Reddit reviews How to Draw What You See

How to Draw What You See is arguably a better book than the other popular book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain... Especially since all that "right brain/left brain" stuff is mostly nonsense.

Practice Practice and more Practice, plus most of Drawing, and Painting is Seeing. So to kick start, try this book. How to draw what you see. its been around forever and you can probubly pick up a used copy cheap in a second hand book store.

Ah - on the mascara? It does look thick and clumpy.

Now that I'm comparing the original out of camera to your finished version, I'm also noticing a lot of funny issues with the way you've 'volumized' things, like the eyelids. The way you painted in highlights doesn't follow the actual contour and makes the eye look a little oddly shaped, for example.

If that's something you want to improve on, you might want to turn to life drawing techniques. The book How to Draw What You See may help you.

The best advice is to just draw. Observe and draw. Look at how things work. Look at your hand. Draw it. Break it down into rectangles and circles. Find how it's all put together. Point a flashlight onto a ball to see how light falls on a sphere.

Sure, tutorials can be helpful, but it comes down to practice. If you have another skill, like playing an instrument or a sport, you probably already understand this. To use the instrument analogy, a guitar teacher could teach a simple song to a beginner in a matter of several hours, but, if that beginner has no other musical knowledge, all s/he will be able to play is that one song. It takes time on the basics before that beginner can create their own music.

If you are looking for something to teach you the drawing basics, here's a great book:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-What-You-See/dp/0823023753

If you already have a strong grasp of the basics, then just keep drawing. Put several hours into it a day and you'll get there.

I asked an artist friend the same question in college, and she gave me How To Draw What You See. Great, classic art instruction with a good amount of theory. I highly recommend it.

I'm using this book right now, it's simple and straightforward so I recommend it