5 ms·

From what I can tell, Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain teaches you to draw things you already see, which is nice, and can help you impress your mom if y

by frooxie 13y ago

From what I can tell, Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain teaches you to draw things you already see, which is nice, and can help you impress your mom if you practise a bit, but as far as drawing ability goes, being a human copy machine is an extremely basic skill. Don't get me wrong, basic skills are valuable, but reading the book and practising for a couple of months will not make you a skilled artist any more than learning to touch-type and adding an existing Javascript menu to a web page will make you an expert programmer. It can be a first step, but if you want to be really good at drawing, you probably want to to spend years practising composition, perspective, anatomy, the emotional effects of lines and shapes, color theory, storytelling, creating variation/contrast/depth/movement, etc. There's much, much more to drawing than just being able to copy what you see in front of you. (I'm not writing this to discourage anyone, I just want to put the book into perspective.)

apalmer 13y ago
The most obvious thing seems to be, those who can ALREADY draw a bit find the book to be not helpful, very basic, and somewhat misleading... People who cannot draw at all seem to get a lot out of the book however... I think it comes down to a being a human photocopier is an immensely important part of drawing, but its also a phase that you pass out of on your way to becoming a good artist. I remember me and my friends used to spend hours doing line for line copies of comic book drawings when we were 10-12 years old, its a natural part of the process i think...
- muraiki 13y ago
  I found the book valuable in that, as someone who is not particularly visually oriented, it helped teach me "how to see."
- tripzilch 13y ago
  > me and my friends used to spend hours doing line for line copies of comic book drawings when we were 10-12 years old, its a natural part of the process i think... Dunno. I strongly believe it really depends. I never did that, for exactly the reasons other people lay out in this thread, "but what if I want to draw something else?" (actually "but I want to draw something else, this drawing already exists anyway, why copy it"). Some of my friends did like to copy drawings. A lot of them never progressed past that, and some did. It really depends.
cousin_it 13y ago
I agree. I went through that book and then noticed that I can't draw the things I see vividly in my mind, only copy what's in front of me. Then I realized that to sketch from imagination, I need to understand the 3D structure of things, not just how they look from one side. So here's some exercises I'm doing now: - Drawing a lot of boxes, spheres cut in half, cones, other simple 3D objects in various views - 30-second poses using Posemaniacs, and quick poses from imagination - Head structure from imagination, like in Loomis "Drawing the head and hands" (available online for free) The next problem is going to be color, I can already tell that I'm OK with structure but will need a new set of exercises for color and value, no idea yet what they will be. Can anyone who's further along help me out?
- krick 13y ago
  If you are pretty good at drawing already I'd suggest to practice at color drawing for some short time using your intuition and your eyes, and then move on to the serious stuff. I mean color theory. You might find useful Gnomon Workshop tutorials on color theory and Johannes Itten's "The Art of Color". Also, here you inevitably will need guidance in proper usage of your instruments, so find yourself a manual for the technique you use (some book and I find youtube videos on topic pretty useful ofttimes).
- agumonkey 13y ago
  loomis links for the lazy https://archive.org/search.php?query=andrew%20loomis%20AND%20collection%3Aopensource https://archive.org/search.php?query=andrew%20loomis%20AND%2...
- tripzilch 13y ago
  Those are great exercises. I don't know how I learned colour. I worked in black and white for a long, long time, and only started using colour when I started using the computer/scanner. (If you like maths and physics, check this out: http://www.scratchapixel.com/lessons/3d-basic-lessons/lesson-5-colors-and-digital-images/ http://www.scratchapixel.com/lessons/3d-basic-lessons/lesson... esp. lessons 1 and 2 it won't help you one bit about choosing the "right" colours for artistic purposes, but it's super interesting and useful for knowing about how colours are made in print and on the screen)
krick 13y ago
Well, "years" might be a little bit of exaggeration. I mean, there always is something more to learn even after 10 years of experience, but it shouldn't sound as terrifying as you make it sound. To be somewhat good you need only few basic skills (which that book doesn't teach you, as I already said in another post, but there are other books and courses anyway), not very long period of pretty intense practice and yes, here your life-long journey begins, but you already can be quite confident about your drawings. It's like, you know, that sushi-making stuff in Japan (as well as many other things): it's considered very difficult and you need many years to learn how to make sushi and there are some 86 years old master that'll tell you how he even now dreams about sushi and improves his skills and whatever. Yet you can take 3-hours long lesson somewhere in Europe or USA and start making pretty decent sushi for yourself. Or programming, or everything else. Anyway, making some real work of art is more about your personal qualities like imagination than about "life-long learning". But there's always something more to learn nevertheless.
- cinskiy 13y ago
  Sushi story is about a man named Jiro. There is a wonderful, wonderful documentary about him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiro_Dreams_of_Sushi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiro_Dreams_of_Sushi
  - igravious 13y ago
    Seconded. Really thoughtful documentary about the crafting of sushi that is really about the art of crafting rather than the art sushi-making. The dude abides in Jiro.
zupatol 13y ago
It's not necessary to be a "skilled artist" to make beautiful drawings. Technical limitations force you to be creative. That's true in art as well as in programming. Don't discourage people. Enthusiasm is what brings them to interesting places. Who knows what a "skilled artist" is anyway?
zeidrich 13y ago
I disagree. The book taught me that the things that we "see" in our minds are really very incomplete. You think you can imagine an elephant vividly in your imagination, but what is the ratio of their ears to their head, or their trunk to their head. Where are their eyes? How does their mouth open? When you draw from what you see, or draw from what you imagine, it's easy to think you know exactly what you're going to draw, but unless you really pay attention you are probably glossing over it in your mind. To draw things that you imagine well you need the same skill as you need to draw things that you see. You just need practice to memorize a form, or components of a form, or the principles behind a form before you can compose them into your own idea. If you think that the book is just about copying what you see in front of you, you either haven't read it or really didn't pay attention to it. On the other hand, if you can't reproduce something you see right in front of you, you're going to have an impossible task in reproducing something that is vaguely held in your mind.
- krick 13y ago
  Funny though that comment of yours is precisely one of these things I don't like about this book. That "incompleteness" of picture in your mind is something everybody notices as he starts drawing anyway, but the thing that book "taught" you as you say is the wrong one. You see, there is some maxima repeatedly imposed by that book, like "draw what you see" or something like that — you could formulate it by yourself just fine as you've read it I guess. That is an important thing that you should hear once, that's right, because relying too much on technical methods (like perspective) is often impractical and you must learn to draw not relying on it too much. The problem is, that it's just one thing you need to hear after you'll learn perspective and other basic techniques just once, but not a lesson itself. Because, you see, there are infinite forms in the universe and our imaginary worlds as well, and drawing an elephant isn't about memorizing it, it's about understanding. If you want to understand what I'm talking about, I'd recommend you to read Gottfried Bammes "The Artist's Guide to Animal Anatomy". Actually, if you'll go to the art school or similar place you'll be strongly discouraged from that "line tracing" thing (however, as I said, remembering that you can draw like that as well is important), which can seem surprising at first (because, really, it's so easy and so natural to just trace it!), but you'll understand why really soon. By the way, if you are interested, maybe you should check some sketches for famous pictures of famous artists (like Dali) who were professionally drawing for years. That actually impressed me when I first saw that, that really, really good artists who I might have thought would just draw anything from the top of their heads actually do sketches with all these support lines and stuff. Then you understand that drawing isn't just line tracing after all. So in the end of the day drawing tons of cubes and spheres is way more useful and important than line-tracing your face. Really.
pekk 13y ago
Did you learn all those things?
- frooxie 13y ago
  I've spent decades learning them but I still want to improve.
baddox 13y ago
That might be easy for you to say, but for me (I'm another programmer with zero drawing ability), even being able to copy a simple line drawing (like a cartoon) would be quite satisfying.
- frooxie 13y ago
  I'm not saying it's not! Learning to copy line drawings accurately can be fun and being able to do so is an important foundational skill. I'm just saying there's more to drawing than copying things you see.

by frooxie 13y ago

apalmer 13y ago

The most obvious thing seems to be, those who can ALREADY draw a bit find the book to be not helpful, very basic, and somewhat misleading... People who cannot draw at all seem to get a lot out of the book however... I think it comes down to a being a human photocopier is an immensely important part of drawing, but its also a phase that you pass out of on your way to becoming a good artist. I remember me and my friends used to spend hours doing line for line copies of comic book drawings when we were 10-12 years old, its a natural part of the process i think...

muraiki 13y ago
I found the book valuable in that, as someone who is not particularly visually oriented, it helped teach me "how to see."
tripzilch 13y ago
> me and my friends used to spend hours doing line for line copies of comic book drawings when we were 10-12 years old, its a natural part of the process i think... Dunno. I strongly believe it really depends. I never did that, for exactly the reasons other people lay out in this thread, "but what if I want to draw something else?" (actually "but I want to draw something else, this drawing already exists anyway, why copy it"). Some of my friends did like to copy drawings. A lot of them never progressed past that, and some did. It really depends.

cousin_it 13y ago

I agree. I went through that book and then noticed that I can't draw the things I see vividly in my mind, only copy what's in front of me. Then I realized that to sketch from imagination, I need to understand the 3D structure of things, not just how they look from one side. So here's some exercises I'm doing now: - Drawing a lot of boxes, spheres cut in half, cones, other simple 3D objects in various views - 30-second poses using Posemaniacs, and quick poses from imagination - Head structure from imagination, like in Loomis "Drawing the head and hands" (available online for free) The next problem is going to be color, I can already tell that I'm OK with structure but will need a new set of exercises for color and value, no idea yet what they will be. Can anyone who's further along help me out?

krick 13y ago
If you are pretty good at drawing already I'd suggest to practice at color drawing for some short time using your intuition and your eyes, and then move on to the serious stuff. I mean color theory. You might find useful Gnomon Workshop tutorials on color theory and Johannes Itten's "The Art of Color". Also, here you inevitably will need guidance in proper usage of your instruments, so find yourself a manual for the technique you use (some book and I find youtube videos on topic pretty useful ofttimes).
agumonkey 13y ago
loomis links for the lazy https://archive.org/search.php?query=andrew%20loomis%20AND%20collection%3Aopensource https://archive.org/search.php?query=andrew%20loomis%20AND%2...
tripzilch 13y ago
Those are great exercises. I don't know how I learned colour. I worked in black and white for a long, long time, and only started using colour when I started using the computer/scanner. (If you like maths and physics, check this out: http://www.scratchapixel.com/lessons/3d-basic-lessons/lesson-5-colors-and-digital-images/ http://www.scratchapixel.com/lessons/3d-basic-lessons/lesson... esp. lessons 1 and 2 it won't help you one bit about choosing the "right" colours for artistic purposes, but it's super interesting and useful for knowing about how colours are made in print and on the screen)

krick 13y ago

Well, "years" might be a little bit of exaggeration. I mean, there always is something more to learn even after 10 years of experience, but it shouldn't sound as terrifying as you make it sound. To be somewhat good you need only few basic skills (which that book doesn't teach you, as I already said in another post, but there are other books and courses anyway), not very long period of pretty intense practice and yes, here your life-long journey begins, but you already can be quite confident about your drawings. It's like, you know, that sushi-making stuff in Japan (as well as many other things): it's considered very difficult and you need many years to learn how to make sushi and there are some 86 years old master that'll tell you how he even now dreams about sushi and improves his skills and whatever. Yet you can take 3-hours long lesson somewhere in Europe or USA and start making pretty decent sushi for yourself. Or programming, or everything else. Anyway, making some real work of art is more about your personal qualities like imagination than about "life-long learning". But there's always something more to learn nevertheless.

cinskiy 13y ago
Sushi story is about a man named Jiro. There is a wonderful, wonderful documentary about him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiro_Dreams_of_Sushi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiro_Dreams_of_Sushi
- igravious 13y ago
  Seconded. Really thoughtful documentary about the crafting of sushi that is really about the art of crafting rather than the art sushi-making. The dude abides in Jiro.

zupatol 13y ago

It's not necessary to be a "skilled artist" to make beautiful drawings. Technical limitations force you to be creative. That's true in art as well as in programming. Don't discourage people. Enthusiasm is what brings them to interesting places. Who knows what a "skilled artist" is anyway?

zeidrich 13y ago

I disagree. The book taught me that the things that we "see" in our minds are really very incomplete. You think you can imagine an elephant vividly in your imagination, but what is the ratio of their ears to their head, or their trunk to their head. Where are their eyes? How does their mouth open? When you draw from what you see, or draw from what you imagine, it's easy to think you know exactly what you're going to draw, but unless you really pay attention you are probably glossing over it in your mind. To draw things that you imagine well you need the same skill as you need to draw things that you see. You just need practice to memorize a form, or components of a form, or the principles behind a form before you can compose them into your own idea. If you think that the book is just about copying what you see in front of you, you either haven't read it or really didn't pay attention to it. On the other hand, if you can't reproduce something you see right in front of you, you're going to have an impossible task in reproducing something that is vaguely held in your mind.

krick 13y ago
Funny though that comment of yours is precisely one of these things I don't like about this book. That "incompleteness" of picture in your mind is something everybody notices as he starts drawing anyway, but the thing that book "taught" you as you say is the wrong one. You see, there is some maxima repeatedly imposed by that book, like "draw what you see" or something like that — you could formulate it by yourself just fine as you've read it I guess. That is an important thing that you should hear once, that's right, because relying too much on technical methods (like perspective) is often impractical and you must learn to draw not relying on it too much. The problem is, that it's just one thing you need to hear after you'll learn perspective and other basic techniques just once, but not a lesson itself. Because, you see, there are infinite forms in the universe and our imaginary worlds as well, and drawing an elephant isn't about memorizing it, it's about understanding. If you want to understand what I'm talking about, I'd recommend you to read Gottfried Bammes "The Artist's Guide to Animal Anatomy". Actually, if you'll go to the art school or similar place you'll be strongly discouraged from that "line tracing" thing (however, as I said, remembering that you can draw like that as well is important), which can seem surprising at first (because, really, it's so easy and so natural to just trace it!), but you'll understand why really soon. By the way, if you are interested, maybe you should check some sketches for famous pictures of famous artists (like Dali) who were professionally drawing for years. That actually impressed me when I first saw that, that really, really good artists who I might have thought would just draw anything from the top of their heads actually do sketches with all these support lines and stuff. Then you understand that drawing isn't just line tracing after all. So in the end of the day drawing tons of cubes and spheres is way more useful and important than line-tracing your face. Really.

pekk 13y ago

Did you learn all those things?

frooxie 13y ago
I've spent decades learning them but I still want to improve.

baddox 13y ago

That might be easy for you to say, but for me (I'm another programmer with zero drawing ability), even being able to copy a simple line drawing (like a cartoon) would be quite satisfying.

frooxie 13y ago
I'm not saying it's not! Learning to copy line drawings accurately can be fun and being able to do so is an important foundational skill. I'm just saying there's more to drawing than copying things you see.