You can learn to draw!
New Pictures: posted Spring 2002
I remember a friend in college doing this assignment for a portfolio, and thought I would try my hand at it. This is all vine charcoal, which is so smudgy that it's not really suitable for the bulk of a finished piece.
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I quite like this one - I used vine charcoal for most of the teapot, compressed charcoal for the shadows, and charcoal pencil for the detail work. The shape of the teapot isn't quite symmetric, but I was pretty happy with the detail on the handle and lid.
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OK, so the subject's not all that exciting, but hey! it's my life. In the past, I've been a bit nervous about drawing lettering, because it needs to be pretty precise, and it's hard to get the control you need without completely smudging the rest of the page. I think the packages turned out pretty well; interestingly, the only part that doesn't really "read" is the sock, which is the part I felt most confident about when starting, given how much time I spent on fabric in my first two classes. And I put in a box underneath the bleach bottle, which, now that I look at it, is pretty much a non-entity, and probably could have used some more attention. This took longer than any other complete drawing I've done - about 6 hours total.
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I'm currently reading "Drawing from Observation: an introduction to perceptual drawing" by Brian Curtis. It is an excellent guide to learning to draw for those of us who didn't benefit much from "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain". I think DRSB is a great read, and I know a lot of people who got started with that book, with great results. But I like more of an intellectual approach, where DRSB is really entirely based on observation and perceptions; its premise is that the analysis of an object, and the perception of it, are not compatible.
Both books ultimately have similar goals, though not identical. DRSB focuses a bit more on creative expression, where DFO is solely focused on 'drawing what you see'; his 'creative' assignments are analytical studies, reminiscent of Escher and Mondrian. DFO describes a lot of the theory behind perspective drawing, historical approaches to problems of representation, and gets into the nitty-gritty of drawing (everything from how to hold your charcoal to exactly how to set up your drawing board).
What I don't recommend are those books that you find in art stores called things like "Charcoal Drawing in 10 Days". They have lots of beautiful examples, showing the different stages of a completed drawing, so when you flip through them in the store, you think, "Great, I can learn to draw like that". But once you get them home, you are $14.95 poorer and no further along the road, as they tend to not give very thorough explanations or instructions of how you get from one step to the next.
For some fine examples of super-realistic pencil and charcoal drawings, please see J.D. Hillberry's excellent on-line gallery.
Speaking of taking a more intellectual approach -- I just have to throw this in. I took an intermediate drawing class this spring. I think the instructor was actually a good artist, but she was a completely crummy teacher. On the first evening, she assigned us to draw a small still life with "at least 2 objects, one animate and one inanimate". The instruction seemed a bit incongruous, given that it was supposed to be a still life. We all shuffled our feet a bit, and finally someone said, "Um... what do you mean by animate?" And the instructor replied, "Oh, you know, like a beet or something."
Now, I don't know about her house, but in my house, I bring the beets home, I put them in that little drawer in the fridge, and they pretty much stay there until I move them somewhere else. And I guess the other students also have relatively stationary produce, because we all shuffled our feet a bit more, and finally someone else asked, So, you don't really mean animate, right? And she said, Well, I mean something that has chi.
Uh-huh. Right.
The next week, as we were discussing perspective, everything was going fine until she tried to explain that parallel lines are ones that don't meet on the page, but do meet somewhere off the page, at the vanishing point. I clarified with her - to my own satisfaction - that she was actually talking about non-parallel line segments, and NOT parallel lines. Maybe it's artistic license - I don't know. What I do know is that it reminded me of when my 10th grade biology teacher tried to tell us that normal human body temperature was 96.8. I couldn't drop 10th grade biology. But I could drop this damn community college art class, and I did, like a brick.
Spring 2001
I took a beginner's drawing class at North Seattle community college. I had never drawn before, but people had told me that it was very learnable. I was kind of skeptical, but decided to give it a shot, even knowing that artistic talent did not land on my side of the family ...
Turns out they were right. I still don't have any talent, but over the course of an 8-week class (evenings, once a week, 3 hours), I learned to be a decent "Xerox" artist with charcoal. Interestingly, everyone in the class, by the end, was drawing at AT LEAST this level by the end, with the exception of one person who didn't do any of the homework.
1. Here is the first assignment, prior to any instruction. We were asked to do a few line drawings of any 3 simple objects. This is where you can see the "lack of talent". OK, they're recognizable, but that's about all you can say for them.
2. Here are some of the classroom exercises we did: the first is just some boxes, to practice drawing correct proportions by "drawing what you see" and estimating simple rough measurements. The second is a values study - using the charcoal to get smooth transitions across the entire range of greys.
3. Here is the second homework assignment, drawn 10 days after the first one. I was more surprised than anyone that it turned out OK.
4. Some more classroom exercises. Our instructor seems to believe that if you can draw boxes and fabric, you pretty much know everything you need to about drawing proportions and curves/textures.
5. My last homework assignment, after 8 weeks, and another drawing I did shortly after the class ended.
So, yup, it's teachable - if they can teach me, they can teach anyone! I am currently taking another class with the same instructor, trying to relearn what I forgot over the last 2 years. The second time around, I'm finding that I can "loosen up" a little and take some artistic license with the still lifes and still end up with something recognizable, which makes it more fun.
