I’ve been drawing my whole life, and never thought to apply the ideas I learn here to the lessons on observing the world that my art teacher taught me. I read the previous two posts and the posts on talent (the one linked), and it’s very interesting.
When it comes to gesture drawings, one of the main problems the students (including myself) found, was trusting their eye, and not their memory of what they see. When you plan on drawing your favorite coffee mug, you can picture it in your mind, but it is very unlikely that your memory will perfectly preserve every curve, every detail on that mug. Not only that, but the person drawing needs to scratch the idea of drawing objects entirely.
What happens to the kitchen table the mug is sitting on? The mug does not float in empty white space! There is the wall, the kitchen table, whatever knickknacks you have on your table, that is, if your coffee mug is on your kitchen table at all.
The way I learned to draw was to not look at the paper while drawing. Instead, my class and I were told to look at the scene we wanted to draw, to let our eyes travel around the objects and empty spaces in between and let our hands move over the paper. This process has a much slower learning curve, but the improvements were substantial. We were told to not focus on objects, but on the shapes the objects make.
When you draw a chair, you are not drawing a chair from your memory, nor the object “chair.” It’s darker lines, lighter lines, the space between those lines, and shapes.
This might be a bit challenging for a beginner, but it might be worthwhile to consider.
Yeah, looking at the reality is incredibly important. There’s a followup post on observation now that deals with some of the issues you describe.
Did you learn to draw well (i.e. create a finished product you’re happy with) without looking at the paper at all? If so, how long did it take you. (That’s actually what I’m currently learning how to do. I don’t think it’s necessary to be completely strict about it, for developing general skill. But I also want to be able to draw people while I’m talking to them, and its a prerequisite for that.)
We would usually take our sketches that we made in class and find which ones we liked the most, then go back to where we drew them and create a composition out of them. However, I do remember that in sophomore year, we had to do a charcoal drawing of a still life and we had to do it without looking at the paper at all. The results varied across the class. I found that mine was not terrible, but I was not particularly pleased with it. I think the reasons had more to do with the charcoal and less to do with the technique, though. I always had an issue with working in charcoal. Regardless, I remember the class starting to work without looking at the paper in freshman year throughout sophomore year. We picked it up again in senior year a bit, doing gesture drawings of people, but did not focus on it much, since most of senior year was self-teaching and solo projects.
The class was 5 times a week for 45 minutes each session.
I’ve been drawing my whole life, and never thought to apply the ideas I learn here to the lessons on observing the world that my art teacher taught me. I read the previous two posts and the posts on talent (the one linked), and it’s very interesting.
When it comes to gesture drawings, one of the main problems the students (including myself) found, was trusting their eye, and not their memory of what they see. When you plan on drawing your favorite coffee mug, you can picture it in your mind, but it is very unlikely that your memory will perfectly preserve every curve, every detail on that mug. Not only that, but the person drawing needs to scratch the idea of drawing objects entirely.
What happens to the kitchen table the mug is sitting on? The mug does not float in empty white space! There is the wall, the kitchen table, whatever knickknacks you have on your table, that is, if your coffee mug is on your kitchen table at all.
The way I learned to draw was to not look at the paper while drawing. Instead, my class and I were told to look at the scene we wanted to draw, to let our eyes travel around the objects and empty spaces in between and let our hands move over the paper. This process has a much slower learning curve, but the improvements were substantial. We were told to not focus on objects, but on the shapes the objects make.
When you draw a chair, you are not drawing a chair from your memory, nor the object “chair.” It’s darker lines, lighter lines, the space between those lines, and shapes.
This might be a bit challenging for a beginner, but it might be worthwhile to consider.
Yeah, looking at the reality is incredibly important. There’s a followup post on observation now that deals with some of the issues you describe.
Did you learn to draw well (i.e. create a finished product you’re happy with) without looking at the paper at all? If so, how long did it take you. (That’s actually what I’m currently learning how to do. I don’t think it’s necessary to be completely strict about it, for developing general skill. But I also want to be able to draw people while I’m talking to them, and its a prerequisite for that.)
We would usually take our sketches that we made in class and find which ones we liked the most, then go back to where we drew them and create a composition out of them. However, I do remember that in sophomore year, we had to do a charcoal drawing of a still life and we had to do it without looking at the paper at all. The results varied across the class. I found that mine was not terrible, but I was not particularly pleased with it. I think the reasons had more to do with the charcoal and less to do with the technique, though. I always had an issue with working in charcoal. Regardless, I remember the class starting to work without looking at the paper in freshman year throughout sophomore year. We picked it up again in senior year a bit, doing gesture drawings of people, but did not focus on it much, since most of senior year was self-teaching and solo projects.
The class was 5 times a week for 45 minutes each session.