[ashura]

Hi,

For the last four months, I have had zero drawing practice. Now that I have the luxury of time once again, I want to get back at improving my skills.

Prior to the last four months, my drawing ability is fairly ok. I can draw things in contour but when I try to paint it, the piece scatters! This maybe because I've been used to contour drawing and not paying attention to values. Now herein comes my question. Should I learn to draw first taking into account values and not just contours? So that when I start painting, I'll find it less difficult to make form out of values.

THANKS A LOT IN ADVANCE!!

[Andromeda]

I was wondering which thread to answer to =p .. i think this ones nicer ...

i've been thinking about that question too actually ... now take note that i'm the last person here you'd wanna ask tips on painting/drawing cos i fairly suck =] ...

but i'll tell you what i've come up with ...
painting is the understanding of color, positive/negative space form, light ... creativity, texture, brush strokes etc its a whole package.

what kind of drawing are we talking about here .. still life with pencil or charcoal could be considered drawing ... illustrations, pure line art is drawing as well.
but drawing in general also consists of tones, positive/negative space, form light ... creativity, texture, line quality etc .. its also a whole package.

is drawing a pre-requisite of painting ? I'm not sure really ... but from my perspective, drawing is 'simpler' as compared to painting ... im not saying its easy now k ... but its just me, i feel that painting is just another step.(to somewhere else)
"now that you've got your black and white drawing, lets add color to it, values and what-nots"

most people learn to draw first , it helps them understand forms and shapes and light and space.. then somehow move on to painting.

You could learn to draw AND paint at the same time .. i believe that if you can paint a human figure, you can draw a human figure ... but if you can draw a human figure, that doesnt mean you can paint a human figure...
why ? cos most people just practice drawing line arts (i'm most people ! hahahhaaha) ... shapes without dimension. they dont understand how light works on it, how different things have different ways of refracting light, they dont understand color.

Is drawing a pre-requisite of painting ? I dont know ... but it helps. ...

tada ! i didnt answer your question ! *groan* .... >_< take me away, i feel ill...

[Naeem]

hey,
nice question there. i've had the same question for a while also.

now, what i say may sound stupid, etc, but it's what i've observed.

if u can't draw that well, u generally dont paint that well. drawing is the foundation for painting, so... i guess its a pre-requisite to painting.

[ashura]

Hi again,

I thought the answer would be yes. I notice that a lot of people use the quote "If you want to paint realistically, you have to draw realistically first. It's just the way it is".

Also, I kinda agree that what makes drawing easier is that we focus on the contour/lines but when it comes to filling that contour with the right values of light and shade, that's where it comes really difficult.

Now my next question would be, how do I practice value drawing? Should I just separate the blacks and the whites without regarding too much of the exact values? Please give me some tips for this.

THANKS A LOT IN ADVANCE!!

[watmough]

values need to be precise.
first...note darkest/lightest values...then work from the middle values out.
leave darkest darks and lightest lights for last.

[jinnseng]

I'm definitley not the expert here. I'm still finding my way. To me drawing seems like the basis you'll need to be successful at painting. Of course there are always those out there that have the talent to break the rules.

When you're doing REAL drawing, drawings that aren't your simple outline of shapes you're really working your brain trying to figure out structure and lighting. It's all about why and what. Why does the cone look like that? It's pointy on top and comes down like a triangle. Why does it look flat when I draw it like that? What do I need to do to give it that pop?

This is what plays out in my mind constantly when I draw. The answers don't all come at once, but through practice you train yourself to better understand what you're looking at. Not only are you training your mind to find these answers, but you're physically honing your hand eye coordination through the practice of drawing. I still have difficulty getting that perfect curve I want the first time, I end up erasing and doing it over until it's just right. The hope is I will get better when time.

The next step, painting... color... mixing.... brushstrokes... it's a whole entire beast I'm only starting to try and understand.

[ashura]

Hi again and thanks for all the replies. It has been helpful.

I'm currently practicing value drawing with portraits as my subject. The most difficult thing to do here is of course, making your drawing look like the portrait. I mean it should resemble person. Another thing that seems to be difficult and I need some advice on this, is translating all those colors + textures (skin texture) to black and white. I just can't tell which parts I should not make a stroke of. It always comes out too over rendered.

The eyes for example. If I put in too much strokes with the eyes, it looks scary. I still can't use just enough of pencil strokes at the right areas for it to not look over rendered. Any tips for translating colors to black and white would be greatly appreciated.

THANKS A LOT IN ADVANCE!!

[Andromeda]

hey post your stuff why dont you ... theres threads for both speed painting and sketches ... its a good way to learn

[jinnseng]

Ashura- It's difficult to answer your question about translating colors to values. Learning values from portraits might be tough for starting out. I'm not sure if you're referencing from life, photos, or maybe magazines. I would say start real basic and don't try to learn values from portraits. I would practice drawing still lifes if you really want to learn values. Get a good table lamp that lets you adjust the direction of lighting, and pratice drawing real simple objects. Put a real black/dark object next to a light/white one. Work from real basic and as you improve get more complex.

[LadyHydralisk]

Drawing is about 70% of painting, Value, 20% color and chroma...5% each.

At least for me. I've heard my art teachers say different things.

One said that value is more important...he was a modernist/high school art teacher.

My current french traditional teacher is from the "Drawing before Painting Crowd". She is a living master.

If you would like to learn more about the various schools of painting from the ancient trads, that are still alive today and teach this process, check out the list of ateliers at www.artrenewal.org


That's where I found my school, completely turned around my art (and life)

[matter]

i define drawing and painting as this:
drawing is the first step, painting the second. you can "draw" or "paint" with *any* medium. (there are artists who have even used charcoal to such a layered degree as to appear 'painterly!')

drawing comes from your head - that is, in some way you are simply laying out forms/line on the canvas before you - the blueprints.

painting involves the interaction of layering media and emphasizes process.

many a time hav my peers mentioned i was 'drawing' in my painting class, when trying to pre-determine the shape, value, and color of every mark beforehand, disregarding the layers underneath and the possibilies from mixing/overlaying new colors in/on my old ones.
_________________
Sorry! for any digressive, pompous, or just plain off-topic rants.

[sweetums]

With the exception of Bill Alexander and Bob Ross, who could crank out "happy little trees" on canvas in 1/2 hour and make it look easy, if formulatic, good painting usually involves some amount of underpainting, which usually takes the form of general placement of major subjects in a work. Depending upon one's abilities at rendering, the underpainting may be as simple as a few general color brush strokes, or a fairly detailed pencil/ink/or paint drawing.

You don't need to be able to draw to paint, IF you can easily visualize, and more importantly, recreate your mind's visualizations without guides for placement, value, perspective, etc. But, to be THAT good, you will have already spent a lot of time drawing.
_________________
Life is short. Expect nothing, enjoy everything.
That which does not kill you should make you wiser...