/art/ - Art & Creative

I'll probably get flak for just talking about a way to get better because everyone does it their own way. But as long as we have that acknowledged, maybe I won't get murdered.

So, I've been self teaching for a really long time. Not just visual art, but a lot of different skills. Art in particular is a nice merger of objective mechanical skill, and subjective personal preferences.

Mechanical skill is what you train to try and be able to draw and render in any way you want. It's your ability to accurately depict what is in your, "mind's eye" per say. Many people consider the height of your potential in this, manifesting as the skill to produce photo realistic pieces and furthermore, to manipulate the elements that go into such a piece, convincingly.

The other end of the skillset is the subjective (sort of) area. This is left to taste and natural human affinity towards certain design language and symbolism. You can extend this into things like narrative and things usually associated more with the literary arts or whatever you can mush in.

Regarding improving in mechanical skill. It's somewhat linear. I would try and compound your mechanical skills, mostly in this order.

1.Core of the core fundamentals - you should get acquainted with your hand and mark making. You should look into things like dynamic sketching and stick with the first section for a while. You should be able to make clear, decisive lines without thinking about it. Actually, as you go along learning each thing, you want to do things slowly and think about them in detail until you are so comfortable, you barely have to think about doing them. This WILL take a while. But it's so worth. Anyway, straight lines, curves, line weight, brush weight/strokes and texture. I personally have a tip, let the weight of the stylus/pen/pencil do the work most of the time, just push it around without pushing down unless you have an express reason to do so. Glide around the page. This objective is a bit harder than you would think. Real mastery of your fine motor function.

2. I would say this is where you want to try and start with what are usually considered the fundamentals. Since you already know how to make good accurate marks, you can focus on things like constructing solid objects in a 3d plane. Obviously starting simple, and working up to compound objects. It is seriously worth understanding simple objects and their interactions with other objects. Don't worry about light too much at this point. Super simple light is the most you should dive into. It's all about construction and accurate shapes. You should be able to get pretty close to things like cubes, circles, pyramids, and different soft body and hard body meshes in a decently convincing state of 3d using simple perspective. Always strive to understand how things work under the hood. My only tip there.

>>3398

>>3399

thanks for replying man

So, the first step really is just repetition of straight lines and stuff?

to be honest, I was hoping to avoid that. I understand why it's important, but nothing could be more boring to me than filling up a page with just straight lines. I actually read one of Loomis' books and in a section he said basically "why worry about learning to draw a straight line, if i want a straight line i'd just use a ruler"

I guess if I really want to art i'll have to suck it up and practice lines.

>>3400

lol you're welcome, thanks for actually reading

He does have a point. If you want a straight line, you can use a ruler. But that isn't going to help your speed in the least. If you absolutely need to for something, use a ruler. No shame in that.

Here's the thing though. You are going to have to learn how to enjoy things that don't seem to be enjoyable. It's become pretty simple for me over the years. I am a fucking try hard. I really only enjoy things when I am really putting my all into it. I mean not to say that I can't just relax, but when I relax, I put a ton of effort into relaxing lol. It's just how I have found I work, so you similarly will have to find how you work and exploit it. If you want it enough, I'm sure you will find your own way.

>>3401

well, this is good advice, i'm gonna save it in a file somewhere and hopefully push myself to follow it

>>3402

Well, even though people say that if you do what you love you'll never work a day in your life, that can likely be said about doing anything like shit.

If you want to do something well, getting there is always going to be tough as fuck. But that's why it's worth mastering. It's why there are people who admire the people who make wonderful things, no matter the area of work/expertise.

If you struggle, you're doing alright, just try your best not to quit. That's all I can say. Don't disappoint yourself, ya'know?

Anyway, going to go back to my own studies. I hope you have a ton of luck in your future studies!

Best Way to Learn to Art:

Step 1.) Have a goal, an immediate goal of what you want to draw. This could be as simple as a straight line.

Step 2.) Break your goal into subgoals, or in other words, smaller problems and more simple shapes.

Step 3.) Continue breaking things down immedialy as long as you are having trouble with something more complex than a line or circle, this is important to set you up for inevitable success

Step 4.) Practice the simple stuff until you can move up one step toward the more complex stuff. This can be harrowing and grindy but will yield the best results. An example would be you are trying to grind boxes in perspective but your lines are wobbly. So instead of grinding boxes in perspective, grind lines until they are straight most of the time and then move back up. In case of cylinders, its a combination of lines and ellipses/circles, etc.

Step 5.) Repeat the above for everything you want to draw. In time you will need to go to the lowest level, aka primitive line and shape grinding less and less and you will be able to focus on constructing the more complex shape from your then mastered primitive shapes.

Congratulations, you are a draftsman/woman/genderqueer heteromollusk

The key is to set yourself up for successs. Thinking in 3d and drawing things is very mind wracking and the more you feel mind wracked the more exhausted you will feel and the easier you will burn out. Every time that happens, go one step below. You don't punish a dog for failing an obstacle course on the first try, you take the dog and break things down into smaller problems so don't treat yourself worse than you would treat a dog.

>>3397

It's very simple if you ask me, the best way to get good at art is to do it. Draw, paint, whatever, but just do it, don't be afraid of it looking like shit in the beginning, that shit held me back for years, being self-conscious about my own lack of drawing skills and embarrassed abut how the drawings would come out.

I think my biggest problem is that I have a very hard time sitting still. Even when I'm doing something I enjoy I always have to get up and walk around after half an hour or else I get jittery.

>>3750

>You should be able to notice some progress in your work. If you don't,go check some tutorials, read some books, figure out what you are doing wrong and fix it.

practice without knowledge to lead it is useless my man.

>>3752

try listening to podcasts or something that distracts you from the fact that you are sitting drawing, Works kind of well for me, and allows me to stay drawing.

>>3755

Of course. When I said "keep trying", I thought it wasn't necessary mentioning knowledge, since OP said:

>Before you say anything, yes, I've read your stickies. I've torrented a few artbooks, I've looked up resources and tutorials.

i've been gesture sketching figures using quickposes for a while now, but i'm wondering if that's the way to go as a beginner. on and off for a year or two now, should i try to loomis instead?

>>3757

Well, never underestimate potential missundestandings, it took me a while to realize you need to ACTUALLY FUCKING READ the books and watch the videos while taking notes and internalizing information like in school to propperly progress.

It bears repeating since some people think they can just read the sticky and download some books to read later and they will simply progress over time because they already did the "studying".

>>3764

Yes

How do I learn step 1 on >>3398 and

>>3459 ? No matter how many lines I try, it never goes how I want it to. It's like my hand doesn't want to do what I want it to. Is there any place to go to learn more on how to practice this?

>>3808

Drawabox.com

Literally draw nothing but lines until they come out straight and do the ghosting exercise a lot. Then do the same with ellipses.

>>3809

I wouldn't say literally. Why spend all that time on mindless scribbling when you could use the time to also practice drawing shapes, that way you learn to put the lines where you intend even more efficiently.

>>3397

The simplest and hardest step is to learn there is no real magic trick to it. You have to do it and keep doing it, keep failing at it and doing it again until you start getting better at it.

Art really does not differ from other professions in any way. If you're working as a road-paver for few years, odds are you're going to be pretty good at it since you've been doing the same hand-motions thousands of times every day for 8 hours. Before I found a career in illustrating and animation, I funded my animation school by working in a butcherhouse for few years. Suffice to say now I'm pretty good at it, because I've been cutting off pig heads and separating skin and blood vessels from the top-halfs hundreds and thousands of times a day. Its the sheer repetition that makes you better at something. The magical "10,000 drawings"-rule actually applies to pretty much everything. If you try to do a backflip 10,000 times, odds are by the time youre close to reaching that 10,000, youre already very good at it.

So the secret to success:

1) Draw something every single day, so that you get that much faster to the goal of drawing 10,000 drawings. It does not matter what you do, even stupid scribblings as long as you hold a pen or a brush in your hand every day.

2) Always strive to learn more and get better in your craft. An artist who stops learning is an artist who starts stagnating, cautionary tale from Tom Preston aka Andrew Dobson:

https://youtu.be/q4oNjcoAQ4U

3)Only way for an artist to fail is to give up. The reason why so many art school graduates dont have a career afterwards anyway is simply because they got tired of drawing and decided to pursue something else, like a family, or some other job.

Personally I recommend learning animation, because the process of doing animation tends to help the process of learning how to draw. Simply because you have to draw so much to get anything done. Animating in twos (simulated 12fps from 24fps) means you have to approximately 80-120 drawings to get 10 seconds of the animation done. So learning how to draw there becomes inevitable.

>>3397

>What I keep thinking is, if I do it wrong 100 times, what's to say I'll get it right on the 101st?

This is impossible. Unless you are completely delusional with some kind of mental illness theres no way you can say "yeah that looks right" after fucking up. If you have eyes and a brain that can view three dimensional objects then you should be able to tell if what your drawing accurately depicts those 3d objects. Theres no way to get it wrong, you could however take an absurdly long time learning if you don't do any research.

Semi-related, but I'd rather not clutter the board up with another thread. How do any other beginners keep themselves motivated? And for not-so-beginner people, do you remember how you kept trying?

Like, with the road-paving analogy this guy mentioned, >>3834, the road-paving dude gets paid to do this. When I practiced music, I loved covering all these songs when I was an edgy teenager, and now I write for myself, and that went fine.

But for visual arts, I'm not quite getting that satisfaction. Not good enough to post things online and actually have people enjoy it, nothing to "play along to" as with music. Of course I'll expect to get better eventually, but there's no immediate satisfaction, and that makes things harder. But since people have very shareworthy art that they post here, surely some must know how to power through it?

>>3866

As you've said, the threshold for effort applied to reward delivered appears to be a very large gap during the beginning.

I'm a beginner, and finding motivation is certainly hard sometimes when certain methods continue to not work out.

Personally, I guess I take my motivation from other artists I admire, when I see them achieve things with such skill and hard earned effort, I am fired up to prove to myself that I can do similar to make those ideas drawn, as weird as that may sound.

>>3866

My drive showed itself in the butchery when I was working. When the morning shift started at 4:00 in the middle of the night, when I pedaled my way to the factory, when I got the sharpened knives from the booth and got ready for another day of boredom, neck- and wrist pains and occasional dangerous situation, I kept thinking how I really wanted to be back home and draw something instead.

Sometimes the best way to determine what you want to do 8 hours a day for the rest of your life is also to think what you DONT want to do the rest of your life. Lot of people who flunk out from art schools and get some normal job somewhere realize that they're okay with doing a shitty job for 8 hours a day for a decent salary, they dont care about the job itself that much, the money and what you do with it is important to them.

If I'd want to get steady good income, I'd go back to the meathouse. But I'd rather do a job I love to do for lousy pay, than vice versa. Its the progress, the new things you learn in a craft you love what can be the drive in art. You cant be happy about being an accomplished artist if there never was a progress or a learning curve to begin with. That idol of yours you adore who paints so well, drew the same things you did thousands of times more and failed more than you did, before he became as good as is.

You know how some people are obsessed about planes or tanks and keep talking about the tiniest of details about them, they spend money on games, they play complex simulators and construct miniature models for fun? Get that kind of mentality, except for doing art, and you're set for a good progressive future in art.

A big problem when learning art is finding books about the real basic stuff, not whatever "fundamental" or pony someone wants to talk about.

Without an art instructor you easily end up jumping into advanced topics before you have actually learned the basics of drawing.

E.g. perspective light&shadow, or the human figure are all advanced topics. Interesting and useful to read, but no point working on them seriously if you haven't learned the more basic stuff.

Basic skills are actually:

- Eyeing/measuring with your eyes

- drawing (construction) lines freehand

- shading with pencil, pen, and in color

- direct drawing/painting

Except for direct drawing/painting you need all these skills for drawing from imagination, too.

As books for the first steps, I will just recommend

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30325/30325-h/30325-h.htm

Which teaches pen, pencil and (water)color basics. This also includes things like outline and shading.

And

https://archive.org/details/lessonsonart00hardgoog

Which teaches you to accurately measure with your eyes and accurately place construction lines and complex objects freehand on your paper. The second is also in print, and that version is IMHO better because more straightforward.

Both books are outdated in some tools, so you should replace the tools there with modern tools as needed. Dip pens with fountain pens for drawing, pigments with gouache tubes. As paper copy paper is good enough for pen/pencil drawings.

If you are still in school, you can join some art club under the art teacher and spent your afterschool time drawing busts, still lives, and so on under their instructions. But if the instructor isn't serious, you may as well just stay home or go somewhere else. Going to lessons for advanced topics like drawing humans or painting with oils and acryl is pointless as a beginner, so don't waste money on that. Refine your skills first before paying for people to stand model or for expensive paints you aren't capable of using and which go bad in a few months.

Aside of the above, you still need to read all the books specific to your goals. Neither replaces the other. But if you want artistic good results, you should learn the basic stuff above first.

>>3915

Those books are not for beginners. Beginners will be discouraged by how wordy they are. Thus, they will not get very far with them.

Instead, I recommend Keys to Drawing by Bert Dodson, Glenn Vilppu's 'Vilppu Drawing Manual, and Ernest Norling's 'Perspective made Easy.' And a very good addition to these would be Dorian Iten's 'Accuracy.'(which is free)

From Keys to Drawing, one can learn basic hand-eye coordination, shading, and basic drawing elements. At least 15 hours should be spent here.

After that, Dorian Iten's 'Accuracy' will provide a simple and very thorough understanding of proportion and accuracy. Practice with this knowledge until the different ways of thinking become a habit.

Then, Vilppu's manual will introduce the language of form and space. It's important here to spent a lot of time on the basic forms section. Supplements for this stage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHefdroQdDo

As soon as they reach the box section of Vilppu's manual, one should then read and practice 'Perspective Made Easy' at least 1/2 way through, as it's a requirement for understanding how to draw boxes.

One then continues with Vilppu's manual. It will go further in depth into box forms, and then combining box forms with spherical forms.

This will give you a base that provides great freedom. The sooner you can move into creating drawings with form and volume, proportion, the sooner you'll be able to really understand/draw the complex structures of anatomy and whatever it is you want to draw.

>>3917

These books were clearly written for beginners. Taste is different between people, but the content is solid.

E.g., I was never interested in learning from Keys to Drawing and only skipped through it.

>>3935

I tried to read the harding book and gave up since it was putting me to sleep

>>3943

Well, it helps if you like the art in the book as it teaches you to draw like that.