[chalker]

I like to draw things of the mind, and so I was busy learning, perspective rules, anatomy rules, to draw whatever came to mind.
I wanted to refine my skills and took an artcourse.

Two lessons have past, and I notice that my only teaches you to draw what you see, like in the colors that you see, so if it is darker their, paint it darker. I mean very objective. The point is, she don't want you to think, just to draw what you see.

Painting this way strokes against the words of spooge demon :

quote

Quote:

The problem most everyone seems to have with painting the human head is they paint colors that they see them in a photograph, but they don't paint a guy, a 3-dimensional man. The construction is substituted by fancy colors that matched the photo, with a lack of understanding as to why these colors were being painted in the first place.

Source : http://www.anticz.com/drawing1.htm

In my teachers way you can't even draw from fantasy.
My question was, since it is my first Art study, does everyone begin this way when they take an art course ? Is it a common lesson ?
Or is it just her way to draw and am I at the wrong place, because I want to draw from fantasy (technical) ?.


[This message has been edited by chalker (edited March 19, 2001).]

[Jason Manley]

sorry kid...my only advice to you is to paint from objective life with as much motivation as you can. If you draw something you will remember it. then you can draw it again.

Mullins is not talking about drawing from life...but he is talking about drawing from photos which distort life and flatten it out.

I spent 6 years drawing and painting objectively every single day. I would not be able to do fantasy art without it.

Keep an open mind. stay in school. draw and paint from life every single day. that is the only way. but also keep using your imagination to draw as well. you will see improvement...I promise


jason

[Jason Manley]

just wanted to also say that those prescious rules you talk about painting from..perspective etc... are all derived from artists who painted and drew from life.

thats where those rules come from...objective drawing and painting...the more you draw...the more rules you learn.

but the rules are stretchable and even sometimes breakable...that is learned from objective art too.


jason

[ceenda]

chalker, there's a sketching excercise I've found helpful and you may find it helpful too.

The next time you're sketching a landscape or something, make some changes. i.e., make a few compositional innovations and try to adjust the lighting and shadows to compensate. This way you begin to think a bit about what it is you are drawing.

Before you do fantasy work, you have to learn a bit about the basic rules first, and then you can bend them!

[quaternius]

I'd like to add... that perhaps what your teacher is trying to do is to get you to truly "observe". A good teacher will help show you how to observe, perhaps by talking about what they themselves are observing about the subject, before they set you all loose to "draw only what your see".

For example, in one painting course, we were all painting still lifes... and some of my colors just weren't right - and I was very frustrated. The instuctor stopped by to see how I was coming along. "Pink" he said. I wondered what the heck he was talking about and he could see I wasn't getting it... so he took a white kleenex tissue and plopped it into the middle of the still life. Instantly I could see the piece of cloth on the left of the painting was a subtle shade of pink - by comparison. His powers of "observation" were much more honed than mine.

I've had instructors make us sit and simply "observe" the model for 10 minutes - seeing the "interior" contours, the overall shape of the pose, comparing measurements, seeing the tonal changes - all before we ever put charcoal to paper. Once we actually started to draw, the drawing was much easier to do. Again, I think a good instructor will take you through this observation process a number of times rather than just turn you loose.

If they are NOT doing this then you need to ask them to do this or find better instructors, or go to the good reference books that WILL help show you how to observe. I think it's rather like learning to swim - a good teacher will not simply toss you in the water and expect you to figure it out. They will explain the purpose of the exercise and what processes are - hopefully by example.

And like Jason said, nothing can replace the basics - I would add, you have to go through them either with teachers, or on your own. My own observation is that teachers can be a tremendous resource - but sometimes you have to drag it out of them... heh.

Hope some of that makes sense...okay, now back to work for me...

Q

[neebhore]

That's what i was always taught at college, as soon as i started to use my imagination, he'd get really stroppy, and keep yelling at me for doing it 'wrong', when all i did was maybe changed the colour of the lighting. But when he saw the finished product he liked it, but would NEVER admit it. I got the feeling i wasn't really gonna learn much from him so I got fed up and jacked it in after awhile. Sometimes i regret it. Ahwell.

[Jason Manley]

well...if I go to math class and do physics work the teacher will get upset...

If I go to a life drawing or painting class (the word life and not imagination) and paint whatever I want and not what is in front of me then of course the teachers would get mad.

how can you learn to add and subtract if you are doing physics work instead of the math work. of course you wouldnt learn anything from that teacher.


jason

[sacrelicious]

I think chalker's point may have been missed here. It seems to me that the teacher is just telling her class to paint the colors they see, in the correct association of shapes, without understanding those colors and shapes- why that color is so vibrant, why that shadow is so deep, why the reflections on a silver teapot look the way they do. Of course drawing and painting objectively from life is essential- but so, eventually, is an understanding of how it all actually works.

------------------
What is your obsession with my forbidden closet of mystery?

[wayfinder]

i have a good friend in art school who refuses to take advice from the teacher in such a way as to do things differently than like he taught himself to do them.

how can i convince him to try and learn as much as he can about how to do things differently than he is used to? i don't want him to drop out with too bad marks (as he currently is in the process of! - he is easily among the top 5 talented people in our class, but his marks are bad, bad, bad)

i feel that he gives most things a shot, but not thoroughly enough, as in "ohm i tried that, but my own method works better for me", but that's just an alibi, i think he is very displeased with what he sees as his sudden inabilty (kinda like i feel about the wacom, or midi as opposed to trackers), which is just an unfamiliarity of course, and goes back to his own "tried and tested" methods which have, in many cases, less potential, but at least he's mastered them! i talked to him about it, but he wouldn't really listen (although, to be fair, he tried to.. i think i had a blackout or something, my words just couldn't convey what i meant.. that's why i'm turning to you guys)

Please help me to help him. thank you!

[chalker]

Jason :
It's true , if you draw something, you will remember it. But I had the feeling, that If I draw a car, and if I draw the lines that make the car, that the next time I draw the car, I just draw the same lines. I could also observe the car, the cars color, the shape, and instead of painting the same lines, I can paint the car in any perspective way, in front, from the side, slipping etc... that's the difference I mean.

The assignment in which this came forward, was the assignment to draw a shell. the shells inside has many textures, very slick, rough, striped etc.. But we may not think how to make the rough bits rough on paper, or how to make the inside smooth. Just draw the outer lines, the highlights, the dark and light lines. As if you would draw a map. The thing I did wrong was to think to much.

ceenda : My question was indeed meant to ask that.. Are this the basic rules, or just another way to draw. I did not go to this artcourse to draw landscapes, portraits or fruitbaskets as a target, just to learn the beginnings.

quaternius : I recognize some of the aspects you named.

quote

Quote:

I've had instructors make us sit and simply "observe" the model for 10 minutes

That was our homework for this week..

neebhore :


Jason : saw your work, very impressive. But you will have to use some math to do these perspectives landscapes ? or some anatom lessons to draw humans ? your fantasy art can't be drawn from real life , though ?

wayfinder :
maybe I am just as stubbard as he is

sacrelicious : TRUE TRUE TRUE, that is exactly what I wanted to ask. But because these are my first drawing lessons, I didn't knew if my lessons, were the basic lessons, or just her way to draw.

So I wanted to ask you ? what lessons, in what order did you follow ?
are the objective-from-life lessons really the basic lessons. and what will follow next ? perspective ? understanding shape and texture etc.. ?

ie many thanks for the replies..

[Jason Manley]

hmmm..

that assignment you were given was as basic as it gets.

you are right about the observation part...you need to observe and remember as much as you can.

I know very little perspective....things get proportionally smaller as they get farther away...they get closer to the background color and value because of atmospheric perspective...anatomy and figure drawing and painting from life made it possible for me to do what I do now.

I could NOT do what I do now if I hadnt gone and painted the figure, still life and landscapes for 6 years. Period.

I draw and paint from my head what I collected in my mind as I painted from life.

there are many little tricks..things you seem to seek...about creating form and texture etc...but it will come down to just calm and pure observation if you do it enough...as life has all those rules if you just look for them...you have to keep doing it...over and over and over...and you will get better.

I will start a new post called drawing and painting formulas for form and space...or something shorter...so we can discuss this stuff further.

keep an eye out


jason

[waylon]

From what I've seen in classes, and read in books, the most tried-and-true method of learning to draw realistically IS to draw from life, and draw as accurately as possible. The thing is, there are so many different ways to view an object that it's impossible to learn everything at once. And it's impossible to just "teach" you why light, color, and form behave as they do - it's way too complicated to learn in a lecture. You just need to get out there and DO it. That's why your teacher is having you draw the contours of the shell. You're learning to depict form, since that's the basic underlying structure of any piece.

But back to the main question - why are you drawing from life, instead of from your imagination. There's SO much detail in every object that you just don't see in everyday life, and that you really can't see until you've been an artist for many years. You know the old saying, "I know it like the back of my hand"? Well, try drawing your hand from your imagination - yes, I know it's right there in front of you. But don't look at it. Make up a pose, and see how realistically you can draw it. Probably not very. If you just start drawing from your imagination, acheiving realism is going to be hit-and-miss, with no basis in reality.

And yes, I realize that you may not be going for realism, but no matter what you draw it's still important to understand the basics. But that's a completely different discussion.

[Jason Manley]

also...read the color theory thread on this forum as well...there is a lot of good stuff from different people in there

threads o knowledge was pretty darn good too.

[Frost]

I do encourage drawing from life, and that is certainly one of the things that I must do. However, I believe that many artists who draw from life only draw things out of habit, because they've seen it like that, and not because they understand light form and shadow. I think both is needed... someone who draws only from life without analysing what he sees is wasting his time, just as someone like me who only draws from algorythmic 'logic' and estimation.

If you're content in drawing from life forever then that is fine, but I'd like to be able to draw anything at any light configuration, environment and material properties.

My 2 cents.