With all the many resources available on the internet: video tutorials, articles, blog posts, and books, it’s easier than ever to acquire art knowledge!

Often, I get questions about my art books, so I made a list of books that I own to help anyone else out on their art journey.

Some of these books are books I studied in college to learn how to draw, many are books I’ve picked up from my local library to preview and put on my wish list to buy in the future.

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards

If you have never, ever drawn before in your life, this book will help you learn how to not only start but enjoy putting marks on the page.

Keys to Drawing by Bert Dodson

A straightforward book going through the steps of putting pencil to paper. It goes through lines, shapes, and patterns to give you an understanding of the physical act of drawing instead of hitting you with all the technical stuff.

Picture This – How Pictures Work by Molly Bang

This book will demonstrate the basics of composition. Composition can truly make or break your artwork, possibly more than good anatomy or perspective, so knowing composition is a big deal!

Perspective Made Easy by Ernest R Norling

I might be throwing you in the deep end with this, but the biggest thing to learn if you want to be an artist whether professional or not, is how to draw in perspective. This book will help you learn how to draw with a sense of 3D depth and space.

The Figure by Walt Reed

This book is great for learning the general structure and key points of the human body. As an artist and not a medical illustrator, you have a bit more freedom to fudge the details. But this book is my personal favorite at highlighting specific landmarks of the human figure that will keep up the suspension of disbelief.

Drawing Scenery: Landscape and Seascapes by Jack Hamm

After you get a better grasp on perspective, this book with help you understand how to start creating outdoor scenery. This book isn’t a good alternative to actually going outside and drawing what you see, but it can help reduce the indecision of where to start drawing in a landscape.

How to Render by Scott Robertson

This book is a bit of a doorstoper, and it might require you to read Robertson’s previous book How to Draw, but this book will get yourself learning how to not only draw objects but think about how to draw objects reacting to light and shadow thus giving them form.

Imaginative Realism by James Gurney

This book is the best book about showing you how to use references you gather. You aren’t copying them, but getting inspiration and utilizing the world around you to create new images will be easier than imagining from your head!

How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way by Stan Lee and John Buscema

A great start to learning about comics. There are many techniques here that are made easier with the advent of digital software, but the core of making comics is still there to help you get started.

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud

If you want to make comics it will help to know what Comics are and what the language and syntax of comics is. This is great for if you’ve never made a comic in your life and explains why comics are formatted like they are.

Framed Ink by Marcos Mateu-Mestre

This book specializes on storyboarding and camera angles to plan out your compositions and make your art more readable as a storytelling tool! Reiterating on the basic composition books, this book dives into applying that knowledge to more practical uses.

The DC Comics Guide to Inking Comics by Klaus Janson

Aa you know, DC has professional comic book inkers who know their stuff . It focuses on showing you the many techniques to learn how to make pen, ink and line art legible for comics and print.

The Animators Survival Guide by Richard Williams

This book contains the core fundamentals of animation in general! I refer to ot all the time whenever I’m stuck figuring out how to draw an certain animation loop. If you learn all of this book, and you’ll have learned 80% of animation knowledge.

Graphic Artists Guild Pricing and Ethical Guidelines

If you want to do art professionally and get paid actual money for it, BUY, READ, AND MEMORIZE THIS BOOK! Acquire this book however you can, but READ this book as early in your career as possible, so you won’t be a starving artist at the beginning.

This isn’t the end all be all of resources to learn art, so I encourage you to do you own hunting through Google, exploring your local library, and chatting with other artists when you can!

In the meantime, I made a constantly updating archive of Book List with on my Resources Page. Stop by sometimes to see new recommendations of books I don’t have listed in this post.