Often, problems encountered during the earliest days of learning to draw predate shading, details, and style. They start when the eye sees a mug, a foot, or a sofa while the pencil attempts to capture that single object at a time. It is common to see rigid lines, awkward scale, and everything look off when that occurs. It is better to simply learn to see objects in terms of shapes and to master those basic shapes. Circles, boxes, cylinders, triangles, and simple guide lines help simplify a subject and give a form to seeing. If you learn to begin with shapes on a piece of paper, it is less frightening to draw, as you are not trying to draw a face or a tree, only a number of distinct relationships that get built up through each iteration.
Try this exercise for the first five minutes by grabbing a common object like a mug, a shoe, or a piece of cloth, and put it in front of you on a table. Spend the first minute just looking at it without drawing. Observe the highest point, the lowest point, the widest point, the angle, and the largest shadow mass. Then, draw a very large container shape around the entire object, as if drawing an invisible envelope surrounding the object. Inside that container, draw out the largest forms of the object in very light lines, keeping down your pressure so it is easy to make an edit. Let your pencil capture the angle of the cup if it is leaning. Overstate that relative comparison, where it is bigger across the top than the bottom, if you need to in order for your eye to begin to see that relationship. Now, spend another few minutes checking that relative relationship by making sure the handle begins too high, the bend of the shoe is not too dramatic, or that the cloth does not extend as far as you originally thought it did. It is from making comparisons before the pencil darkens lines that the real learning occurs.
A frequent error that can occur in drawing begins when the pencil attempts to make the first pass appear like a finished drawing. Early students will press down too hard too soon, tracing in the outer contour and then failing to see the form. That may look clean enough at first glance, but it can appear too flat or distorted in the end since the drawing was built on the surface rather than the volume. To prevent this error, approach the first stage of the sketch as structure rather than appearance. Draw through the object even when it cannot actually be seen. For example, a mug begins to look more natural when you are able to draw the full circle at the rim of the object and see the cylinder go back behind that line. A sleeve is also easier to handle if you draw the arm inside that sleeve as a simple cylinder. Although those construction lines that you are now drawing can look awkward, they are training your hand to be correct. Once you have a believable structural beginning to your drawing, it is a whole lot easier to work on those actual edges.
If the drawing is not progressing the way you want it to, avoid the common temptation to just start the whole drawing from scratch on a clean page. Take a few minutes, and check just one relationship. Check if the drawing height relates properly to the drawing width. Is the angle of that line similar in degree to the angle of the line right next to it? Is the surrounding negative space the same size as the object? This usually reveals where your eye is making a mistake faster than you would notice by looking at the object itself. If you still are not happy with the drawing, turn the piece of paper upside down, so you do not get caught up in thinking of an object as a real thing, but can instead check for those angles, distances, and balance. Progress in drawing rarely comes from big gestures. It is often better to correct small mistakes at a faster pace, as that allows for a more relaxed drawing.
A simple 15-minute block of practice time can build this type of skill very well. For the first 3 minutes, observe and place the large container shape. For the next 5 minutes, draw those large forms of the object within that container in light pencil. Then, using 4 minutes, check the relationships and redraw any parts where the drawing has drifted from the observation. Finally, choose one spot of the drawing to darken, maybe the rim of a cup, the turn of a leaf, or the line of a cup handle. What is important about all these exercises is that they help develop restraint. You do not need to clean up your entire drawing. You need to understand a single form a bit better than you did yesterday. This simple exercise, repeated a few times throughout the week, helps you make more regular progress than a long session where your focus can lapse and your corrections can become sloppy.
In time, exercises focused on shape can change how you begin to perceive the world around you. Your brain begins to look for a shape rather than an object. It is a very small shift but it is a very significant one. That sketch is no longer a test of your art skills, but rather a record of your observations; that line tilts left a bit, that form looks a little lower down, that ellipse has a wider diameter. Practice observing simple objects from the same vantage point as well. Draw that mug in the same light at different times of the day. Draw that chair from two different points in the room. Doing something repeatedly is not a boring exercise if the intent is to see more clearly. It will get your pencil to feel at ease making basic shapes, and it will feel easier to draw that object, and to make that object stand out from the next piece of paper.