For real, you CAN learn to draw in 30 days.

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THE REVOLUZIONNE

6 min readJan 12, 2017

INT — BEDROOM, CIRCA 1987: Monroe, age 10, boy, always wanted to draw. And he always liked to draw. He just wasn’t very good at it.

CUT TO:

INT — BEDROOM, CIRCA 1997: Sure, he could spend about three hours, carefully doing each line, cm by cm, and he could get something that looked halfway decent, but it was so labor intensive, and as a result, not very much fun. He did a few drawings here and there, but he didn’t know how to replicate anything he was doing. He didn’t understand any principles. He gave up trying to learn to draw.

CUT TO:

INT — BEDROOM, Winter, 2016: In December, he realized that he had to learn to draw.

Why?

Well, lately, as many of you know, I’ve enrolled at The Firehose Project (a kickass coding bootcamp), learning to become a ruby on rails developer. I also study at FreeCodeCamp and CodeAcademy.com.

But alas, if I know how to code in many programming languages, and understand HTML and CSS, what good did that do if the web apps that I created were not attractive?

So… in the last few months, I’ve been asking around about how to become a decent designer without going to a lengthy design program. Someone told me, “First thing, you need to learn to draw. And draw well.” Sigh, I thought, that ain’t gonna happen. This person referred me to this book:

Yeah, yet another “how to draw” book. I was skeptical, but this person told me that it was the best book on how to draw ever created. Oh come on, really? That good?

I went to Amazon, and whoah — the reviews all said the exact same thing. I was mesmerized and intrigued to no end.

So I bought it. And in the first lesson, you have to do a ‘pre-test’.

So on Christmas Day, 2016, I pulled out my pencil, got some paper, and here are the three results from my pre-test:

a) a house that looks like it’s going to fall down;

b) an airplane that a kindergardener could draw better; and

c) what sort of does look like the bagel it’s supposed to be, with lots of cat scratches all over it.

Without further ado, here are exhibits A, B, and C:

Alas, I wasn’t too impressed with myself either.

I also was still skeptical that I could learn how to draw from a book. Over the years, I’ve bought about 20 “how to draw” books. None of them worked. It was so demoralizing.

But, I had to learn to draw, remember? And so, with a glimmer of hope, and a healthy dose of continuing skepticism, I opened up to lesson one, and began day 1.

Twenty-five minutes later, look what I drew:

Not too bad! See those shadows? See the depth? I DID THAT! Just by following the instructions.

Day 2, Day 4

Day 5 (4 pages — all in about 30–40 minutes):

If you’re wondering what I wrote in Chinese in the bottom photo, it’s 非常好! 我会画画！Translation: Totally awesome! I can draw!

And unbelievable, only after lesson 6, I realized that fact: I WAS DOING IT! I WAS REALLY DOING IT. Moreover, I wasn’t just copying: I was learning principles that I can apply to anything I draw from imagination from this poit forward. And I’m just on lesson 7 (OF THIRTY!)

Here is what I drew today, January 12th, in lesson 7:

Day 7 Drawing of a mini-castle of sorts.

It’s important to keep in mind that I’ve only spent 7 days over the last two weeks doing these simple 20-minute lessons. And I have no formal training in drawing.

I originally posted a version of this story in the Firehose Slack channel, for my fellow coders to read. I was pleasantly surprised when the co-founder of the school, Ken Mazaika, jumped in with some nice compliments, told me that he thinks this could be a really useful skill, was impressed that someone could actually “learn” to draw, and told me that he was going to give it a try too! Awesome!

I realized then that maybe more people than just the coders in my school could benefit; perhaps people the world over could benefit too. So I decided to post this story here too. And thanks to Ken & Marco for requiring us Firehose students to create a blog. Smart thinking guys! :P

So what’s next?

Supposedly, by the end of this drawing course, I’ll be drawing hands, faces, roses, and whatnot — all with ease, and totally realistically. If I didn’t already see the amazing progress I myself have made already, after just 6 short twenty-minute lessons, I would be as skeptical as can be. But amazingly, if you just follow what the book says, and just do 20 minutes per lesson, the progress just happens. (I sound like an infomercial for some ‘magic substance’) — and yet, in many ways, I honestly believe this book is a magic substance. Hats off to the author, Mark Kistler.

‘Cause now… I am not skeptical at all. Just as Firehose is turning me into a coding machine, this book is turning me into a real-life pencil drawer of the highest order. Okay, maybe the third or fourth or tenth highest order, but nonetheless, you get my point:

Can.

Finally.

Draw!

CONCLUSION:
a) If you like this post, click the heart below!
b) Tell your wannabe artist friends about this post. They will thank you forever.
c) Tell all your front-end coder friends about this post. They will thank you forever.
d) Go out and buy the book I mentioned above today and get started on YOUR pre-test. And then watch your progress blossom almost immediately before your very eyes!

Finally, if you want to keep up on my drawing development, follow this blog! I will continue to post each lesson’s results up here for you to see over the next few months! Let’s see how much better I really get!

Written by Monroe Mann.

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