[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning ...
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch
from scratch?
Apologies if this is off-topic but the learning French thread got
me wondering if anyone here is an artist in the downtime and has
recommendations for learning materials when it comes to learning
how to draw? I've tried Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and
it doesn't do it for me. I've tried nma.art and that's like the
closest I've come to what I'm after but currently suffer from
paralysis analysis with too many or too few courses to choose from.
Any suggestions? I'm hoping to be able to eventually draw people
and landscapes, willing to pay hundreds of dollars potentially for
the right course or instruction per month not really looking for
like a udemy type thing.
Author : autotune
Score : 165 points
Date : 2022-02-25 16:32 UTC (6 hours ago)
| paperoli wrote:
| Drawing skill, in my experience, comes mainly down to natural
| talent. If you've not got much you'll get little reward from
| investing your time.
| autotune wrote:
| Boo. Everything I've learned, from work to living like an
| adult, has come down to practice. If I thought it was just
| "natural talent" I'd never attempt to get better at anything.
| paperoli wrote:
| People like to credit their own hard work. You'll never seen
| a winning athlete say how talented they are. We've created an
| an illusion that anyone can excel with hard work because it
| justifies inequalities. I was born good at drawing stuff so I
| capitalised on it somewhat.
| rogual wrote:
| You might try drawabox.com; I found it pretty decent.
| Construction-based approach.
| autotune wrote:
| Looks like a great start to what I'm after will give it a shot
| thanks!
| lancesells wrote:
| I'm a self-taught artist and count drawing as a skill of mine. I
| wouldn't say I'm a "natural" at it and would have definitely
| benefited from some structured learning.
|
| Here are some of my recommendations/thoughts:
|
| 1. Bring a sketchbook with you everywhere and draw and observe
| what you see. There are shortcuts and techniques but like
| anything else it takes practice and time.
|
| 2. Humans are the most difficult because they are what we're
| experts at. We see and react to human faces from the day we are
| born so it's tricky to get right. Don't be discouraged.
|
| 3. Writing your name is drawing a picture. You've probably
| practiced it along with the alphabet numerous times. This is
| drawing in it's essence.
|
| 4. Learn what a core and cast shadow are if you don't already
| know. This will quickly improve your rendering.
|
| 5. Youtube. There is a higher level of skill in art then at any
| point in history and you have access to it. Just like any other
| field the knowledge passed down improves year after year.
|
| 6. Don't worry about the outcome. Drawing is intimate and doesn't
| need to be shown to anyone ever.
|
| 7. Drawing is a beautiful skill. You're creating something out of
| nothing.
| trinovantes wrote:
| To add on to #2: people are hard to draw because we
| instinctively recognize imperfections in other humans (maybe
| evolution behavior?) and can easily fall into uncanny valley
| when things like joints/bones don't exactly look right
|
| FWIW, I found male faces/bodies are somewhat easier to get away
| imperfections since they're generally more rugged
| ethbr0 wrote:
| A few additional points, as someone who spent several years
| taking courses in drawing in college.
|
| - Don't get caught on the nerd treadmill of tools-before-
| effort. You can draw with whatever is in your junk drawer. You
| can draw well with $40 of different hardness pencils and
| kneaded erasers from an art supply store. Beyond that is a
| waste.
|
| - As parent said, practice practice practice. Which means
| finding time to practice. For which a portable sketchbook and
| basic portable kit is a huge help.
|
| - (Disagree with parent, here) Find someone(s) who won't hold
| back to judge your work. You need someone who can say (and who
| you can handle hearing say) "This part sucks." Because you need
| to hear that, and work on it, until it doesn't. In professional
| training this is "jury." One-directional courses (them to you)
| aren't going to help here, as you need feedback.
|
| - Start drawing from life, because you have an infinite supply
| of content that all obeys the laws we assume to be true
| (perspective, lighting, gravity, etc). And you'll be able to
| tell if it looks correct or not.
|
| - Drawing from pictures can help "freeze" a moment. This is
| especially important for outdoor light and shadow, as otherwise
| the sun angle will change while you're working.
|
| - Learn to draw what you see, not a representation of what you
| see. This means don't draw a symbol of a house, but draw the
| house in front of you. Focusing on details and working through
| them methodically helps avoid symbolism. E.g. draw that line,
| or that corner, not the whole thing.
|
| - Draw with intent: every drawing should have a concrete goal
| when you're learning. It doesn't have to include everything.
| Consider including or excluding lighting and shadow, which
| takes a _huge_ amount of time to get right. E.g. circular mass
| studies, perspective line work, proportion. Think about what
| _you_ want in _this_ drawing, and then practice only that.
|
| - Find an art buddy or community. This is the opposite of jury!
| ;) Where you go when you're feeling like your work sucks and
| you'll never be good, and they'll remind you of all the ways
| you're awesome.
|
| _Edit:_ 110% agree with sibling comment re: grids for
| proportion work, when you 're learning. Inability to maintain
| proportion across the work is a huge source of beginner
| "doesn't look right"ness. Eventually you'll internalize it, and
| get better at relative proportion with other things in the
| drawing, but they're a good crutch to start with.
| lucasgonze wrote:
| Thanks for the core and cast shadow reference. That's something
| I've been struggling to figure out by eye.
| boilerupnc wrote:
| >Humans are the most difficult because they are what we're
| experts at. We see and react to human faces from the day we are
| born so it's tricky to get right. Don't be discouraged.
|
| Totally agree. A few thoughts:
|
| 1. I watched a show once on TV that used a grid pattern
| approach that appealed to my engineering aesthetics. They made
| a transparent square grid pattern that was placed on the
| desired picture as a temporary overlay. You then create a
| scaled up grid in very, very light pencil on your desired
| sketch piece of paper. You finally, started to work the large
| outer boundaries first and then iterate inwards to the greater
| details of the face. By doing this, your proportions relative
| to one another stayed pretty spot on (almost like bumper rails)
| and yet you could then start to take more liberties with how to
| express the smaller details:
|
| - light vs. heavy shading
|
| - smudge vs. crisp
|
| - solid vs. wispy, etc ...
|
| While not the fastest way to begin sketching, it gives you
| confidence and made me better with each one.
|
| 2. I've learned that natural forms like Human faces never have
| well-defined lines - otherwise it looks too cartoon-like.
| Whether its because of bad eye-sight :-) or the 3-dimensional
| view, most boundaries tend to be fuzzy, gradations of tone and
| soft boundaries.
|
| 3. After the rough outside boundaries of a face, I focus on the
| eyes first and foremost. I will obsess on building out the eyes
| until they "look right" to me. I won't move past this until
| they feel right. I've found that neglecting or deferring the
| sketching of the eyes ... has always resulted in a face that I
| wasn't happy with. I can't express it precisely, but the entire
| mood, expressiveness and essence of face is evoked by the way
| you represent the eyes of a face, human or otherwise.
|
| 4. After practicing with just pencil sketches first, I then
| found pastel chalks to be a fun next step to take your finger
| smudging and shading to a whole new level.
|
| 5. Eventually, after some practice and experience - your eye
| for proportion gets so good that the grid becomes mostly
| unnecessary. You are then able to freehand other irregular body
| features much better like closeups of hands and legs as well as
| animals in general.
| ebbflowgo wrote:
| Awesome list, thanks
| Jack5500 wrote:
| Not for learning, but for practice I made this little site:
|
| https://daily-drawing-prompt.vercel.app/
|
| It gives you a daily drawing prompt to practice.
| motohagiography wrote:
| When I want to sketch something in pencil, I draw a fibonacci
| spiral, choose two to three points on it to be the boundary of
| the object I want to draw, and then start filling it in. It's
| surprisingly effective.
| reaperducer wrote:
| If you're OK with an offline option, check with your nearest
| community college, or local equivalent. They often have cheap or
| free art classes, including sketching, available to the public.
|
| Maybe also check with art schools. Years ago, my mother wanted to
| learn oil painting and one of the big schools in Manhattan hooked
| her up with a woman in her neighborhood that offered one-on-one
| and small group classes.
| reedf1 wrote:
| I would highly recommend drawabox.com. I used this system to get
| from no drawing experience to sufficient. I especially appreciate
| the focus on learning _how to learn_ how to draw and not just the
| mechanics of drawing.
| mvaliente2001 wrote:
| Copying an old comment: "The New Drawing on the Right Side of the
| Brain: A Course in Enhancing Creativity and Artistic Confidence"
| by Betty Edwars.
|
| She taught drawing classes and discovered that one reason why
| people is bad at drawing is that they symbolize what they see
| before drawing it. For example, when we see a face, we tend to
| focus on the eyes and mouth and ignore other features like the
| front. That contributes to a distorted representation that is
| reflected in the drawing.
|
| She devised a series of exercises to avoid that problem. For
| example, try to draw a picture upside down, or try to draw an
| object shape using negative space (you focus on the shapes
| outside the object).
| kofejnik wrote:
| seconding this; a few years ago, I took a week-long course
| based on it, which worked way better than I expected. Before, I
| was at level of 5-yr old drawing stick figures; on the final
| day, I drew a portrait which looked like something you can get
| from a street artist.
| qiskit wrote:
| You don't need anything to learn to sketch from scratch. Just
| start sketching and keep at it. Think about it, even children can
| do it. Perseverance is the key. Now if you want to improve,
| refine your skill, etc, then you may need help. But not to start
| sketching from scratch.
|
| People use "material" as a crutch sometime. Once I buy the new
| sneakers then I can start exercising, once I get new laptop then
| I can start programming, once I get some money, I can start
| living, etc. You can start anytime you want.
|
| I'm not judging. I do it all the time myself.
| commieneko wrote:
| Commercial artist for 45 years. Also a developer, FWIW, mostly
| graphics programming since the late 1970s.
|
| _Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain_ is actually one of the
| best places to start. I know you said you tried it. But try it
| this way: Ignore all the theory and the stories the author tells.
| It's mostly nonsense. But the exercises are actually very good.
| The trick is to not care about the result and about making
| progress. I know, that sounds crazy. But it's true.
|
| Just do it.
|
| Go through reams of cheap paper. Happily throw most of the
| drawings away. Draw anything and everything. Fall in love with
| nothing. It's like practicing scales for a musician. If you get a
| good drawing every now and then, then cool. If not, don't worry
| about it.
|
| It's gonna take some time.
|
| Be prepared to adjust your expectations as to what a good drawing
| is. It will change, drastically, over time. The way you draw will
| emerge rather than be something you develop or manage.
| Frustrating, I know. But the basics have to develop organically,
| like learning to talk.
|
| Learning to draw is much more about learning to see than making
| marks. You think you can see things, but what you are really
| doing is recognizing things. Any normal adult has the motor
| skills to make a controlled mark. But we don't know how to make a
| mark that the brain will read as something. If it was just a
| matter of reproducing something that's in front of you, then
| tracing would work. But nearly all tracings suck as drawings.
|
| Having said all that, start reading anything you can find on the
| subject. Be prepared to ignore most of it. You are finding your
| own path.
|
| You can look through my history on ycombinator more discussion
| and to to see lists of books that are worth your time. But look
| on your own too. If you find anything new and different, please
| share.
|
| As far as goals, they are great things to have. But expect them
| to change and evolve. Why shouldn't they. As you get better, your
| tastes will change. Things you saw that seemed wonderful, may
| suddenly be full of flaws. Things you disdained may suddenly
| reveal their secret appeal.
|
| It's an adventure as well as a skill. And the learning never
| stops. I'm in my 60s and have been drawing seriously since my
| early teens.
|
| I'm just getting started.
| jpm48 wrote:
| "Just getting started", I feel the same with the guitar. Been
| playing since I was 12, 40 years on with quite a few breaks
| still love it and having fun will never be a pro! I work with
| loads of great artists, I really can't draw (but am according
| to the deeds of my apprenticeship a qualified draftsman!) but
| still love to doodle and sketch. The awesome artists I teach
| and work with always amaze me, mostly the really good ones
| always have a sketch book with them and always doodle. This is
| the key, love it, practice it and enjoy :-)
| brimble wrote:
| > You think you can see things, but what you are really doing
| is recognizing things. Any normal adult has the motor skills to
| make a controlled mark.
|
| I have reasonably nimble fingers and _at least_ average overall
| motor control, and really cannot do this. I got pretty good at
| drawing a handful of things as a kid by just repeating the same
| pattern every time, but even on those my lines were just awful.
| I 'm sure I could get better at it with _tons_ of drilling (and
| probably just starting over from scratch, technique-wise--I
| expect I 'd have to totally re-train the way I do the entire
| activity, to fix whatever's wrong) but a little drawing here
| and there with _lots_ of attention to trying to fix that has
| done nothing. I cannot make a remotely straight line of any
| length at all (an inch would be pushing my abilities, and I 'd
| probably fail like half the time). Circles are right out. I
| have a good enough eye for perspective that I can make useful
| and recognizable sketches for e.g. home projects, but they look
| like a 2-year-old drew them because the lines are so bad.
|
| Step 1 for me absolutely would be learning how to make marks
| that are anywhere near my intention.
| Benjamin_Dobell wrote:
| If you're anything like me, I think it's a matter of
| visualisation, not coordination. I tend to shake if I try
| hold my hand still (and always have), my hand-writing is
| downright awful. My sketches / drawings are terrible - I
| dislike visual brainstorming sessions quite a bit!
|
| However, I did _start_ going through Drawing on the Right
| Side of the Brain a while back and seriously impressed myself
| by following the exercises. No, I can 't draw a circle or a
| straight line, but those things don't exist in nature;
| especially when you factor in perspective.
|
| When in the right mind-set I found I wasn't thinking about
| shapes at all, I was just trying to make something look the
| way I was visualising it. For me that's the hard part. I
| normally think analytically "A stop sign is a octagon with
| some straight lines. Stop lights are circles." That's simply
| not true when you're trying to draw. Which is just as well,
| because I can't draw those shapes for squat!
|
| I don't think I'll ever be able to draw diagrams/charts.
| However, I'm sure if I kept practising I could get reasonably
| good at drawing people & objects. Even in a cartoon style, I
| think I _could_ , with a lot of effort, improve to an
| acceptable standard. Even cartoons tend to have some sort of
| perspective and characters are not symmetrical.
| [deleted]
| natnatenathan wrote:
| I came here to say this. I studied art in school (but not an
| art school, so I'm not very good :) but this book was really
| the core of the curriculum. The exercises and approach
| radically helped me improved my drawing. The other component is
| just practicing a lot. I can't remember the URL, but there was
| a developer I used to follow who could not draw at all and just
| committed to drawing every day (using similar exercises). Over
| the years, he got really good.
| chris_st wrote:
| _Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain_ is fantastic. Helped
| me enormously when I learned to draw. I'd encourage you to do
| the exercise in order, and spend some time with each one, and
| then draw a lot between them, trying to integrate what you've
| learned. You'll get there!
| sukh wrote:
| Logged in to say Thank you!
| davidrupp wrote:
| "Learning to draw is much more about learning to see than
| making marks."
|
| This was the most helpful thing I learned from _Drawing on the
| Right Side of the Brain_. That book alone took me from "poorly
| drawn stick figures" to "recognizable sketches of people and
| simple objects". It's been a while since I've exercised any of
| this, but it's on my list to re-learn One Of These Days(tm).
| jstanley wrote:
| > I'm in my 60s and have been drawing seriously since my early
| teens.
|
| > I'm just getting started.
|
| I think this is intended to be encouraging, but to me it has
| the opposite effect. If it's going to take me 45 years to just
| get started, then I won't waste my time on it, I'll do
| something else instead.
|
| Is it possible that you're _not_ just getting started, but you
| _are_ still learning things, albeit at a much slower rate than
| you were 45 years ago?
| psyc wrote:
| Here's another anecdote that might be more to your liking.
| It's true, BTW. I started drawing seriously when I was 12.
| Everyone considered me really amazing by 16. I consider
| myself to have plateaued at 20. I'm not aware of having
| improved in any specific way since, but I'm Disney-level
| good, and I can draw anything from life or imagination in a
| variety of styles and levels of realism. Portraits too. I'm
| in my mid 40s now.
|
| I'm not opposed to the idea of continuous learning and
| improvement. It's more like in art (and programming as well),
| I vastly surpassed my original goals, and I'm already
| overqualified to do anything that I like to do and am
| interested in doing. I certainly do not have the skill or
| knowledge to do everything that is _possible_ to do, but I
| don 't care about that.
|
| I suspect my attitude may differ from that of many artists.
| I'm not on a journey to explore some mystery. I just need the
| skills to execute on the projects that I imagine.
| xtrohnx wrote:
| I think it has a lot to do with what they said about your
| goals changing. When I first started painting a decade ago,
| my goal was to do a good oil portrait. But now, painting has
| become so personal and spiritual to me, that my goals aren't
| as external like they used to be. I realized a few years ago
| that while I am in the process of painting something, I have
| no fear in my heart. Exploring that has become more of my
| goal, and one could spend many lifetimes working through it.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > " _If it 's going to take me 45 years to just get started,
| then I won't waste my time on it_"
|
| You'll spend your 45 years one way or another; see also "life
| is a journey, not a destination" and "find something you love
| and you'll never work a day in your life". If you hate
| drawing. If you love doing the activity 'drawing' then 45
| years of drawing will seem like a life well spent even if you
| still consider yourself just getting started.
|
| What are you going to do when you get to "I can draw"? Draw
| things? Spend your time drawing things? But you don't want to
| spend your time drawing things to get there? You know you can
| pay people to do that for you if you just want the result
| 'pictures of things', right?
| [deleted]
| commieneko wrote:
| "From the age of 6 I had a mania for drawing the shapes of
| things. When I was 50 I had published a universe of designs.
| But all I have done before the the age of 70 is not worth
| bothering with. At 75 I'll have learned something of the
| pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds,
| fish and insects. When I am 80 you will see real progress. At
| 90 I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life
| itself. At 100, I shall be a marvelous artist. At 110,
| everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as
| never before. To all of you who are going to live as long as
| I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old
| age. I used to call myself Hokusai, but today I sign my self
| 'The Old Man Mad About Drawing.'"
| ethbr0 wrote:
| It takes decades to get _professional_ good at precision
| physical skills.
|
| That's not to say you won't be twice as good of a drawer as
| you are now, in 2 years of serious practice.
|
| But if you're measuring yourself against people who have
| spent their entire lives working on a thing... it's going to
| take some time to get to that level.
| noahbradley wrote:
| Decades feels a bit long, from what I've seen/experienced.
| I'd say if you're dedicated you can hit a professional
| level in 5-7 years.
| nnoitra wrote:
| just........ do it!!!!!
| brudgers wrote:
| Take a sketching class _in a formal academic_ setting.
|
| Through a community college art department for example.
|
| Not at a local recreation center for counter example.
|
| More fleshed out take a sketching class for a grade. A class
| where you will be told whether you are failing or successful.
| Where there is homework.
|
| A setting where there is accountability will force the habit of
| multi-hour blocks of sketching.
|
| And a setting where it becomes socially safe to spend time
| sketching. Safe to take sketching seriously.
|
| Most importantly safe to take sketching seriously for a few
| months _even though you are terrible at it._
|
| The only way to get better at sketching is to sketch badly and be
| ok with yourself about it.
|
| Good luck. You have decades to get better.
| nostromo177 wrote:
| Trace images using Tracing paper
| DavidMiserak wrote:
| Myron Barnstone has a great series on the topic. Some of his
| stuff is on YouTube.
| alexslobodnik wrote:
| You Can Draw in 30 Days: The Fun, Easy Way to Learn to Draw in
| One Month or Less
|
| by Mark Kistler
|
| This was great.
| DIVx0 wrote:
| I tried a number of approaches, books, class rooms, DIY, etc.
| Honestly the only thing that really helped me get over the hump
| was simply practicing all the basics i've learned over and over
| again.
|
| Doing nothing but exercises is not very fun so take the things
| you want to draw like people and landscapes and just get to work.
| You will probably be unsatisfied with your results but keep the
| fundamentals in mind and keep practicing.
|
| This isn't a satisfactory answer but I think people who advocate
| for one basic creative program over another just found some
| fundamentals that clicked for them.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| It will definitely come to this eventually, even if OP does
| find some good teaching resources.
|
| Here's what I've heard from artists: there's always a stage
| where you hate they piece, and you just have to push through
| (goes for writing too). Just push through, remind yourself no
| one else ever has to see it, and you'll get better with each
| one.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| If you live in a city, take an in-person class. Several studios
| near me offer 3-4 hour introduction to pencil drawing classes.
| It'll save you a couple months of struggling to have an actual
| artist there telling you the trick to doing it right.
| ptrklly wrote:
| I really liked Drawing By Seeing by John Torreano when I picked
| it up in college: https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Seeing-Abrams-
| Studio-Torreano...
|
| Thanks for this thread! I've been meaning to ask around for
| recommendations like this for a while now.
| akeck wrote:
| From personal experience, the most important thing is to do it
| every day. 15-20 minutes is enough. Your brain will work on
| technique issues overnight. The jump in skill after 30 days of
| daily sketching can be substantial.
|
| With respect to drawing people, viewers respond strongly to
| particular parts being "wrong", so break the learning process
| down into parts. For example, focus on over-all proportions, then
| focus on hands and wrists, then on faces, and then feet. Then put
| all of it together.
| [deleted]
| blockwriter wrote:
| I read and drew alongside Harold Speed's The Practice & Science
| of Drawing. It was a decent enough start, but, as with any art,
| resources pale in comparison to dedicated practice. Also, a
| community of likeminded creatives that are organized, dedicated,
| productive, and hopefully talented, stands much closer to
| dedicated practice than it does to resources.
| woolion wrote:
| For me, it was really stumbling onto Feng Zhu's channel that
| changed things: https://www.youtube.com/user/FZDSCHOOL/videos The
| big change is more at a metacognitive level, which was to
| understand that you could view 'art' purely as a technical field,
| not something that involved artistic sense or talent. So he goes
| other detail density distribution, color theory, perspective,
| etc. The video content also helps getting a morale boost to grind
| through the exercises.
|
| I would say you would not really benefit from actual dedicated
| courses for the first 2 years (assuming you practice with hobby-
| time and not full time); you have so much to learn that y ou will
| do big progress just doing standard exercises. Dedicated tutoring
| is good, but it's probably easier to get decent feedback IRL as
| opposed to online courses (unless you pay a fortune, it's easier
| to get advice from good local artists). James Gurney and Nathan
| Fowkes are great references.
|
| (For reference I post some of my stuff here:
| https://twitter.com/wooliondraws I'm not close to any mastery,
| but given the amount of time I can sink into this hobby since
| 2015, I'm now fairly happy.).
|
| Although there's no miracle: FZD school claims to bring people
| from beginner to pro-level in 3 years, but at the price of heart
| attacks at 30 years old for some of them.
| autotune wrote:
| I would legit save up enough money to attend FZD if it was in
| the United States. I work as a Site Reliability Engineer and
| can afford the cost, ha.
| woolion wrote:
| Because of the added cost of living in Singapore? With a
| European salary it is unfortunately impossible to afford the
| cost, so it is nice to have it as a possibility.
| autotune wrote:
| Because I am not sure I can just up and move to Singapore
| due to tax reasons with working for a U.S. based company,
| unfortunately.
| jcaguilar wrote:
| His episode 89 - Just Draw - was so useful to me:
| https://youtu.be/WLqWX7onVmU
| elcapitan wrote:
| People and landscapes are quite different things, maybe pick one
| and focus on that.
|
| It also depends a lot on what you want to achieve (for example,
| do you want to draw people in a comic-like art style, or do quick
| sketches of people on the subway, or do anatomically correct nude
| drawings). Based on that, you can try to find a book or course
| that fits you. There's a lot on youtube, I would recommend that
| over a book today, as you get different angles and the process of
| doing it much better.
|
| For good and extensive free anatomy lessons, check out Proko on
| Youtube. There are also "timed life drawing" or "timed gesture
| drawing" videos which will show you a sequence of nude/non-nude
| poses with a timer for quickly sketching. You should check out
| some gesture drawing instructions, e.g. by Proko, before that
| though, otherwise it might be intimidating.
|
| If you want a more comic book like approach, check out David
| Finch on Youtube.
|
| Good instruction books for most beginners are Andrew Loomis'
| books. He was a classical advertising artist.
|
| Books on "urban sketching" can also be helpful, because they are
| based on doing things quickly and without too many tools. On
| Youtube, you can check out TeohYiChie, he has plenty of Urban
| Sketching videos, in a beautiful but very loose style that is
| inviting to imitate.
|
| And the most important thing is of course to just do it and do
| it.
| fistfucker3000 wrote:
| Blind contour drawings of something in your house every day for
| 20 minutes for three months. Do that and you'll be better at
| drawing than most people
| cweagans wrote:
| https://www.21-draw.com/ has been advertised to me a few times.
| I've been very tempted to get a membership and put some focused
| practice in. They mostly focus on digital art though.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Humans are hard to sketch because your eyes / brain are really
| good at seeing humans.
|
| Its one of the reasons why people draw monsters (or furries) as
| they get started. You can make bad proportions, and if your brain
| doesn't recognize it as "human", your brain is far more
| forgiving.
|
| "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" is what worked for me,
| at least at a basic level. I think the "upside down human" and
| "upside down face" drawing exercises really worked for me.
|
| After that, its just sitting down and taking the time to draw. As
| a beginner, you'll have to spend hours to master the strokes of
| the pencil to make something look kinda-sorta not that good.
| While a true expert will be able to sketch something quickly in
| far shorter time.
|
| Just accept the fact that drawing/sketching will take much longer
| for you (because you're still a beginner), and work at it
| repeatedly. Over time, things get faster and faster.
|
| ------------
|
| Landscapes are probably better to start off on, if you really
| want landscapes. Most humans don't see the errors in landscapes,
| so you can "Bob Ross" it to some extent. (All "mistakes" can be
| turned to look like something different)
| rg111 wrote:
| _Draw a Box_ [0] comes highly recommended. All lessons are free
| and are taught from scratch. Everything from absolute basics is
| thoroughly explained and demonstrated.
|
| Paid courses by Proko [1] are also said to be of very high
| quality. I have never bought one, though.
|
| I would also suggest that you look into digital art.
| Sketching/painting/drawing paraphernalia is expensive with time-
| consuming upkeep and hard to carry if you travel. OTOH, drawing
| on Krita, Photoshop with drawing tablets & stylus (even $60 ones)
| or an iPad with pen is low-maintenance and you can find other
| uses for them even if you don't continue drawing.
|
| Digital art and conventional art have many overlappings, but they
| are different media with neither being higher or lower.
|
| [0]: https://drawabox.com/
|
| [1]: https://proko.com
| karaterobot wrote:
| As someone who "can draw" by most people's standards, but who
| never had a formal art education, I benefited a lot from Draw a
| Box. I liked that it focused so much on the actual, literal
| mechanics of drawing a good line with your body, which is not
| something I had ever focused on.
|
| I think it builds sort of slowly, and you need commitment to
| get through to the part where you're drawing "the rest of the
| owl" so to speak, _aka_ the fun parts that aren 't just endless
| pages of boxes in perspective.
|
| But, there really isn't a shortcut anyway, and it's worth it,
| and this course is presented really well, for no money.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| Nintendo Art Academy is excellent. Really does a fantastic job of
| helping you learn how to draw from a very basic level.
| hellcow wrote:
| I particularly like Sinix
| (https://www.youtube.com/user/sinixdesign). Although he primarily
| does digital painting, there's always a drawing which forms the
| foundation of any painting.
|
| He also has all kinds of recommended other artist channels at the
| bottom of his Youtube page, and they're all fantastic. Some use
| traditional media vs digital, some paint vs focus on drawing.
| jfk13 wrote:
| It's an older book, but I remember getting a lot out of Adrian
| Hill's _How to Draw_ when I read it many years ago. Probably out-
| of-print, but cheap second-hand copies are around.
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1471816.How_To_Draw
| syntheweave wrote:
| Get a stylus for your phone - if you don't have a phone that
| supports pressure, don't worry, just get the best capacitive
| stylus brands(I use Meko mesh tips). The learning goal here does
| not involve quality media.
|
| Then use your downtime to trace photos. When you feel more
| ambitious, hide the original and draw from recollection, or try
| to modify elements - say, adjust proportions or give figures
| different clothing or merge multiple photos into one image. Aim
| to simplify your traces. Try using different brushes and drawing
| programs. Trace in different ways, e.g. by looking for the
| lighting values rather than contours, or by trying to reveal
| underlying forms by seeing "behind" the object with cross-
| sectional lines.
|
| This is a relaxing way to approach drawing. It gives you a
| pleasing result immediately and lets you study subjects of your
| choosing. You are starting from a point of maximal accuracy. You
| don't have to run out and get a "setup", because everyone has
| their phone with them anyway and there are plenty of good apps.
| It lets you experiment and build up mileage across a variety of
| skills. You can adjust the difficulty as you like by trying
| relatively more or less difficult things.
|
| When you feel ready to explore the technical aspects further, try
| Drawabox. You don't have to do the full course, just trying every
| exercise in Lesson 1 once is a good study on its own. Drawabox,
| being so completely focused on technical skills, is known as a
| morale-crusher and one of its admonishments is to use a "50%
| rule" where you are spending half of your art time on things
| other than the exercises so that you don't burn out from hours
| and hours of drawing abstract shapes. That's why you should
| figure out the fun parts first.
| rococode wrote:
| Charles Bargue's Drawing Course ("cours de dessin" - it's a book)
| is a classic from the 1800s. It's also in the public domain!
|
| https://archive.org/details/C.BargueDrawingCourse/page/n23/m...
|
| The idea is to slowly progress through the book by copying each
| plate accurately (the sizes are scaled down in book form, so zoom
| in!). I found it very effective for practicing lines, tones, and
| form. It's nice to pick up fundamentals first before delving
| deeper into a specific style.
|
| And the #1 most important thing is to just draw as much as you
| can. There are tons of before-and-afters on social media where
| people with awful beginner drawings have shown that they can
| improve to become very good artists by simply practicing a lot.
| Much of drawing is raw mechanical precision - and it can and must
| be trained like any other physical skill.
| autotune wrote:
| Went ahead and purchased the book used. Thanks!
| noahbradley wrote:
| There are a lot of decent books out there and obviously a million
| good online resources, but I think if you're looking for a
| starting point, I'd suggest you look for classes at a local
| community college or atelier. Avoid anything that looks too
| "artsy". Self expression is great but find somebody who will
| teach you how to draw. An atelier would be an ideal option as
| they tend to have very good technical instruction and you can
| avoid forming bad habits early on.
|
| It's very doable to do it yourself, but having somebody there to
| show you when you're screwing up is immensely valuable. Once
| you've got the basics and know how to learn then you can take
| more time to study on your own.
| woolion wrote:
| Oh, I never imagined you'd have a hn profile. When I started
| learning your "Don't go to art school" post was also quite an
| inspiration to learn diligently. I had spent one year in art
| school which was the most useless I ever had and disgusted me
| of art for quite a few years (and made me switch permanently to
| math/CS).
| noahbradley wrote:
| Art school can really suck the joy out of art. Not always, of
| course, but it's so sad when it does.
|
| Hope you found a way to still do art on your own!
| autotune wrote:
| I have been looking but coming up short. If anyone knows such
| schools or artists in Austin, Texas that they'd recommend feel
| free to reply in a comment.
| noahbradley wrote:
| Just took a quick look and this one looks very good:
| https://www.atelierdojo.com/
| autotune wrote:
| Yep I have already emailed them for more info! Hopefully
| they have weekend classes...
| noahbradley wrote:
| Good luck! Art is a hell of a fun pursuit and I hope you
| have a good time with it. The long periods of boredom and
| frustration lead to those moments of bliss as you make
| things you're proud of and you start to understand what
| you're doing.
|
| It's an endless road but it's a damn fun one.
| dpflug wrote:
| https://drawabox.com/
| nrjames wrote:
| I recommend looking to see if there's a nearby art school and
| whether it will let you audit Drawing 101/102 classes or enroll
| in a non-credit program. I did this about 15 years ago and it was
| amazing to have in-person instruction and to be in a class with
| people who also were learning. My skills progressed much farther
| than I suspected they would over the course of 18 months of
| taking classes.
| ralusek wrote:
| If you are looking for realism, the single best advice I can give
| is that you need to practice drawing what you see vs what you
| think you see. Humans think in terms of icons and memes, but
| resist the urge.
|
| When you see a nose on a face, you'll want to draw an icon of a
| nose, with an outline. But resist, and really look at what you're
| seeing. A camera or a printer doesn't draw a nose, it prints a
| series of consecutive values that look exactly like a nose, and
| so should you. Outlining should be for reference and nothing
| else.
|
| If you get into the world of color, the same thing happens. When
| it comes time to color skin, for example, you go reaching for the
| meme color of skin. But really look at it; you're a camera. That
| skin right there actually has blue in it. And yellow. And red.
| Stop seeing what you think you see, and see what is actually
| there.
| xtrohnx wrote:
| The best art instruction I ever found was when I took a
| portraiture class and an anatomy class through the local art
| shop, though I don't think anything can replace just doing it all
| the time. Much like fishing and software development, there's a
| million schools of thought on how to do it the right way. If you
| can find one of them that jives with you, it can be great, but
| you can spend a decade searching for a perfect method and never
| find it.
|
| One of my favorite artists, Stanislav Krawczyk
| (instagram.com/standarkart), has cerebral palsy and creates
| fantastic portraits. It's not because he can make a perfect line,
| but he knows where to put the lines he can make.
| mesofile wrote:
| Two suggestions to add to the many excellent ones already here:
|
| Arthur Wesley Dow's _Composition: A Series of Exercises Selected
| From a New System of Art Education_ [0] is a wonderful, wonderful
| book in the public domain - recently submitted here but didn 't
| get much attention. It is well worth spending a lot of time
| studying its exercises and examples.
|
| [0] https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/dow-composition/
|
| My second suggestion is more general but it worked wonders for
| me. I had a teacher years ago whose take-home assignments
| consisted of extremely rudimentary drawing exercises, starting
| with drawing a series of straight lines in parallel across a
| page, then moving on to squares, circles etc but always basic
| geometric shapes. His point was that drawing is, at its most
| basic level, a physical skill like many others which require
| physical and neurological adaptations that can only be improved
| with practice. In addition to the creating these lines and
| shapes, one was obliged to pay strict attention to their relation
| to other marks on the page - your circles could not overlap, for
| example, and your straight lines must run parallel and start and
| end at the same page border. The lines had to start and end very
| definitely at the correct point. He was also keen to examine and
| correct each student's physical stance in relation to the easel,
| the light, and the subject, and insisted we draw from the
| shoulder, not the elbow or wrist, as much as possible. The goal
| was to train one's whole body to gain full control over where the
| instrument marks the page.
|
| For some students this practically remedial approach seemed
| almost insulting and a few would balk at it, but it was just
| incredible how much even very mediocre drafting skills improved
| when these exercises were applied diligently, including my own.
| I'm sorry that I don't know a name for this pedagogical system or
| a book that explains it.
| shrubble wrote:
| I would second Dow's book. Dow started teaching and his books
| were written after he had some years of teaching experience. I
| think that Georgia O'Keefe among many others, praised his
| instruction.
| [deleted]
| protonimitate wrote:
| Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is the holy grail. I don't
| think you'll find a much better single "diy" resource. I don't
| think you need to follow it cover to cover, but it's a great
| reference resource to have and contains a lot of super valuable
| exercises and resources for drawing "the right way".
|
| Honestly, I wouldn't spend money on instruction unless it's in
| person - drawing is ultimately about seeing and it's hard to
| instruct that online. Other tutorials/lessons tend to be about
| copying existing work rather than drawing from life, which is the
| foundation of all drawing/art skills.
|
| Learn about the basic elements of art (line, shape, color, value,
| form, texture, and space) and the principles of design (balance,
| contrast, emphasis, movement, pattern, rhythm, unity) and look up
| exercises to practice them all.
|
| Most people only care about "line" when drawing (forced
| perspective, outlining the subjects, etc). This is a trap. Think
| about "drawing through the object" (don't outline and then fill
| in later, etc) and utilizing all the other elements of art.
|
| Draw still life setups/landscapes/people from real life. A lot.
| Do long drawing sessions (4+ hours with the same subject). Short
| time boxed ones (15 mins max, 30 mins max, etc). Draw the same
| setup every day for a week. Draw every day.
|
| If you want to copy other works, start with copying
| drawings/sketches from the "masters".
|
| If possible, find a group drawing class to get IRL feedback.
|
| Once you do this for a year or two you should have a pretty good
| foundation for pretty much any drawing/painting discipline.
|
| Ultimately it's about repeated practice. Make it a daily habit
| and you'll see big improvements.
|
| Source: art school, drawing/painting for 15 years.
| schrectacular wrote:
| Came to say this too. Had so much fun going through that book.
| Definitely check it out.
| falcolas wrote:
| Seconded. In still a terrible artist/sketcher, but thats due
| more to a lack of practice at this point.
| LTL_FTC wrote:
| Mark Kistler's Draw Squad if you'd like to try a book.
| cc101 wrote:
| Look at the book Drawing Space, Form, and Expression by Entice
| and Peters. Its ideas are extremely deep and insightful. Some
| nice practical advise too. It's not for everyone, though.
| minimoose wrote:
| Started maybe 4 years ago wanting to make art for a video game. I
| took the Hunter S Thompson approach - he typed word for word I
| think TS Elliot. Traced what i liked eventually took it more
| serious. Draw once a day - doodles & no expectations. I liked
| NMA's Steve Huston sketchbook class, but really no one can draw
| for you. Stefan Baumann has some coaching sessions but that's for
| oil painting. Finding someone local to give coaching might help.
| cheers & good luck
| drums8787 wrote:
| You may not be into comics but I still recommend Lynda Berry's
| Making Comics for the aspiring draftsman. Depending on how you
| best learn, it may be a good fit. Playful, yet structured. So
| much in the early stages is about overcoming inhibitions and
| "just do it", and this book helps with that. Also recommend Gary
| Panter's 10 "rules" for keeping a sketchbook. Have fun! Oh, and
| look up the urban sketchers community, might have some good
| hints.
| drums8787 wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20160201220407/http://unbored.ne...
| reactspa wrote:
| I want to learn how to do Stick Figures. Sort of like the xkcd.
|
| Would "Making Comics" help with that? If not, if anyone has any
| resources for stick figures, please mention them in a reply to
| this post.
| drums8787 wrote:
| Indirectly, yes. Even if you just want to draw stick figures,
| you need to put marks on paper (or tablet, but the analog way
| has benefits IMO), and the book helps with that. You'll need
| to practice abstraction and that's nothing more than seeing
| and drawing. A lot. Check out the Gary Panter link above.
| Fill a sketchbook with stick figure versions of the stuff
| around you and you're off to a good start.
| winkelwagen wrote:
| I've been steadily drawing for the past 3 years. Slowly
| improving, what boosted my skills the most was getting an online
| instructor from a site that mostly facilitated language learning.
| Mostly because talking with real people about process, what you
| are working on, things where you might be struggling. My
| instructor help me pass those obstacles.
|
| Draw a box drained my love got drawing and painting. I found it
| very repetitive and painful. The teacher warns for that, but
| still it didn't work for me.
|
| I do daily line-of-action.com sessions, it forces you not to
| think but to draw. Capturing essence and intent is more important
| than realism for me.
|
| Just draw! Find people who inspire you. Don't dwell on instagram
| and ArtStation. Perhaps take a look ob meetup if there are "shut
| up abd draw" sessions in your area.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Possible red flags:
|
| - " _One day, eventually, if all the stars align, I want to maybe
| be able to X_ " pattern. Yes it's good to have goals, and
| socially approved of to be humble; a risk with this is that
| people who are compelled to do X are already doing it right now,
| badly, because they enjoy _doing it_. You could have drawn many
| people in the time it took you to write that post, and then said
| "draw better action scenes with people fighting" or "more
| realistic faces" or etc. Something specific. The possible red
| flag is: "I want to be in a band" imagining being on stage and
| being worshipped, instead of "I strum on the guitar and enjoy it
| and want to be able to play Stairway to Heaven". If by any chance
| you don't like the action of drawing already right now, why will
| you want to draw people later if you have the ability? What will
| change?
|
| - You want to draw "people or landscapes". Also good to have
| goals and range, but possible red flag is that the goals are
| suspiciously vague. Could it be that you don't know what you want
| because you don't really want to _do_ either of those things very
| much? Would you know if you wanted to draw wooden furniture that
| you are planning to make, or illustrations for a nightmare
| Lovecraft book? Instead of "I want to play Stairway to Heaven on
| the electric guitar" you're saying "I want to do music or singing
| is there a good tutorial for that?". What specific people are you
| drawn to? Portraits? Action movements? Cartoon style? Anime
| style? DC Comics style? Or what landscapes? Like Bob Ross, Bill
| Watterson, Studio Ghibli, or what? If you don't know and don't
| care, it's back to liking the idea more than the activity. If you
| do care, maybe choosing and focusing can give you something
| specific to look for in a tutorial - no point in getting one that
| covers hands if you want to draw mountains, no point in one which
| covers plants in detail if you want to draw steampunk, just
| because you'll be more compelled to work on things you want to
| work on.
|
| - " _I tried X and it didn 't work_". Yes guides and tutorials
| and things can help, red flag interpretation is also that's is
| such a vague comment. " _I want to build websites. I tried
| 'Javascript the good parts' but it didn't work_" as if the book
| 'worked' you'd be able to code and if you can't code after
| reading it, the book didn't work. As if working is a thing books
| can do or not do. Did it not give you anything to think about?
| Anything to practise? Did you do the self portrait at the start
| and end and not improve?
|
| - "I am willing to pay hudreds of dollars" - Is that coming from
| a place of "expertise and coaching is something I respect" or
| from "can I skip the hard and boring bits by throwing money at
| it?". Only you can know.
|
| - Analysis paralysis. I understand it, and I suspect a common
| reason for it is that people "want" to do things, but don't
| really want to, so there's nothing to force any action one way or
| another. Consider: do you want cake or ice cream? Hard decision.
| Do you want cake or dog poop? Easy decision. People who "want to
| write games" can't decide on the "best way" for months at a time.
| People who are compelled to get their game idea into reality have
| no time for analysis paralysis, any tutorial will do, get to the
| point already, I've got things to create! There's no analysis
| paralysis in "I want to plant potatoes in my garden this growing
| season and that gives me 2 weeks and there's one garden center
| near by". There's analysis paralysis in "growing some of my own
| food would be nice, but what? should I get an allotment? What's
| the perfect soil? Which online shop has the ~ best seeds ~? What
| tools do the pros use? What's the best gardening TV show?".
|
| Do you want to spend your time doing the activity of drawing? Is
| that something you already do, now? If yes, it makes it much
| easier: look for the courses which teach the thing you want to
| improve at, specifically. If no, maybe do that first or ask
| yourself why you "want to be able to draw" when you don't ever
| draw?
|
| This post brought to you by years of watching people say "I want
| to learn to program, what would be _the best way_ (tm)" on the
| internet, when they could be opening an editor and fighting the
| parser to get some code working, any code. Paradox: If you don't
| care what you draw, any tutorial will do. If you do care, there
| should be little analysis paralysis because most tutorials are
| irrelevant to what you want, and of all the ones which are
| targetted at what you want, any one of them will do.
| Saturn5 wrote:
| Honestly, practice practice practice. Don't try to make that one
| perfect drawing, make hundreds average ones. The most difficult
| skill is not how to render the perfect line or gradient but to
| really "see" what is in front of you and not fill in the gaps.
|
| Photos are nice, I like the website line of action if you want to
| learn to draw people. Try to draw from real life as much as
| possible. Draw what is at you desk, your family, people around
| you in a cafe. It is much more difficult at the start, but you
| will progress so much faster.
|
| Also, is there anyone with good recommendations to learn more
| about (modern) art and art history?
| analogtom wrote:
| Robert Laszlo Kiss on YouTube is very good. You gotta know the
| basics of perspective (single point, two point ans three point
| perspective) to advance in drawing / painting. Everything is a
| box in perspective. Then you fill in the details from there.
| quadcore wrote:
| Google: Force Drawing.
|
| It teaches 3 critical drawing things 1) think in terms of lines.
|
| 2) every line is in relation to something (sometimes just the
| frame). An example of (2) would be, in the face, there is lot of
| relation between horizontal and vertical (relation to the frame)
| and for example, the eyes are in relation which each other via an
| expression, so you better draw them together, with one stroke to
| start with. Thats the point of relations: draw them at once or
| one after the other.
|
| And 3) notice the diagonals and horizontal/vertical in your
| drawing.
| akshatmittal108 wrote:
| Agree 100% with another comment posted in the thread - just do
| it. I have looked at different resources. Video series or a book
| both take many hours to complete. Hours which I could have spent
| drawing rather than just passively consuming content.
|
| For me it works to draw what is constantly on my mind. It could
| be some thoughts about latest DC movie, a tv series or something
| going on in the news. Then I try to envision a background for
| example in case of Ukrain invasion, I am currently thinking of
| dark grey buildings in the background with smoke and ash falling
| from sky (scene could be inspired from something else like
| Chernobyl tv series). Then I introduce some story element since
| the point of sketch is to tell a story. I'll have a character in
| the foreground. That character can be sitting alone with a dog or
| with his/her partner to evoke feeling of tragedy and yet some
| hope.
|
| In this way the thing which I sketch will be unique. It's hard to
| draw everything from scratch. So I think of the line from
| inception movie - never copy entire areas. Copy only small
| details like a lamp-post or a building or lighting. So I use any
| reference image to draw that particular detail. Even professional
| artists do that. Also, I post my work on instagram, this gives a
| finishing line otherwise I am never happy with what I have drawn.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-02-25 23:00 UTC)