Learning to Draw

[Maggie]

Thank you Rune, Im glad you like it Sorry I didnt mean to make you envious and if I had any real talent you would be more than welcom to a share

[Aliena]

I believe that anyone can learn to draw. I think the trick is learning how to see. If you're trying to draw from life or from some sort of reference, the key is being able to see the lines of the form and reproduce them. There are lots of measuring techniques that can help you reproduce proper proportions simply by holding out a pencil or ruler and measuring the object with your eye.


I've always doodled...for most of my life, not very well, but it was fun. In the last 2 years, I've really started to sit down and develop my skills. Sometimes I seem to improve in spurts, sometimes in very slow, very small baby steps. BUt all the time, I'm having fun. I wish I had had formal training, but I'm self-taught. I've just looked at books - I got an anatomy book by Jack Hamm that really gave me some basics. And I look at magazines. Sometimes I'll just study a face in a magazine and discover something about proportions - like there should always be one eyelength in between the eyes. And if you divide a face into 3's, the bottom third line is where the mouth goes and the top third line is where the eyebrows go. Or ears should extend from the eyebrows to the bottom of the nose. Just little observations like that. Other than that, I've just learned by doing and by making mistakes. Usually, I'll hand a picture over to my husband and get him (a different pair of eyes) to tell me what's wrong with it.

With coloring and shading, backlighting and all that sort of thing, I've learned by observing what artists I like do. I guess, it's been a lot of observation, a lot of practice, a lot of trial and error, and a lot of constant reminders that no matter what, I want to be having fun with it.

I'm getting comfortable with proportions, so I'm trying to work on fluidity, light source, and backgrounds more now.

[ThulsaDoom]

I was never really taught how to draw in school (The art teachers were unfortunately of the "Those who can't, teach" type!) I had to teach myself most things, and cobble together bits of knowledge from books where I could.

As for learning art... I think everyone can be taught technique, but that is somewhat of a separate issue. I do think there has to be an instinctive talent for proportion and colour. I've seen people that when I was younger could crush me into the ground with technique. However, they couldn't draw a face or building in proportion to save their lives. (and these were people who drew a lot) Once I'd started looking at what they did, and figuring out their techniques and merging my own, I was able to surpass them.

I think the first time I was ever genuinely 'taught' a few techniques was when I studied Product Design, and had lessons on the techniques used for fast efficient product rendering skills.

[Jaxom_Ruatha]

Sometimes I am inspired to draw from stories, I learned to draw from tutorials found all over the internet. My favorite style is anime/manga and little chibi are really fun to draw here's a link if anyone's interested: http://www.howtodrawmanga.com/tutorial.html I do find it rather hard to color sometimes though, since I am Red and Green colorblind . Hopefully I'll get better when I am able to get photoshop so I wont have to rely so much on crayons and colored pencils.

[rune]

I've noticed you can get sketch by numbers now. Do you think that will help me get artistic

[darkwolf]

Hi Rune,

The key to learning to draw is the same key to learning to write: do it and do it often. You can learn techniques from books, but art, like anything else, takes practice. Don't get disappointed, because it will take a long time. Yes, there are some folks who are born with a talent and others who learned to do just as well.

Start simple. Find various objects, and just do line drawings at first, don't worry about shading, etc, in the beginning. Once you feel that you have the line drawings down, then begin to practice shading - this is where the books can come in handy, because they can help with shadow and highlight techniques.

At first, use reference items or photos and just draw what you see. If you want to do a picture of a unicorn, find a picture of a unicorn and sketch it exactly as you see it. You'll be amazed at how much you'll learn that way. It's the same technique that art teachers have been using for what seems like forever.

Once you can draw what you see, you can begin to draw what you only see in your mind...and even then it makes things easier if you have reference photos or drawings to help get things into the proper shapes. Don't be afraid to use other people's work as reference material, especially in the beginning. Almost every artist that has ever lived has used some form of reference material. Just don't plagarize and you'll do fine.

Darkwolf

[Diana Levin]

I think the best way to learn to draw is from life. Books help for practice, but if you really want to learn, take a figure drawing class with a good instructor. My theory is if you can draw the human figure, you can draw anything.

[Curt Chiarelli]

I had natural talent which exhibited itself early. Accordingly, I am essentially self-taught. At ten years of age I began teaching myself perspective drawing and human anatomy, so by the time I began serious art instruction in my freshman year of high school it was all fairly redundant.

Ideally, the personal drive and the opportunities for instruction need to be combined for the best outcome. Lacking that, show me a person with natural gifts and ambition and he'll beat an unmotivated, but well-trained individual any day of the week. My proof? Ask around: Ninety percent of all successful artists are self-trained, self-propelled men.