachelor of Arts program or Design Institute and work thy own ass into shape. Take life drawing classes with trained figure models. Do repetitive excercises on perspective, tone, gesture, composition, scale, figure/ground, geomotric shapes, lighting (especially chiaroscuro), contrast, line, mark making, and more. Sit through teacher and class critiques of thine art pinned to a wall. Spend a small fortune on paper, pencils, brushes, ink, erasers, fixative, rulers, matte boards, and more. Importantly, ask many questions, experiment, and look at what everyone else is doing and how everyone reacts. And take sculpture, print-making, painting, graphic design, art history, typography, photography, and hand outs from your parents, too.

2. Copy master drawings and paintings, pilfered from library books, slides, art prints, and museums. Ye olde museums can arrange for students to study art and copy if they sense thine soul is true to the lady named "not-a-psycho."

3. Practice every day. Keep a sketch pad and pencils and pens handy whenever you leave the hizzous. Draw with like-minded friends. Sketch in the park. Sketch your ramen noodles at lunch.

4. Read a lot. And then read some more. Want to find out about techniques to use things like conte, watercolor, white chalk for highlights, pastels, and how to draw portraits? Well, try not to so much at all. Start by reading crappy magazines, like Tate and Art in America, and then you might want to dig into "The Creators" by Boorstin if you've never taken any art history before (but be prepared to change your mind later about everything he says once you learn to deconstruct it), and be prepared to go to a library and study to figure out Po-Mo criticism big time, especially though art history and literary theory. There are names one can rattle off here that will mean nothing, but John Berger's "Ways of Seeing" is highly accessible to start.

5. Get discouraged, tired, poor, and semi-enlightened about the superficiality of the art scenes in various cities, the enormous population that confuses art with hobby, and how drawing is a fallible vessel for philosophy but decent for story-telling, and come to the conclusion that the best reward is seeing your own complicated handiwork completed and admired by a stranger, but you're too exhausted to really get things together without a trust fund or a patron to help pay for supplies and a small army of assistants.

6. Or do none of the above. Make fan art inspired from "How to Draw Books". Stay confident and overly proud.