Incidentally, can we settle one thing now? It's a drawing book, not a sketchbook. A sketch is something done in a hurry. The very word sketch implies something unfinished, hurried, unimportant.
Drawing, on the other hand, is done slowly, in a measured way, calling on the full powers and concentration of the draughtsman. It's a task involving hand and eye and mind, memory and perception, the juggling of rules and craft and the inspiration of the moment.
A sketch is something you throw away. A drawing is a treasure. And drawing - whatever the current orthodoxy declares - is the centre of art.
I read a line in Martin Gayford's book about David Hockney, in which the author and painter spoke of a contemporary artist who said he didn't draw, just as people 'no longer rode a horse to work'.
My opinion? If you can't draw, you're not really an artist.
It's like someone illiterate declaring themselves a writer, or a tone deaf mute insisting they can sing. It would be like me claiming to have a full head of lovely hair. It's simply not the case. Some careers have a minimum entry requirement, and to me, calling yourself an artist demands that you have some competence with a pencil and a sheet of paper, to the extent that you can make a recognizable effort at drawing whatever's in front of you.
Drawing is the central competence of art. That's just the way it is. It's not really negotiable.
Drawing teaches you to see, in a way that photography or video never will - these mechanical means are a way of not looking at the world, a delegation of the task of sight, a way to avoid the responsibility of seeing. And seeing is the only important thing an artist does. Artists show the rest of us what the world looks like.
If you want to learn how to draw, join a life class at your local college. Then do a Google image search on drawings by Renaissance artists, download a few to your desktop, print out the best and copy them freehand. Google Harold Speed and John Ruskin to find free PDF downloads of their books.
I don't recommend the arts section of your local library. Most of the books about drawing in mine have the words 'Fast!' or 'Easy!' in the title, and were written by people who not only can't draw, but also don't realize the fact. Sadly, the same applies to many of the hundreds of YouTube videos on drawing and painting.
The good news is that a Google image search will turn up many examples of good drawing for you to ponder over and copy. The whole of art history is there online, at your disposal.
