One of the goals that I set for myself in my Clever Fox Weekly Planner at the start of 2024 was to go through a premium art course sometime before the end of this year. With this goal in mind, I realized that the options for free websites for learning to draw are somewhat overwhelming.
Realizing this, I decided it might be prudent of me to write an article dedicated to helping others find the best free resources online for learning to draw. I plan on starting this out as just a basic list, but I intend to grow it over time as I discover new resources available. Think of it as a place to browse some of the best options for free artist training.
Top 11 Free Resources for Learning to Draw Online
1. CreativeLive.com
CreativeLive.com offers free live classes daily on a variety of art-related topics, from design fundamentals to kid’s crafts. They even have a schedule set up for a month in advance to know what courses will be free and on which day, so you don’t need to worry about missing the course you’re hoping to view for free.
CreativeLive, unlike websites such as Udemy, is exclusively art-related. Which is something I tend to prefer when looking for free art courses for myself. This website has over 650 world-class instructors and over 10 million students learning from their courses.
While it might be inconvenient for these courses to be free only when they go live, it can help build discipline and motivation to complete the selected course fully. Sometimes, the freedom to do something “whenever” backfires and we never get around to doing it.
2. YouTube
Yes, YouTube. You know, the second-most-visited website in the world? That one. There is an almost unlimited number of free art tutorial videos on YouTube, and many of them are arguably beyond the level of many paid art courses. Here are just a few channels to get you started:
There’s plenty more available, but those are a few of the ones I’m subscribed to. The one downside to YouTube is that it can be distracting. If you’re anything like me, just having YouTube up is just asking to go down a “oh that video looks interesting” rabbit-hole, and when you finally take the time to look at the clock you realize that you’ve been watching cat videos for 14 hours straight.
3. Drawspace
Drawspace is a website created for one purpose – to provide traditional drawing instructional courses. While they have well over a hundred courses available at a charge, they offer a variety of free courses. Currently, their free traditional drawing courses consist of the following:
- Getting Started with Drawing
- Introduction to Traditional Drawing
- Introduction to Drawing People
So, not a ton, but they’re professional-level courses taught by Brenda Hoddinott, Mike Sibley, and Tannis Trydal. If you’re just getting started, this might be a good starting point!
4. Ctrl+Paint
While Drawspace is focused on traditional art, Ctrl+Paint offers a library of instructional videos focused on digital drawing (with a particular focus on digital painting). They do, however, also offer some courses on traditional drawing as well if you prefer the feel of a physical pencil on paper.
Ctrl+Paint also offers a premium series of instructional videos if you’re looking to spend a little money. However, I’d recommend trying the free content first before committing to anything.
5. Anime Art Academy
Anime Art Academy is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a website dedicated to delivering high-quality drawing courses to help people looking to become excellent anime artists.
As with some of the other options on this list, Anime Art Academy isn’t completely free, but they offer a beginner’s course free of charge. If you end up really liking the free course, you can upgrade to their premium subscription or just buy the entire bundle of lessons.
6. Line of Action
Line of Action is an incredible drawing resource which loads figures in front of you based on parameters that you set. You can select figures, animals, hands & feet, faces and expressions, basic shapes & still life, or scenes & environments. However, the site’s focus is to practice poses and gestures from references. This site helps you to see the important parts of poses by forcing you to sketch quickly, thus avoiding getting tied up in the details. Their Tutorial can be summed up in the following:
- Draw the line of action
- Where the site gets their name. The “line of action” is an imaginary line that runs down the figure’s spine
- Hang the head, ribcage, and hips
- Along the line of action, find the proper location of and “hang” three circles that will represent the head, ribcage, and hips.
- Capture the limbs
- Finally, add lines or long ovals that represent the limbs. For each limb you’ll add three circles to represent the joint locations (ex: an arm will have the shoulder, elbow, and wrist).
You can adjust the time each figure is presented and what figures you want to use based on a variety of options they offer. If you’re looking to practice figure drawing, this is the place. You can also sign up for a free account to track your progress!
7. Quickposes
Similar to Line of Action, Quickposes.com is focused on practicing figures by presenting images of poses in timed intervals. Quickposes offers many of the same features as Line of Action, but isn’t quite as customizable. However, if you aren’t fond of the images presented on Line of Action, Quickposes could be a “quick” (ba-dum-tss) alternative. Quickposes also offers challenges which brings a unique spin to the figure drawing process.
8. DeviantArt Tutorials
DeviantArt is a well known social media haven for artists. What isn’t as well known, though, is how often free drawing tutorials are posted on the site. Interested in learning how to draw a tiger? There’s a tutorial for that. Need to get better at drawing eyes? There’s a tutorial for that.
DeviantArt is made FOR artists and is made BY artists. The art community forms DeviantArt into what it is today. This can be both a blessing and a curse, though, as I’ve become keenly aware of severe NSWF content spreading through the site and being passed off as “art”. They do have a filter feature though, but you’ll need to create an account to use it.
9. Reddit
If you haven’t heard of Reddit, it might actually be a blessing. Reddit touts itself as “The front page of the internet.” It’s a forum where you can create your own “subreddit” for literally any topic you want. The site is heavily political, though, which is why I tend to avoid it. However, there are great communities located on Reddit that are committed to helping other artists learn to draw. Subreddits such as r/learnart are a great place to find like-minded artists to ask for advice and improve your drawing skills. Best of all, it’s free!
10. The Virtual Instructor
I wouldn’t explicitly call this option “free,” but they do have a 7-day free trial that provides immediate access to hundreds of courses on learning how to draw. Typically you can just cancel subscriptions right after signing up and it’ll just end once your free trial is up rather than charging a card (that’s what I do, lol). So yeah, 7 days worth of free content! Though, if you can afford it, it really is just under $14/month for a large collection of awesome drawing lessons.
The Virtual Instructor offers courses for beginners and experts, as well as both traditional and digital lessons. They cover a large array of art mediums and it’d be a long time before you ran out of content.
11. Instagram
Oh Instagram, how we love thee. Without you, I’d never have been able to see the delicious meals that random people I’ve never met are about to eat. But I’d also never get to see all the incredible artwork shared by artists around the world.
Instagram has grown to become one of the most popular social media sites in the world, and it’s not hard to understand why. Most artists will use Instagram to share their artwork, and many will share instructional tutorials completely free of charge.
Final Thoughts
I didn’t want to add this as an actual item on the list, but I also post how-to articles regularly on my blog, which is another free resource!
So there you have it. Those are my top recommended free websites for learning to draw online. I’ll come back regularly to update this as I find new resources, but if you have any other recommendations, please add them in the comments below, and I might add a section to the article if I agree!
Thank you for reading!
hi i’m new here can you teach me how to draw
Hi Alison! I wouldn’t consider myself qualified to teach, but is there something in particular you wanted to learn?