I don't consider myself a great artist, but I've always liked drawing. I used to draw when I was a kid and a teen, then did nothing as an adult. I picked it back up just a few weeks ago and I couldn't be happier with the results.

I know now what I was doing wrong as a kid. So, here's a few tips if you want to draw:

1. Use pictures to guide you through the right proportions and shading.

2. Learn how to shade. Recognize the highlights, the dark tones, and the mid tones. Work on them a little at a time. Keep building it up. Smudge (with a paper tissue), erase if you have to, and repeat. Keep going at it.

3. It's not magic. It just takes practice and patience.

4. Don't be afraid to redo the drawing from scratch. It ALWAYS comes out better the second (or third) time around. 

Here's one of the videos that helped me understand the mystery of shading. Check out her other videos for more tips and tutorials.

https://youtu.be/-WR-FyUQc6I

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I have no special tools, just regular cheap pencils, erasers, and rejected printer paper.

I scan my drawings and add color to them digitally. I find the Krita app to be most helpful with this step. I don't have a drawing pad or a touch screen - just my MacBook with its mouse pad.

My process in Krita is to import my drawing scan as a layer, add a paint layer on top of it and use one of the blend modes to colorize the picture. 

Depending on the drawing, I might add a transparency layer to cut around the picture. This results in an awesome deep background that makes the drawing stand out.

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I build my book covers in Pages (Mac equivalent of MS Word). Why? Good font control, can keep multiple image wips in one file, easy to do last-minute color adjustments. I really recommend it. I wonder, should I make a tutorial on how to use Pages to build your covers? Maybe I will.

Krita also has font features but it might take me a while to learn how to use them. I'll stick to Pages for a while.

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Other programs I've used:

Pixlr/x - this is a web app. Pretty easy to use. You can do cool image manipulation there. Be careful with adding too many layers. Krita is much better for layering.

Canva - good for making social media images, banners, and collages. I find it very limiting in terms of making covers (limited font options, images never want to do what I want them to), but if you're in a time crunch, it will do.