How to start sketching: ten minutes a day

To start sketching, get a pencil and a cheap notebook, and draw one ordinary object for ten minutes a day, looking at the object more than at the paper. That is the whole method. Talent, special pencils and a sense of what kind of artist you are can all wait.

A sketch is closer to a question than to a picture. You are asking: what shape is this, really? Where does the light sit on it? Why does the cup handle bend the way it does? The drawing is a record of your answers, and early answers are allowed to be wrong.

What you need, and what you don't

• A pencil. An ordinary HB pencil, the kind people write with, is fine. A ballpoint pen also works, and it stops you erasing, which is a useful habit to break early.
• A notebook you are not afraid to ruin. Cheap paper invites more attempts than expensive paper.
• Something to look at: a mug, a shoe, your own hand, a houseplant.

You don't need a box of twelve pencils or a course before you begin. Those questions answer themselves later, if they matter at all.

Look more than you draw

Most beginners look at the object once, then draw what a mug is supposed to look like. The result is a symbol of a mug, not this mug, with its chip on the rim and its handle leaning slightly to one side.

So reverse the habit. Glance at the paper only to check where your pencil is, then look back at the object. Your eyes should spend most of the ten minutes on the mug. It feels slow. It is slow. That is the part doing the work.

Exercise 1: the blind contour

Here is something to try today, in five minutes.

• Put your hand on the table in front of you.
• Rest your pencil on the paper and fix your eyes on the edge of your hand.
• Move your eyes slowly along that edge, and let the pencil follow at the same speed, without looking down.
• Keep going for two or three minutes without lifting the pencil.

The drawing will look strange. That is expected. The point is not the picture; it is teaching your hand to follow your eye. It is a little like learning to walk on ice: you only get steady once you stop staring at your feet.

Exercise 2: find the simple shapes

Almost everything can be built from a few plain solids: boxes, cylinders, spheres and cones. A mug is a cylinder with a bent tube stuck to its side. A shoe is a long, squashed box with a wedge at the back. A pear is two spheres that have been persuaded to share.

• Choose one object.
• Draw it first as those plain shapes, very lightly.
• Then draw the real edges over the top, pressing a little harder.

Light first lines are not cheating. They are scaffolding, and nobody blames a builder for scaffolding.

Exercise 3: draw the light

Once outlines feel less frightening, add shadow. Put your object near a window or a single lamp so the light comes from one side. Then squint. Squinting blurs the small details and leaves large patches of light and dark, which are much easier to see.

• Shade the darkest patches first.
• Leave the brightest patches as bare paper.
• Draw the shadow the object throws onto the table. It often explains the shape better than the object does.

I still don't fully understand why one shadow on a table makes a flat drawing feel solid so quickly. Perhaps the eye trusts anything that seems to be standing on the ground. That question is still open in my notebook, and you are welcome to add your own answer to yours.

Make it a habit, not a project

Ten minutes a day is enough to begin. A hypothetical month of this routine gives you about thirty small drawings, which is thirty more than most people who mean to learn ever make.

• Draw the same object for a week. Each day you will notice something you missed the day before.
• Date every page.
• Don't tear pages out. The bad sketches are the map of how you got better.
• Draw in odd places: at the bus stop, in the kitchen while the water boils, in a waiting room.

When a sketch goes wrong

It will, often. A sketch that goes wrong is still information. Ask what went wrong: is the handle too big, the top too round, the shadow on the wrong side? Then draw it again beside the first attempt, so you can compare the two.

Water does something similar. When a stream meets a stone, it does not stop; it tries the left side, then the right, and keeps whichever path works. Your second drawing is the stream trying the other side of the stone.

Your first page today

• Pick the nearest mug.
• Put it by a window.
• Draw it once as a blind contour, once as simple shapes, and once with light and shadow.
• Write today's date at the top.

Three drawings, perhaps fifteen minutes. Tomorrow, draw the same mug again, or a different one. In a few weeks, compare today's page with your newest. That comparison is the best reason to keep the notebook.