Drawing Tutorials & Courses | Free Beginner Drawing Lessons
Seventy-hour weeks at my bike shop making tons of cash but feeling miserable taught me: chasing shortcuts leads nowhere. Same with art - skip fundamentals for quick results and you'll stay frustrated. Drawing basics unlock every creative possibility.
Welcome to my Drawing Hub — a collection of free beginner drawing tutorials, exercises, and courses designed to build your foundation. From contour and negative space to shading, proportions, and full projects, these lessons will help you improve your drawing skills step by step.
Now, why all this emphasis on fundamentals? Let me share a story.
Years ago, I opened a bike rental shop. Back then, the only thing that mattered to me was money. I worked 70-hour weeks, and it wasn't a good day unless I made a pile of cash. But after a few years, even though I was making more than ever, I was in the worst place of my life — unhealthy, unhappy, and disconnected from the people I loved. I realized I'd been chasing the wrong thing.
Art works the same way. It's tempting to chase results — a certain style, a finished look that seems effortless — but if you skip the fundamentals, none of it holds. Drawing is that foundation. It's what gives you the freedom to create loosely, tightly, realistically, or abstractly.
You have to construct before you can deconstruct. And that's exactly what these tutorials will help you do — build the skills that unlock every creative possibility.
Featured Beginner Courses
How to Draw — Complete Beginner’s Course
Learn the core skills every artist needs. This free course covers essential techniques like contour drawing, negative space, proportion, and shading. Perfect for beginners or anyone looking to refresh their fundamentals. Start Learning →
How to Draw Hands — Step-by-Step Course
Hands are one of the most challenging subjects for artists, but this free course breaks them down into simple shapes and techniques. You’ll learn proportions, anatomy basics, and how to capture realistic poses without overcomplicating your drawings. Start Drawing Hands Today →
How to Draw Heads - Beginner to Advanced Skills
Discover how to draw a head from the very beginning to advanced ideas. This is a new course getting built and a great time to jump in and work along with me. Start Drawing Heads Today →
How to Draw Figures - Beginner to Intermediate Skills
Discover how to figures from the very beginning. This is a brand new course getting built and a great time to jump in and watch module one now. Start Drawing Figures Today →
Beginner Drawing Projects
These three projects will help solidify your drawing skills by applying shapes, forms, and shading to simple, everyday objects.
👉 How to Draw a Coffee Cup →
👉 How to Draw a Tube of Paint →
👉 How to Draw and Shade a Hammer →
Vehicle Drawing
How to Draw Cars: Foundation Method – Stop jumping to car details first! This systematic approach teaches you to see vehicles as 3D forms in space. Builds directly on Perspective Foundations concepts. Complete breakdown with measuring techniques, timed challenges, and step-by-step demonstrations.
Architectural Drawing
How to Draw Buildings: Foundation Method – Apply the systematic box method to architecture. Same tracking principles as cars but with more obvious perspective lines. Builds directly on Perspective Foundations concepts. Complete series covers foundation approach, timed challenges, and real teaching demonstrations. Perfect for building confidence with structural subjects.
Perspective Foundations
Understanding how forms work in space is essential before tackling complex subjects. These tutorials cover practical perspective methods that work for real artwork.
Two-Point Perspective: Why I Don't Teach It (But Here's How It Works) – The formal rules explained, plus why tracking lines work better when vanishing points fall off your page. Essential theory without the impractical setup.
Drawing Complex Scenes: Multiple Objects in One-Point Perspective – Moving beyond single objects. Learn to combine houses, vehicles, and landscape elements in unified space where everything agrees about perspective.
Drawing from Cropped Photos: Finding the Offset Vanishing Point – Most online references are edited. Detective work for finding hidden vanishing points in cropped images so your drawings stay spatially consistent.
40-Minute Perspective Challenge: 8 Complex Scenes you can draw to test your skills
My Results from the 40-Minute Challenge: See how I approached the perspective assignment
Student Critiques: Complex Scene Drawing Mistakes
Value Hierarchy Tutorials
- Value Hierarchy Basics: Why Your Paintings Look Flat
- Applying Value Hierarchy to Complex Scenes
- Student Value Hierarchy Critiques: Drawing Foundation Problems
Specialty Drawing Lessons
- Contour & Blind Contour Drawing – Improve your observation and hand–eye coordination.
- Negative Space Drawing – See the shapes around your subject to improve accuracy.
- Opposite Hand Drawing – A fun drawing exercise to break habits and boost skills.
- How to Draw the Human Head - It's begun! The first series of lessons are now available with more added daily.
- Figure Drawing for Beginners – Learn proportions, gesture, and anatomy in a simple, approachable way.
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