I found an excellent book for absolute beginners called Drawing with Children (A Creative Method for Adult Beginners, Too) by Mona Brookes. It’s been around for a while, so I can’t believe I hadn’t found it until now. I would like to share a little about it and my perspective on her method (so this may be more of an introduction to her book rather than a tutorial). In my previous tutorial I mention basic shapes and a little about technique. Here, Mona breaks it down even further to the basic elements of shape. And since we are beginners here, we are not so concerned with technique but rather learning to translate what we see and putting it on paper.
Here is Mona’s 5 Basic Elements of Shape:

Notice that all are abstract. Everyone draws these shapes everyday writing letters and symbols, and they are also found in everything we can see. Since you probably already know how to reproduce these, it is just a matter of using them as building blocks and turning them into something representational.
For example:

Oh my goodness! A bird!


To put this into practice: copy, copy, copy from other artists, especially those that inspire you. (Greeting cards are an excellent source of various styles if you save them like I do!) This is how you learn, just like when you had to copy the alphabet over and over again in grade school until you got it right. Don’t always expect it to be an exact copy because everyone sees things differently. Again, like the alphabet, everyone’s handwriting is different and like everything else it will take practice. However many hours you put into it, is what you will get out of it. Also, Mona encourages using markers in the beginning, so you aren’t tempted to erase. This will help build confidence and encourage creative problem solving if you feel like you “messed up”. And of course you don’t have to like everything you do. Many times professional artists only like 1 or 2 out of every 5 pieces of their own art.


Here are some exercises taken from Mona’s book for you to practice on:

And finally, here are a couple of examples from Picasso and Van Gogh for you to copy from. You can easily identify (and reproduce) all the basic elements!

If this has helped you, I encourage you to check out Mona Brookes’ book!

There’s a lot of tutorials out there on how to draw this and that but it’s usually for someone who already knows how to draw. I see a lack of tutorials on the fundamentals of line and shape which are essential to learn when just starting out or even when you are already good at drawing but aren’t quite getting the results you want. These basics will help you draw anything.


1. Holding the pencil:

2. We have the line.


Common beginner’s mistake, feathering the line:



This may be a result of fear of making a mistake, which is silly because it’s pencil! Lines can be erased! Eventually, when you begin to shade, you may not need to do as much erasing as you think.







What we want is continuity and a cohesiveness in our drawing. For that to happen, we need to be able to see the destination of the line from A to B to make one sweeping motion.


This doesn’t mean we will always land where we want to, so successive lines drawn lightly will help us get where we are going. These essentially are our guidelines and not necessarily the lines that end up in the finished product.




3. Next we have our basic shapes that pretty much make up everything we see in the universe though not always in their exactness, we should begin all drawings by identifying the overall shape:





The beginning artist needs to train the eye to recognize a plant, creature or object’s overall shape(s) first and then work their way down to the details. Again, this is how we get an overall unity and accuracy to the drawing. This not only applies to the object but to the composition of a final piece as well. There are many ways to see things, so one shape is not necessarily more correct than another shape. Ultimately it’s how the artist sees the world that will be put down on paper and give their art it’s uniqueness.


4. Let’s see this in action, a tree for example has easily identifiable shapes:



And there you have it. It doesn’t necessarily have to stop there. Once you’re pleased with the placement and proportions, you can add details to your heart’s content. Please let me know if you found this useful or if you have any questions. Happy drawing!