Reddit mentions of Drawing from Observation: An Introduction to Perceptual Drawing

The key is just to practice a lot.

Go to an art store, buy a pencil set, some compressed charcoal, some newsprint, a kneaded eraser, a blending, and a drawing board.

I could never draw, but this semester I took a drawing class and I'm surprised with how much I've progressed.

The teacher never actually showed us how to draw anything. In class he would set up a still-life and we'd just draw it. He'd walk around giving us advice about how to think and how to see.

We used this book. For the first few weeks we practiced a technique known as gesture drawing.

To gesture draw: draw fast, draw energetically, don't edit, if you make a mistake then just draw over it--don't worry about erasing early on. Initially your drawings will probably be bad and you will feel a lot of frustration. To learn to draw you just have to accept that and keep moving.(several people in my class dropped because they couldn't handle how bad their drawings were. Had they stuck with it they probably would be much better now)

Also save all your work. I've saved all my work from this semester and it's surprising how far I progressed. My early drawings look like a child's scribbles while my final drawings are pretty good.