[tayete]

I am assisting to some amateur art classes, and the teacher (a painter) recognizes he doesn't know how to draw, but his pictures are amazing.
Watching the videos of Craig Mullins, I observe he blocks masses of colours, he doesn't even draw a single line before starting to add volumes, lights and shadows.

For all these years I've been learning how to draw, and my drawings are not masterpieces, but they can be viewed. But I really suck at painting.

So, the question is: should someone start by forms/colours/volumes and learn then some line/drawing, or is drawing *really* that important to start to treat colour masses?
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[Matthew]

I think that Craig Mullins knows how to draw but I guess he�s more fund of the painting style.
Something that I have been thinking of is if the anatomy will turn out correctly when painting? Anyway, when I paint I always seem to screw up the antomy, so I have to make a sketch to follow, but I am screwing up the anatomy even then....hehe.


Well, gotta go. I have to sketch some.

Matthew

[antx]

That is an interesting question Tayete. I�m way to unexperienced to give an answer to that, but I noticed also that without a, at least rough sketch I somehow get worse results than with a sketch. Even it the result turns out to be kinda nice it mostly is not like what I actually had in mind. The more detailed my skechtes the better the final paintings (and even 3D models).

The question here is how far those sketches are actually related to "drawing".

If you are talking about real drawings that are supposed to stand on their own and not just serve as sketches then I think it all doesn�t matter. They are just two different things. For both you need the knowledge of general things like anatomy, light, perspective and so on. The difference is then only of a technical nature.

[Drunken Monkey]

Whats puzzling to me is that some people who advocate learning how to draw first (i.e. c.mullins) seem to be doing very well without it themselves.

I am in exactly the same boat as you tayete. Great question.

[dr . bang]

here's the step to become a good painter, i read this in a book, Drawing on the Left(?) Side of the brain.

First:
Line - drawing

Second:
Value - shades....etc

Third:
Color - color

Fourth:
Painting



People can skip ahead, thought, but at the end, you'll end up working as hard as the person who follow the step........i think
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[faB]

I would say absolutely yes, unless you plan to exhibit at the Tate gallery of course (modern art).

"Drawing is basic to painting. Good painting cannot exist without it. I do not mean that there must be always the outline felt or seen, but that the understanding of relative position, size, and from bust be felt; that is drawing. Drawing is not merely form, but implies these other things, and painting is not legible without them. They go to the completeness of expression. Movement, and action, as well as composition and all that it implies or includes depends upon drawing, and they are vital to a painting."

cf chapter XVI of 'The Painter in Oil'
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[tayete]

Thanks guys! I feel much better now, I was starting to think I had done something wrong!
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[piter]

in my mind, there is no separation between drawing and painting. there are two types of drawing: line and mass. (most) painting is simply mass drawing with the addition of colour.

[gekitsu]

i'm always struggling with this...

i've been drawing since i can think, therefore i feel most comfortable with pencil or ballpoint pen.

on the other side, i love tp paint. i just love it.

when i make an underlying drawing, i usually stick to coloring it, turning it into a bad painting. bad bad habit...
on the other hand, if i start painting directly, i need a good day to come up with something one can look at but it's usually more living, more paint, better.

i try to go with a few drawings before i start painting to get ahold of the needed accuracy and idea about the whole setting. also, while drawing, i start thinking about color, edge quality and so on...
i make maybe one or two quick lines before i start painting, not that i have something i can stick too close to.

starting to sketch in color masses is fascinating but i feel i lack the experience to do that.
i feel comfortable using brush pens for drawing, though, i guess that's at least a start in that direction...

[Cuddly]

I just had an epiphany reading this thread! The comments from piter regarding painting as "mass" drawing just made a "click" go off in my head! I get it now! It's a completely different way of seeing things! As masses of shape and color instead of lines that are FILLED IN with color! Wow. Forgive a relative newbie his ramblings...

Actually, tayete - thanks so much for this thread! I reckon that for me, drawing or sketching comes very naturally. But painting has always been a struggle. Like I'll spend a good ten minutes furiously putting strokes down on paper and come up with a good sketch. Then I'll spend half an hour after that tip-toeing around the lines I've put down trying to "paint within the lines" and end up very frustrated and disheartened. I mean, to make it a good painting, I have to paint over (and therefore lose) the lines that made it a good sketch. Sorta feels like doing the piece twice over.

Still, with that epiphany from the first paragraph, I may have to try a completely different way of approaching paintings from now on! Thanks again!

[Tinusch]

It all varies depending on who you ask. Everyone's brains work very, very differently. Some work better with linework to guide them, others see in terms of mass and color (i.e. Craig). It all depends on your own ability to visualize. Lines and masses are two drastically different approaches, and everyone works better with one of them.

[Lionel]

Well my drawing is a lot worse than my painting. When I do a painting I feel it holding me back so I would say that lerning to draw will give you skills that are an important aspect of being able to paint good paintings. It is all very well saying the drawing is just about line and painting is more about mass etc but that is far to simplistic. The think that you learn while drawing is to be able to get positions of objects right. For while doing life drawing you learn to look for negative shapes, get things to line up(top of your ear level with you eye, get the angles of your lines right etc. It is all very well being able think in terms of mass but if you can't put masses in the right place then you are lost. You could argue that you can learn this stuff just by going straight to painting but when you start painting it is reall scary there is so much to worry about with controling color what strokes to use, mediums etc that there is too much for a novice to worry about without learning how to go about placing things in the right places etc. Drawing is much easier and alows you to isolate these problems so you can work on them separtly which helps make the whole thing less confusing and scary for the novice. If you want to teach people how to paint but not how to draw you will have to do things like getting them to trace (use a projector or draw a grid on the canvas). I have always found this a helpful start with painting as it lets you work on your color/painting technique in isolation. Be warned though I used to do lots of oil painting with grids and not enough drawing and I am really regretting it now as I find it very dificult to get marks in the right places as I am not very good at judging the realitve postions of things. If you are going to teach this I would sugest you tackle the problem for to directions as it makes it more exciting for the students with drawing practice to help them where to place marks and also painting using a grid to copy from a photo which lets you experiment with painting without having to worry about the positions of objects in your paintings being in the right places. It is always easier to learn things when they are in bite size things after all .

[piter]

allow me to clarify. i hold to my statement that painting is mass drawing with colour, but i did not say that it was just as easy. by no means! i go to an academy style school where you do nothing but cast drawings for the first year or two. it's not until the 3rd year that you are even allowed to touch paint, and then only in black and white, and only painting casts. it DOES take a lot of time to develop the skills necessary to place shapes correctly with the right tones and edges. but i argue that without the complication of the painting medium, i.e. if it was just as easy to apply to a surface as graphite, it is pretty much the same process: measure and place construction lines, refine shapes until they're accurate, fill in shapes with the right tone, all the while working from big forms to small. it is absolutely essential to acquire the skill of placing shapes correctly, and this can only be done through measuring (at first). colour should be dealt with at a more advanced stage. this is all detailed in harold speed's books "the practice and science of drawing", "oil painting techniques and materials", and a lot of good advice is also given in "alla prima" by richard schmid, so i won't go any further.

[Lionel]

piter: I agree with you up to a point you certainly can paint in a way that is basically mass drawing with color but I think that painting can go beond that I might argue that there are surface texture, brush work etc in painting go beond that. Look at something like a lucian Frued to see what I mean. I would agree that the aproach that your school uses to teach seems a good one. I don't think anyone would argue that all that time spent learning to master drawing was anything other than time well spent. If you are teaching people who are just painting as a hoby I don't think it is necessary for them to have anything like that kind of competancy of drawing and since the object is to have fun letting people do some painting really help to keep people interested and if you make sure they have an acurated drawing to paint on top off(by using a grid or some such method) they should be able to paint without needed a lot of the drawing skills that they have yet to develop and be able to concentrat mainly on the color which is a sepate problem .

[BelgianArt]

You talk about 'the videos from Craig Mullin', you referring to instructional videos (if so wheeeere do you get them ) or just work of him in videos (I'm thinking final fantasy no ?)

[AndyT]

http://forums.sijun.com/viewtopic.php?t=30167
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