Drawing as well as you would like to
Created | Updated May 30, 2003
All of us already doodled things in school. Most of us have been discouraged when some other kid drew better. This early traumatism leads to think that drawing needs talent, or artistic sensibility. It is not entirely true. The most important is to understand what are the mechanisms included in the action of drawing to properly use them. Those mechanisms are really simple and are mostly easy to handle.
Observation drawing.
It's all in the eyes and hands.To properly draw, say, the face of somebody you know you must draw what you see, not what your memory tells you. Your brain can be considered as a vast clipart databank, and it might rather use them instead of the actual shapes you can observe. Exercise drawing shapes by drawing the hand which doesn't hold the pencil while carefully avoid to look at what you are drawing. Repeat until you are able to associate the movement of your eyes on the shape of your free hand and fingers to the movement of the pencil. Faithfully drawing an existing objects means you must analyse their shape. Place your arm fully extended in front of your face, hand with palm down, elbow besides your nose, and look at your hand. It looks like nothing, it is a lumpy and rather weird piece of flesh. Drawing it is tricky, because your brain constantly tries to put the image of a recognizable part it thinks it knows better than your eyes. It will constantly step in the process, showing images of good-looking, well posed hand it remembers, waving them at your mind. Copying upside-down images is a good way to trick your brain into not having time to make up the image and force yourself to look at the very shape.
Progressive details
Succesful portraying is difficult, and depends of how much you manage to fight the succession of cliparts battling to place themselves in the process. The best way to avoid them is to begin with vague, fuzzy lines then progressively sharpen and darken them, slowly spreading details. The counter-example of this is the usual way we draw a face, beginning with highly detailed eyes and mouth from our mental clipart gallery, then trying to figure out the rest of the head.
Practice
Succeeding in the representation of perspective and shapes is a matter of observation. This can only be developed with practice. Drawing better means drawing more. It is a wonderful way to pass time, impress friends or even make money. Always bring a small drawing pad and pencil when you go out, and occupy your waiting time by drawing your surroundings.
Documentation
Books on drawing can't hurt, even cheap ones. A visual thesaurus can be helpful when dealing with odd or complex objects. Drawing done by professionals can be a source of inspiration, just be careful not to copy them. We are talking observation drawing here, so always rely on the reality you see instead of other's.
Stylish drawing
The deliberate repetition of a mistake can lead to the creation of a style.Observational and true-to-life representations are hard to achieve and may seem to offer limited expression possibilities. Well, you can also say 'screw it' to it all and draw your own way.
The main idea is self-confidence. The base is that nothing is wrong. The best way to progress is to experiment.
Experimenting with media
Try doing the same simple drawing with everything you can lay your hand on: crayons, pens, pencils, ink, finger painting, acrylic paint, ash, salt and glue, torn paper...
Combine two or more of these on a variety of surfaces: paper, carton, glass, wood, bark, tables, floors and walls...
Look at the feeling that every medium brings. The way they are used can affect the feeling. Hard-pressed violently applied crayon does not suggest the same state of mind as one gently and carefully used.
Everything counts
One mistake every beginner makes is to use outlines by default. This comes from all those colouring books we looked at for too long. Consider not using outlines. Consider using oversized outlines. Try using only spots, or crosshatches. Try using fingerprints, or potato prints. Documentation here can become very useful, as it supplies starting points to try new styles. Image banks are a good place to find some original illustrations, but inspiration can come from anywhere. It's a matter of finding what can be useful by trying everything and progressively narrowing down to what gives interesting output. Never throw away anything you drew. Never. Unless you have a pretty good reason to do so1 as every piece of art you produce can have a bit of originality you can later develop or exploit.
Combining the two
After a while, if you begin to master drawing from models, and have experimented your way through the process of stylisation, you are ready for a new challenge: combining reality and your artistic view. A good way to begin is to make stylish versions of your earlier observation drawings by tracing them2 or straight-forwardly drawing on them with another medium such as water and ink.
Keeping those masterpieces
Keep everything in a portfolio you can easily browse, like a scrapbook. Take notes. If your creative impulse resulted in oversized pictures, make yourself a large envelope out of thick paperboards. If you plan to use charcoal or soft pencils, consider buying a coating spray to avoid smudging. Date your artwork.
If you ever become bored, keep them in a place you can forget about. You will be amazingly surprised to find them back, and it may push you back on the track of creativity.
Just be confident as the only bad artist is the artist who doesn't enjoy creating. If you like it, the odds are that some other people will. If not, persevere and ask for constructive critics, or frown and become an misunderstood and damned artist. Either way, have fun!
1Usually, genuine shame is one of them, but only if it's about the content, not the technique.2Tracing has been considered as the art of the lazy and untalented, but used wisely it can proves useful and more cost-effective than buying a photocopier! Just be careful not to trace slowly and too carefully, use the original as a reference and do not hesitate to enhance it in the process. In fact, tracing can be part of great visual experimentations!
