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first post, drawing advice
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Posted
Hi there to all reading, this is my first post somwhere to begin? I used to work as a tattoo artist but came to fall out of love for it and drawing etc. After quitting tattooing I was always drawn to the works by carravagio, rapahael, michalangelo, rubens to name a few. I decided to try drawing again and researching into classical drawing painting etc as I was always used to drawing from photographs which I could do extremely well, upon researching It appears that learning to draw from life and nature is of the most importance. As I experimented with this I realised how little I could actually draw and it was almost like having to learn again, my drawing has been coming on leaps and bounds ( I will post photos soon) when drawing from life ive found I am able to locate shadow shapes and their tones but i find im still extremely precise and can spend up to 15-20 hours doing still life studies. Yet when I look at drawings from artists of the guilds etc their drawings seem to look like they have been done with much more speed. My drawings look very realistic and Im sure im approaching them in the right way but im wondering if Ishoukd be trying to draw with more speed as I feel although my drawings are accuarate and precise they seem to lack the expressive style that i see in the masters works. I know im not going to learn everything that artists back then but I want to try and replicate what I see in that way sfumato, glazing, using a limited palette etc as the themes and nature of my ideas would be best convyed in this style and I have always been strongly drawn to it hence why im trying to learn everything I can about how they acheived what they did. Manybthanks guys !
Posted
I think that you've learned to draw as best suited the craft on which you were engaged - but now you're looking at old master drawings and seeking to if not emulate them, then to approach the freedom of line they showed: would that be about right?
There are millions of old master drawings, done with tools that didn't always lend themselves to the precision you've achieved. Quills and ox-gall ink; sticks of charcoal, or the brush and ink - these will achieve the soft tones, the sfumato, and they're nearer to painting - and work better, usually, as the basis for painting: strokes are broad. Others used silverpoint - a very precise method involving silver wire applied to a prepared surface; and in time that was largely superseded by the graphite pencil (although people do still work in silverpoint). Then the quill was replaced - for most - by the steel nib and Indian ink - that doesn't have to yield very precise results, but it often does. Then the rapidograph, the fixed, inflexible, fine-point needed for architectural drawing - which can still be used for artistic purposes. Whatever is used, speed hardly matters - it isn't speed that gives the free, loose appearance: it's calculation - the decision to go for a particular result rather than another. It can take some people a long time to achieve the appearance of something that was just tossed off in seconds, whatever art critics and historians might think. If you admire loose results achieved with speed, though, look for the brush paintings of some Chinese or Japanese experts - plenty of examples on YouTube.
Point is, slow, deliberate, careful drawing isn't wrong, and for every Raphael or Rembrandt there's a Velazquez - who could produce sharp detail in rich paint; if you like that sort of thing, there's also Dalí - though perhaps he doesn't qualify as an old master. Leonardo produced very precise drawings in ink, though often softened them with a wash. The paintings of Hieronymus Bosch are usually very carefully drawn, mapped and planned; the painters of the Dutch school would certainly artfully lose a little detail here and there, but there was sound, detailed drawing underneath.
If you want to produce broad, "painterly" drawings, use broad, painterly media - charcoal; carbon pencil; conté crayon; pastel/oil pastel; the 8B Mars Lumograph pencil by Staedtler; use rougher paper, on which precision is very much more difficult. But there's nothing wrong with precise work, even though some may call it "tight", or find other pejorative terms for it. By all means, move beyond what people these days call your "comfort zone", learn the delights of smudging, making thick, gestural marks, employing the tortillon or torchon to basically paint with charcoal or graphite; but if you enjoy fine, precise drawing, and you're good at it, it would just be masochistic to deprive yourself of the pleasure of drawing that way. Don't feel you have to conform to anyone else's standards - set your own.
Posted
PS - look at this drawing, on the Gallery today - http://www.painters-online.co.uk/gallery/art-view,picture_160120.htm
There's precision here, also a magical lightness of line and freedom.
And PPS - as I should have said before, welcome to POL.
Posted
Anatomy is always important, and studying the human body from life,if you're able to get to life classes, is the best experience of all. In the old atelier system of painting, they used live models and also plaster casts to work from. There's a book, available as an e-book download, by Victor Perard which contains a lot of useful information on drawing the figure - it's very old, and a correspondingly old-fashioned technique is employed in it, but it's still full of useful stuff.
If you can't find it, I may be able to send it to you in pdf form - but Googling it should do the job.
Also,back to Leonardo and Michelangelo - you could do a lot worse than copy their many drawings as practice - they were both brilliantly observant students of the human form.
Posted
When working from a photo, you've got all the time in the world. The model isn't going to get cramp, the light's not going to change, you can leave if for a day and then return to it. In fact, you can go on and on and on. Often at a glance, it's obvious that the drawing is taken from a photo, as it's full of excessive details, minute gradations of tone, and it's, dare I say it, a bit boring.
I sometimes paint from photos, but it takes experience to do it well - the temptation is to put everything on the photo into the drawing
The answer is to go to life drawing classes where you have to simplify, work quickly and get used to drawing a three dimensional object ,which is much harder than the two dimensions of a photo. It's actually fun to do and you're with like minded people.
In big cities, educational establishments often do life classes. I've tried them but I now prefer life classes set up by enthusiasts. You don't have to commit to a term of lessons, but can turn up when you like and pay on the day.
Posted
Welcome, Joey, to P.O.L and the forum. I know the frustration which exists between what you have in mind and what your hand puts down on paper. But try to relax and enjoy what you are trying to do, without the intensity which you seem to be experiencing. You already have great skills as a tattoo artist, which is admirable, and I appreciate that there is a great difference between then, and what you want to do now. I don't think I am being much help with practical advice to you, but I do say just keep persevering, don't beat yourself up over what you see as less than perfection, get out and sketch from what there is in life all around you. There are no short cuts, it's all hard work and observation. Hope this might help and very best wishes.
Posted
Hello Joey, I totally understand the feeling to be locked in precision. I draw portraits and a few years back I found I was getting obsessed with making the portrait as photographical as possible (likely because people were paying me and I didn't wanted them to be disappointed). And folks liked the results but I felt I had lost my style and freedom in creating and mostly I found I just wasn't enjoying the process any more. I took a bit of a break from commissions and spent a little time experimenting with different media and playing with styles (basically copying a picture in a loose style of another, then using the experience to paint an image of my own). This feed me up a lot and is an excercise I still do pretty frequently. I think it takes time to become comfortable your own style especially where people are paying hard earned money for the finished piece. I've learned to accept that when someone wants a piece of my work they don't necessarily want a photo likeness but something with the personality of the person who created it.
All of the above advice is absolutely sound and croquis cafe is a fantastic resource for forcing the element of time. Using a mid toned paper with charcoal and chalk I found it made the process of drawing more intuitive and though each result may not be perfect after a few sessions the eye and hand start to instinctively find their way.
Good luck and let us know how you get on :)
Posted
Joey. Your original post is 7 months old. The stats suggest that either you have found your particular solution and don’t need this anymore, or have given up; I hope it’s the former.
I think my situation was a little similar to your own. My background is in graphics and in the ‘olden days’ (pre-internet), I spent a great deal of time preparing camera-ready artwork for print reproduction. The work was not always detailed but it had to be precise, crisp and sharp to go through the reproduction processes.
When I retired and decided to re-invent my drawing skills I experienced similar difficulties to those you indicate. I overcame them in a number of ways, and by going up a few blind alleys and by making a lot of mistakes. The most difficult period was probably the initial year or so when the effort seemed hard and the rewards few. My first realisation was that although I wanted to draw the landscape, I wasn’t really sure what that meant—for me. I decided to deal with it as if I was a student again, only this time I had access to the internet—a terrific research tool that was unavailable to me first time around.
I searched on every possible tag I could think of in relation to landscape drawing, followed almost every ‘you might also like’ link and gradually I put together an extensive Pinterest collection. I also realised that, similar to yourself probably, I had become so used to creating artwork from two-dimensional references that my observation drawing skills had almost died.
There is a very great difference between drawing from a 2-D reference and drawing from ’life’—the main one being that in the first, someone else (camera or other artist) has already converted this 3-D world into 2-D for you. In the second you have to do that conversion for yourself. It has already been recommended here and I found that life-drawing was the way to go and I would recommend it highly. A typical life drawing group will have a variety of short poses (5–30 minutes) and long poses (1–2 hours, sometimes even going over from one session to another, although this is unusual).
As it was/is landscape that interests me I also went out as often as I could with a sketchbook and just sketched with no thought about producing a ‘finished’ drawing but just to explore the subject and the materials—graphite in my case—to see what I could make of it. Gradually things started to change and my thoughts about what I wanted to do became more definite, my observation skills increased dramatically and my abilities with my choice of medium developed.
Although I have achieved some of what I set out for myself, I continue to treat the whole process as a student—and I use that word carefully; I think of it as an active process. I don’t just look at examples that turn me on, I study them carefully. I get as much information as I can, I meet the artist if I can or maybe use the contact forms on websites—I think most artists are pleased to know that someone is connecting with what they are doing. This of course applies to contemporary, living artists, which is my area of interest, and not to Da Vinci and the like.
Posted
You're right - artists ARE pleased to know that others are connecting with what they're doing; if this manifests as sales, so much the better, but I'd much rather talk to someone about painting than about politics, which is my other major area of involvement though not always my principal area of interest or enthusiasm. By quite a long chalk .....
Being a painter can be a lonely business - even those in the swim, on the beaten track, in touch with the art scene, add your own cliché here, can feel very isolated: you don't have to buy my stuff (but don't feel you shouldn't!) but it's always good to hear from other people, provided they're not telling me their 5 year old could do better than that.
You're also right that the way to draw the landscape is to go out and immerse yourself in it - nothing wrong with photographing it (well; it's not ideal, but I've not much choice as I can't paint in situ for physical reasons with which I shall not bore you) but make them your own photographs if at all possible, or if using others' then ensure it's country that you have seen and explored for yourself. Even that's a counsel of perfection for some whose disabilities are greater than mine, but drawing from 2-D images is a great way to ensure disappointment.
http://www.isleofwightlandscapes.net
http://www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk