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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

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.

jstanley 5y ago
> 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 5y ago
  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.
  - nefitty 5y ago
    The gap between what I imagine and desire motivates my art and coding. "Damn, I can't find what I want to listen to. I guess I'll have to make this song up that my brain wants to hear, myself."
    - psyc 5y ago
      I’m the same with music and games!
    - timoteostewart 5y ago
      Reminds me of this Ira Glass quote: “Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
jpm48 5y ago
"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 :-)
natnatenathan 5y ago
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.
sukh 5y ago
Logged in to say Thank you!
brimble 5y ago
> 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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
  [deleted]
chris_st 5y ago
_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!
davidrupp 5y ago
"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™.
- treeman79 5y ago
  I started drawing a few years ago then took a college course. Learning to see what is the major theme and made an amazing difference. I would leave some sessions as if in a trance seeing the world in ways I’ve never had before
Madmallard 5y ago
Are there any courses that help accelerate developing accuracy in sketching? I particularly want to draw figures and faces and animated poses. Like maybe something on composition? What about that book cartooning the head & figure? Or do u just gotta sketch 9000000000000000000 times to get it? I'm an amateur artist and drew every day as a kid. My sketches always have incorrect proportions if I just try to freehand it. Obviously I could trace but that defeats the purpose. It's frustrating because I already have lots of actual hours put into the craft.
- skydhash 5y ago
  It’s practice and learning. Drawing is just rendering volumes as shapes. You learn first how the process works, then practice to adjust your motor skills. I’ve been drawing on and off since I was 8. I’m 26 now and I’m just decent. The above is what will really help you. Like what is the form of the eye, and what would be its shape from that angle. Then If you can draw any geometric shape accurately (by comparing line length and angle), you can draw the eye.
senectus1 5y ago
This^ Be ready to and accepting of failure. lots and lots of failure. Trying and failing is the fastest and surest way to learn. Once you let yourself fail lots then the cost of failure drops significantly and the ROI increases sharply.

jstanley 5y ago

> 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 5y ago
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.
- nefitty 5y ago
  The gap between what I imagine and desire motivates my art and coding. "Damn, I can't find what I want to listen to. I guess I'll have to make this song up that my brain wants to hear, myself."
  - psyc 5y ago
    I’m the same with music and games!
  - timoteostewart 5y ago
    Reminds me of this Ira Glass quote: “Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

jpm48 5y ago

"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 :-)

natnatenathan 5y ago

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.

sukh 5y ago

Logged in to say Thank you!

brimble 5y ago

> 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 5y ago
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 5y ago
[deleted]

chris_st 5y ago

_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!

davidrupp 5y ago

"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™.

treeman79 5y ago
I started drawing a few years ago then took a college course. Learning to see what is the major theme and made an amazing difference. I would leave some sessions as if in a trance seeing the world in ways I’ve never had before

Madmallard 5y ago

Are there any courses that help accelerate developing accuracy in sketching? I particularly want to draw figures and faces and animated poses. Like maybe something on composition? What about that book cartooning the head & figure? Or do u just gotta sketch 9000000000000000000 times to get it? I'm an amateur artist and drew every day as a kid. My sketches always have incorrect proportions if I just try to freehand it. Obviously I could trace but that defeats the purpose. It's frustrating because I already have lots of actual hours put into the craft.

skydhash 5y ago
It’s practice and learning. Drawing is just rendering volumes as shapes. You learn first how the process works, then practice to adjust your motor skills. I’ve been drawing on and off since I was 8. I’m 26 now and I’m just decent. The above is what will really help you. Like what is the form of the eye, and what would be its shape from that angle. Then If you can draw any geometric shape accurately (by comparing line length and angle), you can draw the eye.

senectus1 5y ago

This^ Be ready to and accepting of failure. lots and lots of failure. Trying and failing is the fastest and surest way to learn. Once you let yourself fail lots then the cost of failure drops significantly and the ROI increases sharply.