How Do Art?

[Oeufa]

So this is my relationship with art right now:

I wanna learn to draw. However I can't even do a stick figure with approximately correct proportions. How do I get from Sucking to Bob Ross in the most efficient way?

The way I see it I could either go to a teacher first to learn the fundamentals. Get a solid grounding, and then use that to practise and improve in my own time. Or I could experiment a lot first, build up some measure of skill, then go to a teacher to clean up my technique and fine tune my method.

So to all you arty types, how do I art? Or, more accurately, how do I start to art?

 

[Lark]

Subscribed. Also I think your avatar is pure work of art.

 

[Oeufa]

Alas it's not mine

 

[Vasilisa]

this book

 

[WALMART]

only one way to get to carnegie hall

 

[Oeufa]

only one way to get to carnegie hall

Well, yes, but where to start?

 

[WALMART]

Well, yes, but where to start?

I think you've already laid out the two most logical positions already: find a teacher, or take an interest in doodling. Vas posted a lovely looking book, up there. I know there are a lot of how to draw books, anime characters and such. My brother used them a lot in high school, became very skilled at it.

That's the thing, though: he used them. Recently I grew fond drawing on my Nintendo 3DS; I would send notes to my brother daily of assorted shit that popped into my mind. It grew, I started dabbling a little on paper. Subsequently, I can draw people taking a dump and bombs being dropped on cities that much better. I work out - I wasn't good at first. I had to consciously explore what exercise I was doing next, what muscle groups I had to target. Now I can flow entire routines without much thought, I can even start to ponder on assorted subjects while I'm exercising, it's not mentally repetitious but explorative.

Here's a relative topic, one of my favorites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

What you're attempting is a high challenge, high skill activity. I believe you have to truly want to develop this skill, but not only want it. You have to do it. There is no real magic fairy dust in the world that delivers skill and technique on a platter, unfortunately. You gotta do it, results be damned! Grab a stack of paper and start drawing your wall, I don't know. Draw a pony. Draw your DVD collection. Draw your coffee mug. Draw your mother's face. Get an art teacher. Draw the movie poster to your favorite film. Draw an orbit of planets. Let your Ne guide you.

 

[Oeufa]

Oh I am aware of the sort of dedication of time and concentrated effort it will take to go from Pretty Shite to Mere Mediocrity, let alone anything decent.

Using music as a parallel: I was taught by teachers first on 3 instruments (recorder, tinwhistle, flute - formal) and then I taught myself guitar (badly) and ukulele (decent), and then back to teachers for piano (vital!!!). I've also had extensive grounding in musical theory (got my grade 8 and half a degree ) which makes it easy as pie to pick up a new instrument and mess around for a few minutes to get the basics. Knowing the framework of music makes it child's play to intuit a new instrument, which I love.

This makes me think a teacher first, explore later approach would be better for me than an explore first, teacher later (to clean up the mess) one. Or at least it would be more efficient. But maybe the two disciplines are incomparable

Looking online for a decent beginner adult class is damned hard too. A lot of them seem to be January/September intakes, or overly expensive & brief workshop type things.

Perhaps the private tutor route might be worth investigating.

 

[WALMART]

Yeah, I was going to say that with music, a solid foundation of music theory is nice to have when tinkering away with instruments. Which pretty much requires a teacher of some sort - I took violin when I was young, and I've been able to pick up most string instruments since relatively easy. The transition to more analog instruments is even easier...

Is art the same way? Is there some fundamental groundwork that can be laid out that expedites the creative process?

I definitely think classes are the way to go. Until then, though, don't be afraid to toil away with your currently available resources... drawing is almost free, lol. Good luck!

 

[Oeufa]

Violin - now there's one I'd like to try. I got a lute at Christmas and that's awesome, but I'd like to try some traditional strings too. Violas are badass.

That's the thing though, I dunno how comparable fine art and music are. It could be that drawing parallels between them is utterly nonsensical. I would like to try to get some formal training first though before branching out on my own - I think that learning the fundamentals of form, proportion and perspective would be a bit difficult to conquer alone.

 

[WALMART]

Yes, they are lovely instruments. The lute, eh? Can you play its Stairway to Heaven equivalent, Greensleeves?


Yeah, neither do/did I, which is why I didn't include it at first. I intuitively want to say music is far more mechanical in its construction and implementation, but I guess art really can be, too. I suppose it depends on who's behind the pencil.

I don't think she's susceptible to being summoned as of late, but I know [MENTION=13402]Saturned[/MENTION] took some art classes. I want to say she didn't find them very helpful from an informational point of view.

If I remember correctly, her teacher told her this: "If you want to be an artist, travel to Paris. Sketch a scene on a small piece of paper. Then sketch it on a larger piece of paper. Then paint it on a small canvas. Then paint it on a larger canvas. Then paint it on a large canvas."

So essentially, she paid to be told what I've already told you =/

 

[gromit]

I really enjoy learning from someone with greater skills than me.

Alternating between critique/skills demonstration from the skilled teacher and personal practice time (refinement, trial and error) seems to be a very solid way to build foundational skills.

 

[Oeufa]

Good point, gromit, well made

 

[Viridian]

From secondhand experience, studying other styles, drawing from RL (even if the stuff looks bad at first) and just plain practicing are all good pieces of advice.

 

[Oeufa]

So I was at a pub quiz last night, and being the naturally serious, taciturn person I am, created some art I should probably give up before I begin tbh

 

[Oeufa]

I dunno who'd be interested, but I got a book last Friday called You Can Draw in 30 Days. It features 30 progressively difficult exercises that are designed to teach you the basic principles of drawing. These are supposed to be applicable to anything you want to draw. It also cost next to nothing as a kindle download, so why not?

I was planning to keep these to myself but then I thought it might be fun to document them here and see what comes out of them. I've the first 3 "lessons" done so far. I could post them here for lols if anyone cares to see the journey from crappy to moderately less crappy.

Votes by pigeon-mail plz

 

[Viridian]

Ah, one last tip: avoid Christopher Hart like the devil.

 

[Oeufa]

Ok sure. What makes you say that?

I got a How to Draw book but it's by Mark Kistler. The principles it's teaching seem sound so far.

 

[WALMART]

lol! Oh, I would love to see

Sweet Bassoon, btw.

 

[Oeufa]

Yeah the problem was I didn't know off-hand what a bassoon actually looks like, so I just drew a black pipe with flute keys on it It's a bassute!


TRIGGER WARNING! BAD ART AHEAD! If you've watched a loved one die of bad art, you may want to turn back now.


So for the introduction chapter, you're supposed to do this pretest type thing where you draw a house, a plane and a bagel. This is so when you look back after the 30 lessons you can say "Well at least I'm marginally less shit now." This is my sucking control, if you will.

Then lesson one is draw a sphere, a shadow, and shade it in. Bonus was to draw a piece of fruit (in my case, the apple from the photo in the book because I was too lazy to find a real one).

Lesson 2 was overlapping spheres. Drawing the closer one larger and the other one slightly smaller and higher up the page to make it seem further away. Bonus was to get two tennis balls, recreate the pose and then draw it. Except I was doing this in subway last night so I used the apple-shaped speakers we have

( Please excuse the crap photo - twas drawn on deli paper which has since been crumpled up in my bag )

So on to lesson 3. You had to draw rows of spheres extending out into the distance. Mine's pretty sloppy, and drawn on deli paper :/

And the bonus exercise. It's hard to understand what it is if you haven't read the book but it's supposed to be an arrangement of spheres in planetary space. The varying size of spheres is to demonstrate that overlapping is more important than positioning or placement in terms of defining an object's size in relation to another object.

Here's a picture I found online of someone else's version of this exercise so ye can see what it is. I don't wanna just copy the image straight from the book in case of copyright or whatever:

Stay tuned for Artless with Oeufa!