[smi]

Hi

I'm just on the stony way to learn drawing/painting. The book from Betty Edwards "Drawing on the right side of the brain" helped me a lot at the beginning and and teaching the basics. Well, I can now draw portraits that look pretty much like the model or other things that are right ahead me, but that is what bothers me! What is the way to go for drawing from mind? There are many pictures in my mind I would like to draw on paper but the result always look like crap. What can I do to learn this? Thanks for your replies!

smi

[Sumaleth]

Practice. And lots of it.

Row.

[gekitsu]

i think the main thing when drawing from mind is that you remember the shapes of what you're drawing.
i often draw in a more comic-like way. drawing simplified things helps me a lot to get a sense for the important things. of course, you need a lot of practise.

in fact, i am limited to draw almost everything from mind. i just failed managing to find a sweet albino girl as a model for me

[smi]

Thanks for your replies!

I know, practicing is the most important thing for getting better but I still dont know where to start. The figures I draw always look the same unproportional and stiff with no expression or something. They never look the way I want. How did you get started? There must be a trick or something!

@gekitsu
You are looking for an albino model? Check out www.heino.de, you should find some reference there

[Svanur]

I started back in High School, boring class, more drawing time . Just let your mind wander and just draw something. Then you can experiment. Experimentation is the key and of course practice and lot of it(something I need more)

[tyron]

one thing that i find important is to not care about how the result is.. just to keep attacking the paper with drawings. i think that will help you, it helped me.

[Pigeon]

Like Sumaleth said, just practice a lot. Wear down about 100 pencils. Then try to draw from your mind.

I haven't read the Edwards book, but I hear it's as much about psychology as drawing. Does it mention blind contour drawings? Drawings done where you look only at your subject, and never at your paper, and proceed to make a slow line drawing, tracing the contours of your subject. It's great for developing true observation skills.

I've just had this notion that maybe you can apply blind contour drawing to what you see in your mind. I've never done this, but maybe you could give it a shot. Basically just draw with your eyes closed, never looking at the paper, and trace out what you envision in your head. As with the regular blind-contour, this "mind-contour" isn't about making the best looking image, but rather to train you to translate what you see in your mind to paper. It may help a lot, it may not at all, but in either case remember that it would take lots of practice.

Dean

[rain]

I you want to draw figures from memory, you have to do A LOT of short gestures. It majorly helps! It just does, don't ask why. Your figures will start getting more expressive and show action and motion if you do 10-30 second gestures all the time.

The best way is if you have a nude model. Other ways are doing gestures from the movies you really like (dragon the bruce lee storey or somthing), that really really helps, even helps for drawing clothes since some movies win awards for costume design (gladiator). And you can do gestures in Chapters, them mall...that is way fun too because you can get some interesting faces to draw quickly. If you havn't done too many gestures (10-30sec) they won't look good for while, but you have to keep doing, and after a few months of doing that every day, you will be able to draw them very fast and accurate. DO some blind contour because gestures are like fast blind contour...you always look at what you are drawing and not your hand drawing! look look look. Hope that helps!

[Jason Manley]

first off I want to say that i know how you feel. My first drawing instruction book was the betty edward stuff as well. I picked up a couple helpful things that I still use today by reading that.

words like practice practice are very helpful..but for someone in your situation that means less as Im sure you are not knowing what to practice.

if you want to draw and paint from memory or from impression than I shall offer some tips that helped me to do that and even do it for a living.

1 start drawing from life every day. no questions asked..JUST DO IT. (this is because until you have drawn something you really do not know what it looks like and if you dont know what something looks like then you cannot paint or draw it out of your head)

for those of you that do not draw from life and draw out of your head..I can tell that is the case simply by looking at your work.

2. in order to draw out of your head you need to know how to construct basic forms with your understanding of light. (see number one) if you draw from life you will begin to understand how light works..what values..what colors...etc.. copy what you see..make it look like what you see..if you do this then you will be able to make it again from memory..and you will be able to add lessons learned to your imaginitive works.

also see spooge demons latest tutorial crit stuff on drawing boxes...you will need to do a lot of that.

3 you will need to know what the term "line quality" means and be able to use it to control space on forms as well as be able to lead the eye with details. you will also need to know how to suggest moods with shapes and marks.

4 copy master paintings www.artrenewal.org and I dont mean copy one master painting..copy lots of master paintings and sections of master paintings.

5 draw from life forever at least 3-6 hours per day when starting out

6 draw in your sketchbooks forever at least 2 hours per day

7 draw and paint at least 6-8 hours per day to become proficient within a few years

8 draw from life

9 draw from life

10 when you can draw from life then start painting from life

11 draw the figure relentlessly.

12 go back to number one.

here are a list of topics for you to explore

1 line quality
2 anatomy
3 properties of light
4 creation of space using value and line
5 devices that suggest mood (watch movies for this)
6 color theory (only after you master value)
7 long term figure drawing
8 landscape drawing and painting
9 still life
10 drawing from the plaster cast
11 idea development and the building of concepts using ideas


ask people about this stuff..including me...the path lies within those topics..it has for the past 500 years and will continue to.


jason manley

[morphgfx]

addition:

start with things that are easy for you at first and work step by step. you shouldn't try to draw a full room when your're not able to draw a simple chair right from life, because YOU WILL fail. and failure might entail frustration, which might entail that you loose your confidence and interest and finaly stop doing art.

[Jacks True Self]

There is an old secret method to becoming a great artist. Take a glass of goat milk, mix it with a teaspoon of finely grained potato bugs, shake it over your right nipple and chant "Krom... Krommm...." 5 times. Then drink it in one large gulp. If the next morning you still can't paint like Rembrandt, repeat the procedure.

[Ahcri]

Hmm.. I just drank it yesterday and I still can't draw like Rembrandt.. Maybe I should use the actual ground potato bug instead of NesQuik..

Serious response to the question: Don't worry about dimensions at the beginning, just draw what's on your mind, and then correct it with erasers. After a while you won't have to erase as often. Also, if you want to draw from your mind, you'll have to have a pretty good idea what it looks like. So you may have to do some study of the object first, and then modify it with your own imagination.

[Jason Manley]

the creation of form is a building block in any decent art education and should not be ignored at any time.

even line weight and line quality (thickness vs thin and dark vs light) can suggest form. a simple trick would be to use your lines like "atmospheric perspective" by having them get thinner and lighter as the forms fall away from the viewer and into the white of the page.

there are many tricks to this...what would be some others?

Im going to make a post about this and see where it goes.

jason

[smi]

Wow, thanks for your replies this helps me really very much! I was always afraid to draw anything, because it never looked good, but I think I have now the courage to No matter if it looks like crap, im on the way to get better! This Topic is what I looked for and I think it will help other starters too!

Thanks,
smi