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As someone that has started to draw from scratch five months ago, I was disappointed by this book. It was basically not much more than a show and tell of pictur

As someone that has started to draw from scratch five months ago, I was disappointed by this book. It was basically not much more than a show and tell of pictures he mostly traced of photos and then shaded in pencil in or painted, and a naming of tutorials he watched and classes attended. I would have hoped for something a little less prosaic. There is a lot to talk about regarding the magic of learning to draw (including the fact that anyone can do it, and ruminations on the basic division between observational atelier style drawing vs constructive drawing), and the author completely avoids the thing that is the most brain expanding and thrilling part of drawing which is learning to draw from imagination rather than copying or tracing photos. This is 100% a learnable skill, and it is very addictive when you first start to see things on paper that you had in your head.

greenie_beans 2y ago
i haven't read the book, but i'm a fan of his fiction. while listening to one of his interviews about the drawing book, several times i thought, "is this supposed to be a metaphor for writing?" because the idea could've been applied to writing. with that idea in your mind, does the book still suck?
- Snigelmannen 2y ago
  I don't really know how one would be able to learn very much about writing from this book other in the basic sense of "hey: creative things can be a fun pastime, and can be relaxing if you are feeling burnt out".
melling 2y ago
Where do I start?
- chefandy 2y ago
  Learning to draw? If you have access to LinkedIn Learning (often available through public libraries if you don't have a premium account) all of the fundamental art courses there are absolutely fantastic. I'm an art school guy and while there's obviously a ton of value in getting personalized critique and tailored assignments from professors, the breadth, quality, and format of the LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) material-- from drawing, to watercolor work, to graphic design, to character design, to photography-- is truly exceptional. If you're savvy, you can probably get ahold of the course books for the self-paced "Famous Artists School" courses from the 50s. They later became the "Art Instruction Schools" courses that had the commercials with that dorky guy saying "Do you like to draw, or paint, or maybe just sketch and doodle?" It was created by Norman Rockwell and Albert Dorne specifically to guide people to teach themselves how to draw. You obviously can't get the mail-in critique, but if you have the discipline to do all of the exercises, you'll still do well.
- criddell 2y ago
  I've seen https://drawabox.com/ https://drawabox.com/ recommended before. I have it bookmarked but haven't started it yet.
- wccrawford 2y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWi1pCR3peg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWi1pCR3peg NerdForge recently helped her boyfriend learn to draw from scratch, and she lists all the stuff she used to help him get there, and you can watch him go through parts of them as well.
- Snigelmannen 2y ago
  Here is what I did: I started with drawabox.com, which is basically a very rigid but free of cost boot camp style of starting from just drawing a line on a piece of paper. Simultaneously I read Lynda Barries' book on comic making and her book "Syllabus", and adopted her way of doing quick visual journaling every day. I read the Loomis book "Fun with a pencil" which is a book aimed at kids for drawing cartoony little things progressing to more realistic anatomy. This lead me to Loomis' books "Figure drawing for all its worth" and "Successful drawing". (the latter being a book on incorporating perspective in drawing). From there I have used various resources. A breakthrough for me was Rebecca Tillman Youngs online course on portrait drawing (which is basically teaching the Loomis method of drawing the head in a slow and methodical way) in that it allowed me to draw faces that I genuinely was excited about. From there resources that have been useful to me are Marco Bucci's online class "Drawing for advanced beginners", the books "Figure drawing: design and invention", "Anatomy for artists, drawing form and pose", "the Vilppu manual", ""Anatomy for sculptors", and "Rey's anatomy" (not Grey's anatomy). The best book on perspective I have found is Atteberry's "The complete guide to perspective". I have read a ton of other books, but these are the keepers. In five months I have gone through three 100 page sketchbooks and I have had fun and reached flow state pretty consistently the whole time through. The first of the sketchbooks was basically just drawabox exercises up until the 250 boxes challenge. At this point I transitioned away from drawabox as I was having enough fundamentals to have fun and make progress on drawings I cared about. All these resources and books may seem overwhelming and you definitely don't need to go through all of this material. The key for learning drawing is to figure out what is exciting for you to draw and get over that first hump to get to where you can draw something you see have potential even if it is not great. That's when the momentum builds and it becomes self propelling. Drawing is basically a language for communicating 3d form on a 2d surface, and like learning Spanish the key is just to get enough of a vocabulary that you can get started conversing. The rest follows once you can talk a little.
chefandy 2y ago
> draw from imagination rather than copying or tracing photos Well, I'd argue that the more important skill from a technical perspective is in between that-- life drawing. Being able to translate 3d scenes into a 2d image is the primary technical drawing skill emphasized in art school drawing classes, and for good reason: it forces you to reason about physical space and the structure of objects in ways that neither drawing from imagination nor drawing from a photo reference does. Using a photo reference for drawing in art school is usually disallowed because you simply don't build up that skill, and drawing from imagination is generally taught in classes like Character Design and Illustration after students have learned the fundamentals because there are tons of intellectual considerations there that don't have a lot to do with making marks and reasoning about space that warrant their own subjects. Among the long-time artists I know that started drawing from imagination exclusively, I don't know a single one that doesn't lament not focusing on the comparatively dry life drawing earlier in their practice. Doing the traditional foundational things like pencil line drawing accurate complex still life can be really frustrating, as can figure drawing, though I found it a lot more rewarding. But if you're looking to develop the best possible artistic eye, there is absolutely no substitute.
- b450 2y ago
  I agree that life drawing is of tremendous importance, but your characterization here disagrees with my experience: > [life drawing] forces you to reason about physical space and the structure of objects in ways that neither drawing from imagination nor drawing from a photo reference does. Now this may be because I am, at best, an intermediate artist, but in my experience, beginner drawing courses (rightly) focus on unlearning the natural tendency towards "symbol drawing". A bunch of beginner drawing exercises like (a) copying Picasso's Stravinsky portrait upside down, (b) overlaying a picture with a grid to copy it, (c) life drawing with various physical aids (holding out a pencil to "visually measure", drawing a scene visible through a cardboard frame) are all focused on learning to draw what you "really see" instead of what you think you see. To me, this early learning process involves learning _not_ to reason about what you see, but to instead simply copy what's in your "visual field". Instead of "oh, a nose is sort of a pyramid shape, so it should look like this", it's, "I see a darker value in that spot" (it just so happens to be the shadow cast under the nose, but you don't even need to recognize that). In my own drawing journey, I actually think my life drawing started getting much better once I started learning to draw from imagination, because the latter _does_ require that level of understanding - using perspective, simplifying forms into primitive shapes, types of shadows, planning where the darkest and lightest values in the image will be, and so on. In particular, since practicing illustration, I'm much more capable of sketching things that aren't posing, like the geese permanently milling around in front of my house - I can quickly copy a silhouette, and then use my knowledge to fill out what it should look like. I didn't really learn to do that in all my life drawing classes, because I could just fall back on what I was seeing.
nox101 2y ago
what books / videos / classes do you recommend?
watwut 2y ago
> the author completely avoids the thing that is the most brain expanding and thrilling part of drawing which is learning to draw from imagination rather than copying or tracing photos All the drawing tutorials for beginners I have seen putted a lot of emphasis on drawing from refences first, before you draw from imagination. The reason stated again and again was that you need to learn how the object looks like before you can draw it from imagination - that people do not know how objects really looks like unless they trained it first.
- Snigelmannen 2y ago
  Excessive focus on copying from reference is the old atelier method, and it is not the only way. Sure, you need to do some of this, but it is IMHO better to focus on trying to draw from imagination from day one, and then find the weaknesses in what you produce and then draw from reference or watch a tutorial to for example figure out how to make a mouth look ok. This way you are trying to solve concrete problems that are obstacles to what you are passionate about rather than doing endless aimless copying. This makes the process (again IMHO) more fun and sustainable. You do need to have a little bit of a general framework to base your drawing around, and that can be gotten (if you like to draw people) by learning some basics about how to draw stick like figures marionettes as an armature to build your person around. See for example the first few chapters in Loomis book "Figure drawing for all it is worth". This has worked for me as a beginner. For a video putting forward a similar view from an expert, check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rlF-qE-vsM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rlF-qE-vsM
  - watwut 2y ago
    The video you linked literally recommends looking at the references. Sycra in general recommends refences all the time.

greenie_beans 2y ago

i haven't read the book, but i'm a fan of his fiction. while listening to one of his interviews about the drawing book, several times i thought, "is this supposed to be a metaphor for writing?" because the idea could've been applied to writing. with that idea in your mind, does the book still suck?

Snigelmannen 2y ago
I don't really know how one would be able to learn very much about writing from this book other in the basic sense of "hey: creative things can be a fun pastime, and can be relaxing if you are feeling burnt out".

melling 2y ago

Where do I start?

chefandy 2y ago
Learning to draw? If you have access to LinkedIn Learning (often available through public libraries if you don't have a premium account) all of the fundamental art courses there are absolutely fantastic. I'm an art school guy and while there's obviously a ton of value in getting personalized critique and tailored assignments from professors, the breadth, quality, and format of the LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) material-- from drawing, to watercolor work, to graphic design, to character design, to photography-- is truly exceptional. If you're savvy, you can probably get ahold of the course books for the self-paced "Famous Artists School" courses from the 50s. They later became the "Art Instruction Schools" courses that had the commercials with that dorky guy saying "Do you like to draw, or paint, or maybe just sketch and doodle?" It was created by Norman Rockwell and Albert Dorne specifically to guide people to teach themselves how to draw. You obviously can't get the mail-in critique, but if you have the discipline to do all of the exercises, you'll still do well.
criddell 2y ago
I've seen https://drawabox.com/ https://drawabox.com/ recommended before. I have it bookmarked but haven't started it yet.
wccrawford 2y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWi1pCR3peg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWi1pCR3peg NerdForge recently helped her boyfriend learn to draw from scratch, and she lists all the stuff she used to help him get there, and you can watch him go through parts of them as well.
Snigelmannen 2y ago
Here is what I did: I started with drawabox.com, which is basically a very rigid but free of cost boot camp style of starting from just drawing a line on a piece of paper. Simultaneously I read Lynda Barries' book on comic making and her book "Syllabus", and adopted her way of doing quick visual journaling every day. I read the Loomis book "Fun with a pencil" which is a book aimed at kids for drawing cartoony little things progressing to more realistic anatomy. This lead me to Loomis' books "Figure drawing for all its worth" and "Successful drawing". (the latter being a book on incorporating perspective in drawing). From there I have used various resources. A breakthrough for me was Rebecca Tillman Youngs online course on portrait drawing (which is basically teaching the Loomis method of drawing the head in a slow and methodical way) in that it allowed me to draw faces that I genuinely was excited about. From there resources that have been useful to me are Marco Bucci's online class "Drawing for advanced beginners", the books "Figure drawing: design and invention", "Anatomy for artists, drawing form and pose", "the Vilppu manual", ""Anatomy for sculptors", and "Rey's anatomy" (not Grey's anatomy). The best book on perspective I have found is Atteberry's "The complete guide to perspective". I have read a ton of other books, but these are the keepers. In five months I have gone through three 100 page sketchbooks and I have had fun and reached flow state pretty consistently the whole time through. The first of the sketchbooks was basically just drawabox exercises up until the 250 boxes challenge. At this point I transitioned away from drawabox as I was having enough fundamentals to have fun and make progress on drawings I cared about. All these resources and books may seem overwhelming and you definitely don't need to go through all of this material. The key for learning drawing is to figure out what is exciting for you to draw and get over that first hump to get to where you can draw something you see have potential even if it is not great. That's when the momentum builds and it becomes self propelling. Drawing is basically a language for communicating 3d form on a 2d surface, and like learning Spanish the key is just to get enough of a vocabulary that you can get started conversing. The rest follows once you can talk a little.

chefandy 2y ago

> draw from imagination rather than copying or tracing photos Well, I'd argue that the more important skill from a technical perspective is in between that-- life drawing. Being able to translate 3d scenes into a 2d image is the primary technical drawing skill emphasized in art school drawing classes, and for good reason: it forces you to reason about physical space and the structure of objects in ways that neither drawing from imagination nor drawing from a photo reference does. Using a photo reference for drawing in art school is usually disallowed because you simply don't build up that skill, and drawing from imagination is generally taught in classes like Character Design and Illustration after students have learned the fundamentals because there are tons of intellectual considerations there that don't have a lot to do with making marks and reasoning about space that warrant their own subjects. Among the long-time artists I know that started drawing from imagination exclusively, I don't know a single one that doesn't lament not focusing on the comparatively dry life drawing earlier in their practice. Doing the traditional foundational things like pencil line drawing accurate complex still life can be really frustrating, as can figure drawing, though I found it a lot more rewarding. But if you're looking to develop the best possible artistic eye, there is absolutely no substitute.

b450 2y ago
I agree that life drawing is of tremendous importance, but your characterization here disagrees with my experience: > [life drawing] forces you to reason about physical space and the structure of objects in ways that neither drawing from imagination nor drawing from a photo reference does. Now this may be because I am, at best, an intermediate artist, but in my experience, beginner drawing courses (rightly) focus on unlearning the natural tendency towards "symbol drawing". A bunch of beginner drawing exercises like (a) copying Picasso's Stravinsky portrait upside down, (b) overlaying a picture with a grid to copy it, (c) life drawing with various physical aids (holding out a pencil to "visually measure", drawing a scene visible through a cardboard frame) are all focused on learning to draw what you "really see" instead of what you think you see. To me, this early learning process involves learning _not_ to reason about what you see, but to instead simply copy what's in your "visual field". Instead of "oh, a nose is sort of a pyramid shape, so it should look like this", it's, "I see a darker value in that spot" (it just so happens to be the shadow cast under the nose, but you don't even need to recognize that). In my own drawing journey, I actually think my life drawing started getting much better once I started learning to draw from imagination, because the latter _does_ require that level of understanding - using perspective, simplifying forms into primitive shapes, types of shadows, planning where the darkest and lightest values in the image will be, and so on. In particular, since practicing illustration, I'm much more capable of sketching things that aren't posing, like the geese permanently milling around in front of my house - I can quickly copy a silhouette, and then use my knowledge to fill out what it should look like. I didn't really learn to do that in all my life drawing classes, because I could just fall back on what I was seeing.

nox101 2y ago

what books / videos / classes do you recommend?

watwut 2y ago

> the author completely avoids the thing that is the most brain expanding and thrilling part of drawing which is learning to draw from imagination rather than copying or tracing photos All the drawing tutorials for beginners I have seen putted a lot of emphasis on drawing from refences first, before you draw from imagination. The reason stated again and again was that you need to learn how the object looks like before you can draw it from imagination - that people do not know how objects really looks like unless they trained it first.

Snigelmannen 2y ago
Excessive focus on copying from reference is the old atelier method, and it is not the only way. Sure, you need to do some of this, but it is IMHO better to focus on trying to draw from imagination from day one, and then find the weaknesses in what you produce and then draw from reference or watch a tutorial to for example figure out how to make a mouth look ok. This way you are trying to solve concrete problems that are obstacles to what you are passionate about rather than doing endless aimless copying. This makes the process (again IMHO) more fun and sustainable. You do need to have a little bit of a general framework to base your drawing around, and that can be gotten (if you like to draw people) by learning some basics about how to draw stick like figures marionettes as an armature to build your person around. See for example the first few chapters in Loomis book "Figure drawing for all it is worth". This has worked for me as a beginner. For a video putting forward a similar view from an expert, check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rlF-qE-vsM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rlF-qE-vsM
- watwut 2y ago
  The video you linked literally recommends looking at the references. Sycra in general recommends refences all the time.