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Message
Posted
Well I have to say I was rather underwhelmed with my books...
Experimental drawing was the better of the bunch, and I probably will look back at it though it didn't really grab me nor tell me anything particularly new (I think my art teacher at school had already introduced me to many of the ideas in the book.)
The figure and head book contained some nice example sketches in a few phases of being drawn and some writing about things to consider but doesn't really suggest what I do about it, and the figures and anatomy book was just that... all about anatomy but with very little suggestions for drawing. I think I understand anatomy fairly well but its my art I am trying to improve and the weakness is less my understanding of form and more how to improve my graphic descriptions of it.
Anyway I will be undertaking a new approach shortly... I have bought a large 19th century drawing guide which contains about 200 etchings which work from the simple to the extremely difficult. I have been filling sketchpads slowing but with completed pictures, I intend to start a new sketchbook when I have finished the one I am on and will take a different tack. Firstly I need to actually find a sketchbook I want to buy (the one I have my eye on is out of stock, 600 pages of a decent dimension) but I will be sketching (without any aids like measuring or using grids) without the approach of trying to make completed pictures but to learn how to draw more proficiently. This will include timed sketches from the book I have ordered, copying the various etchings of figures in different positions and studies, and I will try not to use an eraser...perhaps I will even work in pen straight off.
Alledgedly by the time you finish this book you should be capable of drawing figures and faces very comprehensively without the need for further references, certainly it seems a good way of building experience quickly and I believe in the Florence schools of art they don't let you touch paint for your first year because drawing is the bedrock of painting.
I won't completely ignore paint I think, but will see if I can get used to a regular schedule of concerted effort on the drawing front and see what improvements I can make.
Edited
by Daveyboyz
Posted
Correct Robert it is indeed drawn from a plaster cast.
What one learns is to accurately reproduce an accurate likeness, much like one learns scales and arpeggios on an instrument. He starts simply teaching you how to use plumb line and notional space, envelopes and extended lines, to train the eye in assessment of shadows and half tones. These are the same technique that all the old masters were schooled in to develop the foundation of skills necessary for classical drawing. I am not sure how anybody could fail to grasp the utility of development of such abilities, the list of people who were trained this way like Rembrandt, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Sargent, Da Vinci, Gerome etc is testament enough to the method.
Posted
So missing the point.
A musician doesn't practice scales with a metronome because its fun or its expressive, Michelangelo didn't copy because it was fun or expressive either and he turned out pretty good if you ask me.
The musician builds his speed, technique and musical theory because with these taken care of he is free to be even more expressive, likewise the artist that can produce lifelike images has more capability with which to express himself whether he decides to be painterly or not (its not a mutually exclusive option to produce realism)
Being capable does not diminish joy, freedom or soul it only adds to it and the view that it does is what diminished art education and led us down roads of painters throwing buckets of paint at canvasses and teachers insisting on abstract work and scorning decent figurative work. I understand practicing my scales was dull, but whether or not I pick up an instrument in the next ten years I can ask "what key is it in?" and ad lib a solo because the work is built into me and it in no way detracts from the emotion of my performances. I don't expect spending 5 hours drawing an ear to be fun but I do expect to learn something from it, both in terms of technique and in terms of the ability to be able to draw a good ear without need of a reference.
Georgina talks of painting with instinct, but if you hadn't noticed is extremely capable in the technical sense... she understands how to produce an image in proportion and break down an image into its constituent shapes and this ability does her no harm. So I think I will try to improve my ability in that regard, and I can't imagine it will do me any harm. I suppose some don't wish to develop themselves that is their choice but to insinuate that it is better to remain incompetent is bizarre.
Edited
by Daveyboyz
Posted
You did miss the point, you think that a structured approach to looking, one that teaches the different elements and precision somehow means to not be expressive and obviously Michelangelo was wasting his time.
Perhaps you can see your own ear, but I can't... regardless the Bargue plates aren't just any ear, the skill of the man was to give example of how to present an ear... how to simplify forms (into straight lines, shadows and half tones) and to teach the student how he can interpret such things in various fashion also. Also a system of how to check and double check to refine their image to be as perfect as they can make it.
Regardless you feel free to leave your books on your shelf... some of us wish to understand and learn from those that have gone before us.
Posted
Its not about what I like...
You say simply look at an ear, look look look. You obviously don't compute that you can look in more than one way, you can be trained to look and you can improve the techniques you use to look.
You don't get to tell me what to do because you are not my mother.
Thousands of people have done this drawing course, you haven't yet in your arrogance you think you know better.
You are a know nothing, it is compounded by the inability to work out how little you know or that perhaps some people know something you don't. I happen to think Bargue probably knew a bit more than you do and I can learn something from him. You miss the point not because I say you do but because your doors are shut and your phone is off the hook, it's simply not possible to reason with a closed mind.
Posted
Fighting again ..... can't leave some of you for five minutes....
Sylvia, I know you believe passionately in drawing from life, and you've always had very strong views about it. As you know, I agree with this too - otherwise you get the Bob Ross look, painting what you remember rather than what you can actually see, and thus producing generic images if your visual memory isn't that good (as I really think his wasn't, other perhaps than for Alaska which, spiritually, he never really left even though he wasn't born there and didn't die there either).
But David is right, that's how so many students of old were taught to draw - from plaster casts in ateliers and elsewhere, and I don't agree that it's boring: it's a method - and if mastered, it gives a good grounding. It removes the personal element too, which can be an advantage - that's arguable. You're both right in different ways - and I'm right in all ways, of course, tra-la. But you knew that.... I know you did.
I'll look for this course, when I can at last take a rest from clearing up these ********* spammers, and whatever else I find it - I'm sure I'll find it a great deal more informative, helpful, and educational than the Big Painting Challenge or whatever the damn' fool thing's called, which is as big a waste of time as I've encountered since watching a game of cricket. (Apologies to all cricket fans - I can't believe the Painting Challenge HAS any fans - but I'd rather watch mud congeal than go through that again.)
Posted
Oh goodness I'm blushing. Thank you - what kind comments. I have to admit though, that I have just spent the best part of a year completing the Drawing module of a fine art degree in order to up my game regarding drawing (which I believe underpins painting in every way but thats just a personal point of view), and it was where I learnt to be more instinctive and expressive, through a very boring classical route of drawing anatomy/still life/life drawing etc etc. Prior to that, I just didn't have the confidence and hadn't picked up a sketchbook since I was 18. I do truly believe drawing is possibly 50% confidence and 50% skill. I have just bought Haider-Jo's wonderful book - before I even knew she was part of Painters Online - in order to learn more from an amazing artist so books can be amazing in that sense.
I totally get the shapes thing that you are saying Daveyboyz, the course I undertook really helped me to see in terms of shapes and blocks of and shadows and light, rather then actual objects, and this opens up being able to draw/paint anything you see, if you approach every subject in the same way. It slightly changes the way you see everything, its very interesting.
Georgina
Posted
Syd - quiet words have been had, in both directions. I hope we can now have a friendlier discourse, and also that some of us will refrain from dismissing other people's approaches to a common problem - a combination of restraining our first thoughts on the one hand, while opening up the mind to possibilities other than those which we've always pursued but aren't actually mandatory on everyone else, will be helpful.
Posted
Syd, absolutely no anger from me... the last time I lost my temper was 12 years ago. You also don't see me being rude to anyone without provocation, and often what you call rudeness is simple explanation.
I am here to learn and as friendly as I am I will respond to others in kind, so if you wish to be rude go ahead because as you have seen people reap what they sow when it comes to their dealings with me. I treat nice people nicely, respectful people respectfully and clowns like you with the derision you deserve. Really only a moron makes the same mistake over and over, it is very simple, if you don't start on me I don't fire back.
Posted
I'm sorry, Sylvia, Syd, and David H - but for the first time ever, I've deleted some member posts because I found them objectionable and I don't think any of you would necessarily want to have them permanently on the site.
Please keep your tempers in check and do NOT indulge in personal name-calling. We have enough trouble here at the moment without members falling out and simply exchanging insults. Next time you feel the blood drumming in your ears, just move away from the thread, and if you must come back to it only do so when you've calmed down and can see things in perspective. We do not need a War of the Generations breaking out here.