Evening drawing

post by KatjaGrace · 2021-01-07T11:00:22.556Z · LW · GW · 3 comments

Contents

3 comments

This evening I became tempted by a YouTube video of an artist painting a portrait, which led me to be tempted by another such video, and then more of them, and then by one of these artists’ websites, and then by my own pencils and paper. (I did not become tempted by YouTube videos advertising breaking news of some sort of crazy Trump riot, since I decided not to ‘check the internet’ until bed time).

Some observations on drawing:

3 comments

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comment by Stuart Anderson (stuart-anderson) · 2021-01-07T13:32:42.259Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Wasting supplies is all about learning that practice is important to improve skill, and perfection is a barrier to that. If I didn't walk out of a drawing class with 20+ drawings I was doing something wrong (not 20 good drawings, that would include warm up exercises and stuff that was just crap. I'd be happy if I got one good one).

Art (at least the kind most people do) is largely a kinaesthetic skill. That people have physical quirks as part of that isn't surprising. It takes time to learn how to avoid wasted effort when creating.

Art won't save the world, it will just make living in it tolerable.

Photography shows you what's there, drawing shows you how you see

The great paintings pretty much died after photography came along. There's no inherent point in doing something a machine can do better. That being said, doing something by hand can be a reason. Representational work is very niche in the art world. It's generally considered the realm of craft (at best) and often held in contempt (because the art world is a pack of snobs that seem fixated on ugliness as a virtue).

The easiest way to improve your drawing is by extending your fundamental skills. The fastest way to do that is to make you stand up and work at an easel, use larger paper, step back and extend your arm straight, hold the implement like a scalpel rather than a writing pen, and fix your wrist and elbow so that the majority of the movement has to come from your shoulder. Using a knife to sharpen your pencil will help, using something less precise like charcoal or a graphite stick will help more. This is about teaching your body that drawing isn't writing.

comment by 9eB1 · 2021-01-09T15:05:01.458Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

My guess is head, painting photograph.

First (Head): Lacks the level of detail of the other two examples. A painting would also possibly be drawn from a reference, although I have no idea what even the style of painting you were referencing. The major distinction here is that the cheeks in the the second (painting) photo have mottling that suggests to me a better reference. The proportions also seem just a bit more exaggerated to me than the other two. The neck of the first one seems larger, and the shoulders have some asymmetry which is hard to interpret. It looks a bit as if her left shoulder is closer, but that doesn't exactly fit with the posture of her face.

Second (Painting): Basically by comparison with the others. It feels intermediate in realisticness.

Third (photograph): This seems like the photograph to me because it captures more detail than I would hold in my mind's eye, unlike the other two. In particular, crisp laugh lines and the detailed contrast of the eyes makes it feel like it had the most real-world reference. There is also the detail of the clothing, and I feel like most people wouldn't draw that if they were drawing a face from their imagination. (That's actually an argument for the first being painting and the second being head, though).

comment by Mary Chernyshenko (mary-chernyshenko) · 2021-01-07T14:29:11.640Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

We have geese and we take pictures of them, but I'd love to be able to draw them. There's so much poured volume and chiseled grace in an almost-monochrome shape. They grow - you can see the beaks getting longer in "adolescence", and they molt! Their heads sit at different angles on their necks, their stride can be purposeful or leisurely. And when there's snow on the ground and they are suddenly not the whitest thing around, their curves acquire a subtle metallic shine (at the base of the neck, at the invagination of an eye etc.).

I don't have the time, though, but geese are great.