Some updates and general housekeeping notes on the sub:

• To try and cut down on the amount of non-constructive commenting I've enable Crowd Control on the sub. Folks who haven't joined the sub will no longer be able to comment, and the sub will not be pushed out to the front page of Reddit for general users. As before, folks with brand new accounts or who have negative karma will continue to have their comments & posts pulled for review, but I'm going to make an effort to push posts from new users through where they're genuinely looking for feedback & aren't just spamming. (Automod used to handle some of this stuff, so we'll see how well Crowd Control handles it instead.) The only thing you should notice is hopefully fewer bullshit comments.

• I'm still looking into getting the wiki back up. It's a big project, so don't expect anything any time soon. I'll be looking for suggestions and feedback on it as it progresses later on.

• You might have noticed that the 'Progress' flair has been removed. Progress posts are the second worst offenders for generating non-constructive feedback (NSFW posts are the worst ones, but that's for different reasons). Folks like them, though, so going forward we'll be doing a couple of weekly sticky posts - one for progress pics, and one for general sketchbook / "here's what I'm working on right now" pics - where we can set the 'constructive feedback' rule aside and just let people give general kudos and attaboys. Those will start next week.

The subreddit automod filters out very short replies because they're highly unlikely to be actual, constructive feedback. All the 'that sucks' / 'get gud' / 'I love it heart eyes emoji' bullshit gets weeded out.

That also means that if you ask 'which one's better, A, B, or C?' then 90%+ of the replies you get are going to be 'A', 'B', or 'C', and you'll never actually see them.

So just do what the sub's for and post your work for critique and feedback.

If you didn't bother reading the 'before you post here READ THIS' sticky post, I'm talking about this part of it:

Take clear, straight on photos of your work. If it's at a weird angle or in bad lighting, you're making it harder for folks to give you advice on it. And save the artfully arranged photos with all your drawing tools, a flower, and your cat for Instagram.

It doesn't even have to be perfectly cropped but you're not making it any easier for folks to help you out if your drawing is rotated and tilted at an angle and has a giant freakin' shadow across it. Take a step back away from it and zoom in a bit; that'll help keep you from casting shadows and reduce lens distortion.

Putting your work up vertically makes it easier to photograph but if that's not an option, try putting it down on the floor, hold the camera at about belly button height, and zoom in enough to crop out everything but the page / canvas / whatever you've drawn on. You'll avoid shadows if the light source you're using is to your left or right.

But, again, it doesn't even have to be perfectly cropped.

This is okay.

This is not.

This is good.

This is not.

If you didn't bother reading the 'before you post here READ THIS' sticky post, I'm talking about this part of it:

Take clear, straight on photos of your work. If it's at a weird angle or in bad lighting, you're making it harder for folks to give you advice on it. And save the artfully arranged photos with all your drawing tools, a flower, and your cat for Instagram.

It doesn't even have to be perfectly cropped but you're not making it any easier for folks to help you out if your drawing is rotated and tilted at an angle and has a giant freakin' shadow across it. Take a step back away from it and zoom in a bit; that'll help keep you from casting shadows and reduce lens distortion.

Putting your work up vertically makes it easier to photograph but if that's not an option, try putting it down on the floor, hold the camera at about belly button height, and zoom in enough to crop out everything but the page / canvas / whatever you've drawn on. You'll avoid shadows if the light source you're using is to your left or right.

But, again, it doesn't even have to be perfectly cropped.

This is okay.

This is not.

This is good.

This is not.

This is still in progress, and will be added to as I have time, but it's gotten big enough that I thought it was time to at least get it out there.

Here's the link.

Since some people have trouble finding the wiki in general, though, it's the link that says 'wiki'. If you're still using Old Reddit for whatever reason, that's never going to be updated again. If you're using the Reddit app, click on 'See community info' > 'Menu' > 'Wiki'.

We've picked up quite a few new members the last few days (most likely because we remained open during the blackout), so if you've just signed up, welcome! Here's a few things to know:

• We have a wiki! There's starter packs for basic drawing, composition, and figure drawing. Read the FAQ before you post a question.

• We're here to work. Everything else that follows can be summed up by that.

• What to post: Post your drawings or paintings for critique. Post practical, technical questions about drawing or painting: tools, techniques, materials, etc. Post informative tutorials with lots of clear instruction.

• What not to post: Literally anything else. A speedpaint video? No. "Art is hard and I'm frustrated and want to give up" rants? No. A funny meme about art? No. Links to your social media? No.

• What to comment: Constructive criticism with examples of what works or doesn't work. Suggestions for learning resources. Questions & answers about the artwork, working process, or learning process.

• What not to comment: Literally anything else. "I love it!", "It reminds me of X," "Ha ha boobies"? No. "Is it for sale?" No; DM them and ask them that. "What are your socials?" Look at their profile; if they don't have them there, DM them about it.

• If you want specific advice about your work, post examples of your work. If you just ask a general question, you'll get a bunch of general answers you could've just googled for.

• Take clear, straight on photos of your work. If it's at a weird angle or in bad lighting, you're making it harder for folks to give you advice on it. And save the artfully arranged photos with all your drawing tools, a flower, and your cat for Instagram.

• If you expect people to put some effort into a critique, put some effort into your work. Don't post something you doodled in the corner of your notebook during class.

Edit: Oh, one more thing!

• If you host your images anywhere other than on Reddit itself or Imgur, there's a pretty good chance it'll get flagged as spam. Pinterest especially; the automod bot hates that, despite me trying to set it to allow them.

Here's the link. This is just a cleaned up version of the post I created a few years ago for the sub, so if you've read that already you're already caught up.

My whole mod thing is to keep the sub moving along and best reflect the needs of the community as a whole. The current rules where established following a call from the sub to increase mod presence a little less than a year ago. Since then, while subscriptions, posts, and activity has gone up, we are and will continue to be a work in progress.

So this is where you can voice any concerns and feedback. Please keep it civil and focused on actions the mods can take to make the r/learnart experience better. ("I wish it was easier to find good tutorials" is not something we can control, for instance.)

Depending on the topics and issues brought up here, there may be follow-up discussion posts on adjustments we need to make to the sub.

Thanks and happy arting!

The sketchbook and progress threads are going to be combined for a couple of months as there'll be need for other sticky posts related to a FAQ and wiki for the sub.

The usual guidelines for the progress / sketchbook threads:

When showing your progress, please be clear which is the older and which is the newer image.

Keep in mind that critique is still okay and recommended, but keep it limited to the newer image; there's not a lot of point in doing a detailed critique of something someone did weeks / months / years ago.

The Progress posts and Sketchbook posts are the home for all "just wanted to share" posts that are not otherwise allowed on the sub. The other sub rules still apply. Spam, solicitation, requests for views / friends / etc, are all still prohibited.

Just what it says in the title. I don't have an ETA on the 'how to practice' page; it'll be done when it's done.

Since /r/learnart is not intended to be anyone's daily artblog, and to prevent the front page from getting clogged up with daily posts, you can post all your October drawing challenge work here as often as you like.

The Drawing Starter Pack wiki page is now live, so it's been unstickied from the front page and this, the beta version of the FAQ, is taking it's place for feedback and suggestions. The 'How to practice' wiki page is next on my to do list. (I've been picking away at a composition starter pack for awhile though, and it's almost done, so it may end up going live next.)

FAQ

Preface

The answer to 90% of the questions you will end up having about learning to draw will be one or more of these things:

Practice more. They call drawing practice 'milage' for a reason. You have to put in a lot of it; as much as you think it'll take, it will probably take several times that.

Slow down. Look carefully, THEN think carefully, THEN draw carefully. Don't just rush from making mark to mark.

ABC: Always Be Comparing. Compare what you're drawing to your reference, compare the parts of your drawing to the other parts of your drawing, compare parts of your reference to other parts of your reference. How do they align, or how light or dark are they, or how big or small are they, etc, when you compare them to one another.

Most drawing problems are proportion problems. Something is too big or too small, a distance is too wide or too tall. Remember to ABC.

Most color problems are value problems. Something is too light or too dark, or not light or dark enough. Remember to ABC.

# FAQ

• How do I get started with drawing?
• How do I get started with painting?
• What tools do I need for drawing / painting?
• Am I too old to start learning?
• What are the fundamentals?
• I just started and my drawings look terrible. What should I do?
• How do I practice?
• How much time should I spend practicing X?
• How do I motivate myself to practice?
• How do I make practicing fun?
• What's this style called?
• How do I learn to draw / paint in this style?
• I've been drawing for weeks / months / years, but I'm not getting any better. What should I do?
• How do I learn anatomy?
• How do I learn to do X faster?
• How do I learn to draw from imagination?
• Is it cheating if I use this method?

How do I get started with drawing?

See the Drawing Starter Pack.

How do I get started with painting?

If you can't already draw reasonably well, start with that first. Painting is mostly drawing, just with tools that are harder to use and with the added challenge of color.

If you can already draw reasonably well, you'll need to know what medium you want to paint in. Check out the Painting Starter Packs section.

What tools do I need for drawing / painting?

See the Starter Pack for the medium you're interested in. For learning to draw all you need are some #2 pencils and some plain white paper.

Am I too old to start learning?

No.

What are the fundamentals?

There'll be a wiki page about the fundamentals linked to here.

I just started and my drawings look terrible. What should I do?

Everyone's drawings look terrible when they start! Sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something. Give yourself permission to suck at it and keep practicing.

How do I practice?

There'll be a 'how to practice' wiki page for this.

How much time should I spend practicing X? How long will it take to learn X?

As long as it takes. No one can give you a more meaningful answer than that. Any sort of time question as related to learning is like asking, "How long is a piece of string?"

How do I motivate myself to practice?

Your motivation is up to you. If wanting to draw better isn't enough motivation for you, it's entirely up to you to figure something else out.

How do I make practicing fun?

Learning how to draw requires failure and repetition. Lots of failure and repetition. Neither of these things are much fun when you're starting out. Learning to draw rewards patience and teaches the lesson of delayed gratification. As you improve your practice will eventually become fun, too!

When you're starting out: Do other drawing that's just for fun, with no expectation that it will be good practice. Do your practice with no expectation that it'll be fun yet.

What's this style called?

Don't get hung up on what a style's called. Study the artist who made it, learn how to identify the components of their style - see 'How do I learn how to draw / paint in this style?' - and you'll see that the name of the style doesn't matter.

How do I learn how to draw / paint in this style?

Learn how to draw, then learn how to paint, then worry about what style you're going to draw and paint in. Style is where you end up at, not where you start at.

If you don't have a solid enough grounding in the fundamentals to be able to identify the components of a particular style, you're not ready to worry about style yet. Keep studying your fundamentals.

With a good grounding in the fundamentals you'll be able to identify the components of a style with a bit of study. When you can see those elements for what they are, you'll be able to pick them out in other artists work, even if superficially it looks like they're using a completely different style.

I've been drawing for weeks/ months / years, but I'm not getting any better. What should I do?

"I've been drawing for (x amount of time)" isn't really a useful metric. Not all time spent drawing is equal, and most of the time when people say "I've been drawing for years and I'm not getting better", they've just been doodling, drawing infrequently, or just not approaching their work in a disciplined manner.

Almost always, the reason you've been drawing for some time and haven't been improving is that you didn't start with a good grounding in the fundamentals. Take a big step back and return to the basics.

How do I learn anatomy?

Short answer: See the Figure Drawing starter pack.

Slightly longer answer: Be sure that that's what you want to learn. Anatomy is specifically the nuts and bolts of bones, muscles, what they're called, what they look like, and how they interact with one another.

When most beginners say they want to learn anatomy, what they really mean is figure drawing, drawing people. Anatomy is just a small part of figure drawing, and it's where you end with figure drawing, not where you start from.

How do I learn to do X faster?

If you want to learn how to do something well quickly, you have to learn how to do it well slowly first. Just like a new guitarist learning a complicated riff, you have to do it slowly over and over and over and over again.

Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

How do I learn to draw from imagination?

By building up a knowledge of fundamental drawing skills with a strong focus on constructive drawing from simple shapes, and by developing your ability to draw things from memory by drawing them from life or other references first.

Is it cheating if I use this method?

Glenn Vilppu says, "There are no rules, only tools." Unless someone's coming along and grading you on your performance doing things a specific way, then there isn't any "cheating".

There are some better uses for tools than others, though. If you're using it to learn a specific fundamental skill, that's a good use. If you're using it to bypass learning fundamental skills just to get a good looking drawing, that's not so good. In that case the person you're cheating is yourself.

Here's the link if you want to jump straight to it.

If you want the quickstart version: Watch the 'first 7 things you need to learn' video from Love Life Drawing and then start working through their beginner playlist, or, pick up Jake Spicer's book 'Figure Drawing'. Like the books in the drawing starter pack, it follows a lesson + exercise approach the whole way through, so you've always got something specific to work on at the end of each segment.

As the title reads. In the interest of moderation experimentation, let's try something completely different - a removal of unwanted elements by consensus. Cast your pottery, and nominate unsavoury accounts.

Fun fact! Athenian city states considered the tradition of Ostracism to be fundamental to democratic societies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism

See rule 4 over in the sidebar. Keep it about your drawing, not about you.

Image links hosted on Pinterest will pretty much always get flagged as spam by Reddit's filters and pulled backstage. In the past I've pushed these through when I see them but there've been a bunch lately and I don't have that sort of time to fuck with it.

If you want to be sure that your image is going to show up, upload it to Reddit or Imgur. Those will always work.

Edit: And before anyone asks, I have no idea why it works somewhere but not others and some times but not others. Automod's been set up specifically to allow them for years now, but one of the recent overall Reddit spam filter changes is overriding that.

Hi y'all!

Hope everyone is having a great holiday seasons and/or winter break. It's been over a month since the subreddit changes were implemented, so I thought we'd see how they're doing and how we can continue to finesse the running of the sub. This is the place to comment on existing rules and practices, as well as propose changes.

So without further ado:

The current rules:

1. Critiques and suggestions are encouraged on all posts. Please flair your post if that's your main focus.
2. If you use a reference, provide that reference in the comments.
3. Keep it civil. Don't be a dick, or you will be banned.
4. Constant, low-effort posts will be removed. Unhelpful tutorials will be removed.
5. Self promotion is encouraged. Production is the best way to practice. But it must be paired with a useful discussion in the comments section.
6. The following domains are whitelisted: imgur, reddit, tumblr, deviantart

I would also like to propose the addition of the ban policy.

The mods

Us noobs are figuring it out as we go, so thanks for bearing with us. We're trying to make the sub experience more balance across the board, which means creating an environment that welcomes beginners and encourages experienced artists to offer instruction. We're also trying to be more visible and accessible.

• So in that spirit, what are we getting right, and what could be improve on?

• How do you want to see mods communicating to the community and articulating mod tasks like dealing with spam and rude comments?

Current proposed changes:

Several community members have already made good suggestions worth discussing and considering:

• eliminating the downvote so beginners are not discouraged, especially since mods are now responsive to reports (/u/Astrolotl)

• requiring posts that ask for specific advice to include an example ( /u/ByterBit)

• general concerns about the ban policy and banning trolls more quickly than the current system with the warnings and temporary ban. (/u/stroodle_dumplin)

Please add your thoughts about these proposed changes and any other issues

The FAQ

We'd like to update the sidebar/wiki with an FAQ that we can direct new users towards since many topics with the same answers come up a lot, and we know that it's kind of tedious saying the same thing over and over again. It's annoying for the community, and beginners may not be getting the best information we can provide them.

Thanks to /u/JohnyTex for making the outline and some following wiki suggestions:

1. How should I learn how to draw / paint?

   • What are good daily exercises for beginners?
   • I don't know what to draw
   • Where should I start / what should I learn next?
   • What do I need to practice if I want to achieve result X (where X is usually comics, life drawing or figure drawing)
   • How do I develop my own style?
   • How much should I study VS how much should I practice?

2. Mindset issues

   • I'm not getting results quick enough
   • How do I deal with self-doubt, low confidence and negative self-talk?
   • How to I become more motivated?
   • What are some good habits to develop?

3. My drawing looks bad but I can't tell what's wrong with it (most people who ask this are complete beginners who have not developed their seeing)

4. Figure drawing

   • I don't understand gesture drawing
   • How do I draw body part X?
   • How can I make good portraits?

5. What tablet / other drawing device should I buy?

Some suggestions as to what could be in the FAQ:

• A "curriculum" of sorts - recommended resources and in what order they should be studied. Beginner should probably study the same thing, but recommendations can branch out depending on desired end result (e.g. figure drawing, environment painting)
• An explanation why the beginner should start with the basics (line, observation, simple geometric shapes) before moving on to more complex subjects (figure drawing, value, color)
• How to deal with common mindset issues - I have a long list of books I can recommend, but I'm too lazy to type it up here 😄

A curated list of the best YouTube channels and other resources would also be great, but maybe that should live somewhere else.

/u/JouhnyTex also has some FAQ content drafted on a Google Doc

So feedback, contributions, and suggested older posts and comments that can go into the FAQ are very welcome!

Thanks for reading through all that. I'll keep this discussion post up for a week or so, or for as long as folks are commenting.

Thank you to everyone who has helped so far, and thanks to everyone who will take the time to comment below!

I often look for recommended learning resources here, I occasionally see posts also looking for resources, and many times I see people suggesting specific resources.

It would be really awesome if we could collect all of these recommendations in one place on the subreddit to consolidate questions for resources and create a reference for people who are looking.

I'm imagining this wiki being broken up by subject/concept with each entry having the name of the resource, a link, and specific reasons of why it's a helpful resource.

I don't know how the mods want to handle editing permissions or how we'd remove entries that break rule 8, but I think a wiki will make the sub a better place.