Has anyone here learnt to draw at a later age, like 30+? What has been your experience and process?

Yea, I've been working on it.

It helps to try a lot of different mediums and styles to see what works for you. I have trouble with lines/proportions so I figured "what's simpler than a line?" and the conclusion I came to was "well... a dot...".

Tried this out and while it takes longer, the quality I achieved was much better than what i had been doing previously:

https://files.catbox.moe/iscz75.jpg

I got started pretty recently!

I wanted a cheap drawing tablet for taking whiteboard style handwritten notes for a totally different project.

Decided since I had it I would play around with making some art. I ended up really enjoying it! It’s super relaxing.

Basically I just have Krita, which is free. Then I’ll take photographs or otherwise source images that I might want to paint, and try to recreate them as a reference. NOT tracing, but having the image side by side with the drawing. I find that to be the best for learning. I’m primarily a musician, and that’s how I was taught to learn music as well (listen to a piece and try to recreate it).

I checked out a few youtube videos about colors as well. Similar to above, I knew I didn’t want to just use a color picker to match the reference image (and I think the result would be bad anyway). So I watched how oil painters and watercolor people made their colors by eye, and have tried to recreate that process in Krita. This part has been the most fascinating, a lot of times your brain tells you you’re looking at a certain color, but because of shadows and lighting and stuff you have to know to choose a totally different color to produce that effect.

I’m pretty happy with it and I want to keep practicing so I can hand paint my own album art someday! 30+ too of course, altho now that I know I enjoy it I wish I had started much earlier

50+ here. I recently started.

Some paper, a pencil. Later, I added some watercolors and switched to fountain pen instead of the pencil and that's about it. OK, the truth is that I also enjoy trying new materials just for the fun of it but, really, all I use is the fountain pen, a set of watercolors and some nice paper.

I watched (too) many YT videos but did not learn much (probably a me issue, mind you, but I considered there was too many repetitive content, too much talking heads, too much 'wow' and way too much focus on gear instead of actual sketching/painting content). Then, I purchased Proko's beginner class (whether you're analog or digital, it won't change a thing). I'm still following the course as of now (I'm real slow learner because old me regularly needs to spend a lot of time not drawing and not moving much at all, for that matter) but it's an excellent course. It's focused, entertaining and, well, it's highly competent. Worth every cent.

My only regret? Not having started much, much younger has there is no shortcut to practice and practice takes time, a lot of it. So, stop hesitating and start. Don't be afraid as you can only get better ;)

Also, the older one gets, the slower one learns... but I plan on keeping learning and sketching for as long as I can.

Also, just in case that would worry you, I have no issue at all knowing I'm not a skilled artist and never will publish a book or make an expo or whatever. I don't care. I enjoy doing sketching because it's fun, relaxing and because it feels great... even when it's frustrating, btw. It's a positive frustration, one that pushes me to try to do better with the next sketch and one that makes rejoice every time I manage to do exactly that (better) ;)

30 plus here. I just started drawing everyday. Little gestures to work on people. I will caution you not to take too long of a break once you have a roll going. I worked everyday to get to a certain speed and skill level then stopped for a while due to issues and lost some skill but I can still draw okay.

As you improve there will be a difference between what you can see and what you can do, your perception will improve faster than your hands. This will be frustrating but every artist deals with it and it is a sign of clear growth. If you really like what you are doing that is great but if you bage what you have made and can only see mistakes, take note of the mistakes learn from them and move on. You have more to draw.

Also please study from photo refs and real people for a good while it helps build your understanding of how things fit in space and especially the structures people and animals.

I recommend adorkastock.com for references of real people but there are plenty out there.

I've always known how to draw, but it's only in the last few years that my skills have improved to something that can be worked with.

One could compare my early effigy-like graphics...

...to my modern ability to accurately depict real people.

I also discovered along the way that I'm an inherent natural with chalk, something historically considered difficult to work with.

Not in my 30s, but didn't really start until college really. Just draw. Over and over and every day. Something my first professors had us do was to draw the figure or still life in front of us in 5 minutes. Then 2 minutes, then 1, and we eventually got to 10 second drawings. The point was to not obsess over details when you start your draw. Start with that framework and build onto it. That single exercise helped me the most and got me way further ahead way faster than I anticipated.

To be fair I always doodled around a little and was curious but started for real quite late. Decided to do the "make a comics and learn to draw" by forcing myself to sit down every day to fiddle at least 5 minutes.

That didn't work, it became more 30m-1h every 3 days or the rare 8h day, but one day it was totally painless to draw, sketch and I just wanted to get better and eventually I had my 42 ugly pages.

I took a course when I understood that I seriously didn't understand color, and now I paint too!

So the only thing holding you back if it doesn't work is yourself, just do it repetedly.

Good luck!

I suck but it's fun to just give it a go.

This site started on Reddit but migrated elsewhere.

https://drawabox.com/

I can't really draw nature/animals/plants/humans.

But I have learned to draw furniture and some interior design.

The key for me is to use math notebooks, with a grid on the paper, then I can work with the scale.

I recommend the Whitelines notbooks, they are really nice to use, and you can scan them with an app and remove the grid from the scanned immage.