Stop overthinking it. Seriously. Most people pick up a pencil, stare at a blank sheet of paper, and expect a masterpiece to just happen. It won't. Drawing is less about some magical "talent" you’re born with and more about understanding how to break a complex shape into a bunch of boring ones. If you can draw a circle, a triangle, and a messy rectangle, you’ve already won half the battle.
The internet is flooded with tutorials, but a lot of them skip the "why." They show you a finished eye and then a finished face. That’s not helpful. Real easy to draw step by step methods rely on construction lines—the faint, ugly marks you erase later that actually hold the whole image together.
The Secret Geometry of "Easy" Drawings
Everything is a box. Or a ball.
If you want to draw a cat, don't start with the fur. Don't even start with the ears. Start with a large oval for the ribcage and a smaller circle for the head. This is what professional animators call "gestural construction." You’re building a skeleton.
When you look at the work of someone like Andrew Loomis—whose books from the 1940s are still the gold standard for illustrators—he doesn't start with eyelashes. He starts with a sphere. He chops the sides off that sphere to create the flat planes of the human temple. It looks clinical and weird at first, but it ensures that when you finally add the nose, it’s actually in the right place.
Most beginners fail because they draw what they think they see rather than what is actually there. Your brain has a "symbol library." When I say "eye," your brain wants to draw a football shape with a circle in the middle. But look closer. An eye is actually a sphere tucked behind two skin flaps (eyelids). If you draw the sphere first, the eyelids naturally wrap around it. It’s a total game-changer for realism.
Why Your "Simple" Flowers Look Like Cabbages
Let’s talk about flowers. Everyone wants to draw them. They seem easy. You draw a circle, you add some petals, and suddenly it looks like a kindergartner's refrigerator art.
👉 See also: Black Red Wing Shoes: Why the Heritage Flex Still Wins in 2026
The trick to an easy to draw step by step flower, specifically something like a rose, is "the bowl." Instead of drawing flat petals, draw a tea cup. That’s your base. The petals then "hug" the cup. Some fold over the edge, others stay tucked inside. By thinking in 3D, you bypass the flat, boring look that plagues most amateur sketches.
Perspective matters too, even in simple stuff. A coffee mug isn't just a cylinder. The top is an ellipse. Depending on your eye level, that ellipse might be narrow or wide. If you’re looking straight at the side of the mug, the top and bottom edges are actually curved, not flat lines. If you draw them flat, the mug looks like it’s being crushed by an invisible force.
The "Messy" Phase No One Shows You
Social media has ruined our perception of art. You see a 30-second reel where a hand moves fast and—poof—a dragon appears.
What they don't show is the fifteen minutes of "searching lines." These are the light, scratchy marks artists use to find the right shape. You shouldn't be pressing hard on the paper. If you’re denting the page, you’re doing it wrong. You want to barely whisper the pencil across the surface. This allows you to "sculpt" the drawing.
Think of it like carving a statue out of marble. You don't start by carving the fingernails. You whack off big chunks of stone until it vaguely looks like a human. Drawing is the same.
- Step 1: Ghost in the largest shapes.
- Step 2: Check the "negative space" (the empty air around the object).
- Step 3: Refine the angles.
- Step 4: Darken the "true" lines and erase the "searching" lines.
How to Draw a Realistic Face Without Panicking
Human faces are intimidating. We are biologically wired to spot even the tiniest mistake in a face—it’s called the "uncanny valley." But if you follow a basic easy to draw step by step proportional guide, you can’t really mess it up that badly.
✨ Don't miss: Finding the Right Word That Starts With AJ for Games and Everyday Writing
Most people place the eyes too high. They put them near the top of the head. In reality, your eyes are almost exactly in the center of your skull. If you measure from the chin to the top of the head, the eyes sit on that middle line.
The space between your eyes? It’s usually the width of one eye. The edges of your nostrils usually line up with the inner corners of your eyes. The corners of your mouth usually line up with the centers of your pupils when you’re looking straight ahead. These aren't "rules" so much as they are averages, but they give you a map. Without a map, you’re just wandering around the paper hoping to stumble into a likeness.
Shading: The Difference Between 2D and 3D
You’ve got your outline. It looks okay. But it’s flat.
To make it pop, you need a light source. Pick a corner of the paper. That’s your sun. Everything on the opposite side of that sun needs to be darker. But here’s the mistake: people just scribble gray everywhere.
Real shading has layers. You have the "core shadow," which is the darkest part of the object. Then you have the "mid-tone." But the secret ingredient is "reflected light." Even on the dark side of an apple, there’s a tiny bit of light bouncing off the table and hitting the bottom of the fruit. If you leave a tiny sliver of lighter gray at the very edge of your shadow, the object will suddenly look like it’s sitting in real space.
It feels counterintuitive to put light inside a shadow, but that’s how physics works. Try it. It’ll blow your mind how much more professional your work looks instantly.
🔗 Read more: Is there actually a legal age to stay home alone? What parents need to know
Stop Buying Expensive Gear
You do not need a $50 set of pencils. Honestly, a standard yellow #2 pencil (which is technically an HB lead) can do almost everything.
The only "pro" tool I actually recommend for beginners is a kneaded eraser. It looks like a gray blob of chewing gum. Instead of rubbing it across the paper and tearing the fibers, you just press it onto the graphite to lift the color away. It’s perfect for creating highlights in hair or eyes without making a mess.
Apart from that, just use cheap printer paper. If you use expensive "art paper," you’ll be too scared to mess up. You’ll be stiff. You’ll be precious with your lines. To get good, you need to be willing to draw a hundred terrible drawings. Use the cheap stuff so you can fail without feeling like you’re wasting money.
Actionable Steps to Improve Today
If you want to actually get better at easy to draw step by step projects, stop following "how to draw a specific thing" tutorials and start practicing "how to see."
- The Upside Down Trick: Take a simple line drawing, flip it upside down, and try to copy it. This forces your brain to stop seeing "a chair" or "a hand" and starts forcing it to see lines and angles. It’s the fastest way to bypass your brain's "symbol library."
- Blind Contour Drawing: Look at an object (like your own hand) and draw it without looking at your paper. Don't lift the pencil. It will look like a literal bird's nest of scribbles, and that’s fine. This builds the hand-eye connection that is vital for more advanced work.
- The 10-Minute Limit: Give yourself ten minutes to draw something. Then do it again in five. Then two. This stops you from "petting the line"—that habit of making tiny, hairy strokes instead of one confident, clean line.
- Value Scales: Take your pencil and draw a long rectangle. Divide it into five squares. Leave the first one white. Make the last one as black as the pencil allows. Fill the middle three with graduating shades of gray. If you can’t control your hand enough to make five distinct shades, you’ll never be able to shade a face properly.
Drawing isn't a gift from the gods. It's a mechanical skill, like typing or driving a car. You’re training your hand to follow your eyes, and your eyes to actually see what’s in front of them. It’s kinda frustrating at first, but once the "click" happens, everything changes. You'll stop seeing a "car" and start seeing a collection of ellipses, rectangles, and reflected highlights. That is when you truly start drawing.