"Anyone who has any aptitude at drawing will be asked at some point “how do I learn how to do that?”, and it seems to me that when people care to go into a more elaborate response than “Practice all the time” they are usually advising people to read up on a lot of Hogarth and Loomis, and learn all of the fundamentals before they start trying to get creative. I think one of the best pieces of drawing advice for beginners I ever saw was once upon a time on DeviantArt when Modus Operandi’s artist Tish Doolin told someone that if you were just picking up a pencil and trying this drawing thing out for the first time, it’s going to benefit you more to draw things that you have fun with than struggling with dry fundamentals right out of the gate."
You can read the rest of her post here. It's pretty long, but it's good reading. Expressing yourself artistically takes investing some time and effort into the endeavor. She uses the analogy of learning a new language--you don't expect to be fluent after paging through a few pages of a Spanish textbook, likewise you're not going to be Monet after painting once or twice.
She references and links to several helpful resources, one of which is this essay/tutorial.
I've come across similar guides in the past, but I found this particular one to be very well done and quite informative. It's surprisingly academic (but not in a over-your-head incomprehensible way) in that it's not simply about drawing. To draw well, you have to understand some basic ideas. To draw really well and to own your artistic style, you also have to know some art theory, which is not as scary as it sounds. I've referred to the landmark graphic novel Understanding Comics by Scott Mccloud in the past. This essay paraphrases a lot of his ideas into simpler, shorter form. I'd suggest reading the book for a fuller understanding of symbols and the styles of representation in art.
