Hello, I joined today . . I have always wanted to learn to draw. I turned 60 and decided to quit “always wanting” and just try to get after it. In high school and college I took a ton of drafting courses, was good at it. I also travel a lot for work and a sketchbook and pencils (and colored pencils) seems like something I could throw in my backpack and take along for place rides etc. From reading here on the forum it sounds like The Secrets to Drawing would be a good place to start. If not someone can let me know. I love watching animal drawing on YouTube . . would be nice to be able to do a good drawing of my dog someday!
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Welcome @waynep ! You’ve picked a great place to start, this community is EPIC! Pencils are an awesome medium! (tip: placing something, even like a paint swatch sample, between your hand and sketchbook when drawing can ensure less-to-no smudging on your art; test the material to make sure IT doesn’t smudge the art) Please, share your art when you can, we’ll be waiting! Jesus loves you!!!
There is graphite drawing course. It is a 365 y course. It will help with you drawing. Also Matt does a lot of animal painting. Checked out his courses.
I’m in the graphite course now and I think the “25 days to better drawing” would be the best place to start. The graphite course I would put at “intermediate beginner” level, as I’ve done the pen and ink course and most all the “Getting Sketchy” YouTube videos and am very challenged by the graphite course.
I think the tips in getting sketchy and the live lessons using media you have would be the best place to start, and save your early stuff because it’s wonderful to look back and see how you improved. Don’t throw out sketchbook pages just yet, give it a few months and a few hours a day/week and you’ll amaze yourself. It’s a wonderful learning experience here that really does help you draw from not knowing any art or doodling anything more complicated than stick figures into drawing something that looks like a piece of art. It’s a great feeling when you start getting it to “look right” or how you wanted it to habitually instead of by luck.
I would not call anything I do yet “art” LOL . . . I started the Secrets of Drawing course. I am trying to draw along with him . . The apple outline looks like an apple sort of!
In high school and college I did a lot of drafting, which was before computers, so all pencil on paper drafting. I was pretty good at that. That was long ago and this just feels different. Hopefully I’ll learn something.
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I say drafting is a branch of art, so yes, you’re an artist! 
Please share when you are ready!
Well, the lead holder, rolling ruler/parallel roller, gum eraser, horse hair crumb brush, and “clean up bag” and habits do transfer over from drafting quite well. Even Matt uses the drafting brush to remove scraps instead of smearing with his hand.
I miss not having a T square and french curve to reliably get lines right, but most of art isn’t so easily broken down, so now they’re a hindrance, even a straight edge is sometimes an enemy making all your other lines look too wobbly, or the perfectly parallel lines look out of place - they work great for setting up a grid when copying an image by the grid method, though.