Freeing the hand

If you are just beginning to learn how to draw, try not to grip your pen worrying about the technical terms you might have heard. Ignore these at first and allow yourself the freedom to play. Start by choosing a material you like the look of and cover a piece of paper with different marks.

Enjoy discovering what your hand and the material can do. Choose other materials and do the same. Much will be learned on these test sheets and in your first drawings, just through the act of making. With no help and advice at all, you will naturally make progress on your own in response to concentration and the decision to look and draw. As you follow lessons in this book, take your time and don't worry if you need to make several attempts to grasp a concept.

Drawing is exploratory, and mistakes are a valuable process of learning. Try to keep all of your first drawings, even those you dislike. Put them away and look at them later, at a point when you feel you are not making progress; you will be
surprised and encouraged to see how far you have come. One of the advantages of a drawing book is that you can shut it. Pages do not have to lie open for other people to inspect and comment on. It is yours. Such books are personal: the territory of new exploration and experiment;potential ideas still forming; diary-like observations; and miscellaneous items of inspiration.