rain in hell kid

[32]

I'm not suggesting staying where he is, I think (though I don't actually know) that he's trying all these things that are way beyond his abilities, and suggesting he takes time out to practice with objects that are simpler, I feel that he's not practicing at a reasonable level, you need to get good at where your at before you can move up to the next level, you know, walk before you can run. Basically I'm just suggesting practice. Also, by comfortable I don't just mean things you've done a million times, just not things as complex and pre-defined as humans. Definitely agree with challenging yourself but in different ways, the actual object is just a something to draw and the anatomy of a human is constricting and means you cant just draw. Also, drawing from your imagination is much more fun, to see something of your own design completed is much more satisfying, and it also means you can toss around ideas while you draw, without limits.

[Gil]

The only way to really learn how to draw is to draw human anatomy, preferably looking at live anatomy (not pictures, references).

One of the tricks I picked up is to sketch your left hand if you draw right handed. Just look at it and try to get the lines right. Then slowly go to volumes, but that should probably be after you've done model studies for a year or so.

[balls01]

And being more creative with this would be good, since right now it's not interesting.  Do something crazy, like use only default MSPaint colors, or make an animation where the kid turns super-evil and messes stuff up.  If this is only kind of challenging, do something stupid insane and you'll learn far more than otherwise.  Unless you don't want to learn.

i was actually just thinking of giving him a bunch of flowers instead of an umbrella, i think ill pursue that. as for learning and practise, why do something im already capable of? i might aswell try something super hard and then ill learn how to cope and get somewhere, other than just plateuxing (oh Australian spelling sorry). i think i should keep doing stuff out of my abilities, to make it by the end, one of my abilities.

[32]

Practice, you just need to reinforce your current skills, the easiest way to do that is with thing that you find easy to draw. I'm just saying, humans are hard and it takes years of practice to get it right, and your basically eyeballing the refs, in doing that your not learning as much as you could by using your imagination. A point I think I was trying to make last night(it was late, I was tired so I apolagise if alot of it made no sense) is that Line is only one of the fundamentals of art and by drawing ref'd humans your copying what you see and not realisticly displaying YOUR skills. What I was trying to say is do expirimentation on objects you find the LINES easy to draw so you can focus on colour and techniques.

[balls01]

alrighty then from now on... no more reference. straight from my brain onto paper.

[32]

I think a better way to think about references is as references, use them to comfirm your shapes and volumes but don't just replicate them.

Also, if you have a scanner/camera drawring on paper then going over it on the computer is much better than with a mouse. It's much easier to come up with a good idea if it doesn't take half an hour to draw.

[EvilEye]

Eh?

Hes trying to translate an album cover into pixels.

Whats wrong with that? That takes skill and you improve, as long as you don't trace.

[32]

Eh?

Hes trying to translate an album cover into pixels.

Whats wrong with that? That takes skill and you improve, as long as you don't trace.

It's not that its not going to help, its just that there are better and more fun/satisfying ways to draw. I also think eyeballing art, though not as bad as tracing, doesnt allow you understand your picture as well as workng from scratch.

It might be better to do an interpritation of the cover rather than a copy, even just chosing your own colours and lightsource would prove more usefull than completely copying the picture.

[balls01]

i find it plenty satisfying doing any art... i enjoy it. also, im only 13 i have the rest of my life to learn this, i just want to have fun and do what i want really, i know it seems that im being ignorant and all the rest. but, it doesnt really bother me that im using references for every piece.


he will stab you if you dont take his flower

[Terley]

Eh?

Hes trying to translate an album cover into pixels.

Whats wrong with that? That takes skill and you improve, as long as you don't trace.

Yeah of course there's nothing wrong with it, Just if he's going to re-create it, whatever medium he uses it will only ever be as good or worse than the original reference. It's setting your bar low for kicks and giggles, sure you if you can recreate someone else's work to perfection you may be quite pleased with yourself and I know it's not exactly easy, you could do it masterfully. But in terms of creativity you're not going to advance atall unless you take it in another direction.

It's just a personal preference from seeing people I've known from back in highschool where one kid would paint famous pieces of art like the mona lisa; everyone would gather around like 'woah' thats amazing, but in comparisant he hadn't picked up shape and form ultimately just copying what he saw and not taking any understanding. What would he have learnt from this? Tell him to paint a real life woman in the same way, I doubt the end result would be as close. Also right now in university someone I know has been drawing Anime since he was 12 with hundreds of full sketch books, he's a pro and would definately know how to draw it better than anyone else I know, honestly really professional. But our last project we were told to start drawing from observation, it was so funny. You could see the fustration in his face, it was like watching a toddle draw for the first time, I just believe there's only so much you can learn from just someone else's work. Sure there's nothing wrong with direct copying if its all legit, I personally don't think it achieves anything.