[Closed] any advice on learning to draw/paint for someone who cannot do either?

Buy a sketchbook and pencil and draw from life.

Just practicing with pens and pencils helps. There's no limit to how much practice you can do though..

Personally I think the majority of art is subjective. You might think you are rubbish, then produce in your opinion something poor. Someone else might think its the dogs nads.
Got a painting on my wall I did of the coliseum. Though its was rubbish at the time. Few weeks later looked at it again and liked it.
Just keep sketching and playing with different mediums.

Steer clear of copying and drawing/shading from photographs. That doesn't teach you how to see and make marks on paper it just enables you to copy flat photographs.

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Steer clear of copying and drawing/shading from photographs. That doesn't teach you how to see and make marks on paper it just enables you to copy flat photographs.

Indeed - think of drawings as descriptions of things rather than copies of thing - the marks you're making are a kind of handwriting - thats why its maybe more important to work on paper - speed, weight, text, resistance matter a lot and you loose that working digitally.

And its important to look. Spend more time looking than drawing - my first drawing lessons at college the tutor used a stop watch - we'd do speed exercises to loosen us up - to stop us being nervous about using paper, we'd come from school where a sketchbook would last us all year - on that day we'd be filling sketchbooks in less than an hour .

He'd set up a pose then we'd draw for 5 mins, or draw for 3 or draw for an minute. But where it got interesting was when he'd make us wait and just look for 5 minutes, then draw for just a minute or even 30 seconds.

Different media here. Played with a style that worked with the subject. Just messing around and pleasing result really. Pretty sure you can have similar results.

Pah. Don't think I can embed photos on my phone. Hope this link works.

thanks for the tips everyone 😀

have just found out how to post a picture from my wii u to pc (can use miiverse account)

here's a picture i did of a sunset (using art academy pastels and my finger 😳

[img] https://d3esbfg30x759i.cloudfront.net/ss/zlCfzTX-41EFY9C0ZS [/img]

here's another [img] https://d3esbfg30x759i.cloudfront.net/ss/zlCfzTZq9YEbnOWiIW [/img]

Like the first one a lot.

Second might be a grower 😀

They ain't bad at all. First one is a good effort.

thanks a lot for the kind words 🙂

am toying with the idea of buying some pastels and sketchpad,and heading out somewhere on my bike. i do have an addiction to mixing lots of different colours together. am going to keep trying to draw different things i think.

just see what i produce.

There are LOADS of free resources online.

If you want to start at the very beginning, have a look at the book "Drawing With The Right Side Of The Brain". See Google images for people's art before and after working through this book. Used paperback is £0.01 + postage from Amazon. One pence!

For how to draw people, you can do a lot worse than following [url= http://www.alexhays.com/loomis/ ]Andrew Loomis[/url] free .pdf downloads. Start with "Fun With A Pencil" and work your way up.

Check out YouTube for vids of a guy called Bob Ross: literally hundreds of landscape paintings done in oils. Maybe not the ideal medium for a beginner, but the techniques he shows you are great and give you an idea of how to achieve an effect you might have otherwise thought beyond your capabilities. And that voice...

Stuck for something to draw? Go to [url= http://something-to-draw.com/ ]http://something-to-draw.com/[/url]

Want to study figures in an "art class" environment? [url= http://artists.pixelovely.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/ ]http://artists.pixelovely.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/[/url] (occasionally nsfw, because nudes)

I'm not sure I'd be worrying too much about "copying" right now. You're just beginning. What you need to do is draw/paint/create constantly. Learn what works for you, learn what doesn't and just enjoy it. Don't try to work within someone else's constraints as to what is art and what isn't. It's *all* art. And that's how the Ateliers worked anyway: learn to become an Old Master by "copying" the Old Masters.

have a look at the book "Drawing With The Right Side Of The Brain".

I was going to suggest this, but the [url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Workbook/dp/0285636642/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 ]workbook[/url]. It has guided exercises, which is a great way to get you started. I noticed a massive improvement after working my way through it.

Really ought to do more drawing, I haven't done any for ages 🙁

I agree with getting some pencils/pastels in real life.
Also with practise, practise, practise. This is the key activity. Pads and pads of practise.

Where I'd disagree with some of the above is using photos. For beginners certainly, photos are great in that they don't move, they don't get bored, they don't change their light and they don't start raining. As long as you treat photos as a way of learning techniques of drawing, I'd say use them. Of course, you could find yourself in a position where you find it hard to draw anything else, like me but there you go. 😉

One book I found that really helped me gain confidence was "How to Draw Anything" by Mark Linley.

there's no substitute for just doing it - I spent a month or two a couple of years ago drawing on the train to and from work (university coursework put paid to that unfortunately) and the improvements were easy to see when I looked back at earlier sketches.

Also just draw any/everything

It's all practice practice practice really

Observation
Observation
Observation

Look for areas of light, dark and shadow, and experiment with the type of marks that you can make
As above, don't worry about avoiding drawing from photographs.. That's more A-level technique than absolute beginner

My guess would be that if you *really* want to learn it then you will but it will take a LOT of practice. The Wii is fine for fun (you should get a PC/ Mac setup with a tablet if you want to take the digital side further) but draw from life with physical media as much as you can. Practice, study the great masters and you will get better. Study simple objects first so you get to understand how form, light and shade interact before you tackle more complex scenes. Good luck!

Theres no such thing as good or bad art. Its all just expression. Some will like it. Some won't. Who cares? If you enjoy producing it, then thats all that counts.

I'd go along with what everyone else has already said just practice. Grab a pencil and a sketchbook and draw some stuff. This is how all the great artists started. Try different mediums. Charcoal, oil pastels, inks. You'll find something that suits you before long.

I'd recommend tracking down any local life drawing classes. The hardest thing to draw is the human body. To get the proportions right is really difficult. If you can draw the human body in the right proportions, everything else is easy after that.

If i can give you any advice about producing artwork, its this.... COMPOSITION IS EVERYTHING!

Have a clear idea in your head as to what the composition is of what you're trying to achieve. Sketch it out really quickly before you start applying any detail. Successful composition is as much about geometry and mathematics, and proportion. Everything is built on that. You can have the best technique in the world, but get the composition wrong at the beginning, and you're wasting your time.

There is an undisputed master of this IMHO... A M Cassandre. His work is beautiful in its simplicity. But it is all based on its geometric composition. If you study anyone, study him. Get his books, that show how he composes stuff in his sketchbooks, before starting the proper piece.

For example, these.....

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Both these images just use a simple, single point perspective. But look how effective it is in giving depth.

Heres one of my own pieces using the same principle

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The image is completely flat. Apart from one thing. The bridge is done as a single point perspective that leads directly to the central of the page as the focal point. Like I said... its all about construction! And knowing exactly what your composition will look like before you start.

As for using pictures. By all means do. I do. Go out and photograph things that inspire you. Then interpret them your own way. Let give give you an example. I took this picture....

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which is a nice enough shot. But it inspired me to produce this....

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I used the folds of the land as flat colour. the variable tones to give depth. But again, its all about the composition. And the focal point isn't the landscape any more. Its the mountain biker at the centre of it. Composition is everything!

I hope that helps. And doesn't just sound like me gobbing off about how bloody great my work is 😀

Most importantly.... just enjoy yourself. I absolutely love sitting down and producing the work I do. And that comes across. You can just tell when someone is putting themselves into something through a passion for it. I couldn't care less whether anyone but me likes the final results

That second tree one.. were you drawing a tree you'd seen, or just a tree how they look in other people's pictures? Is that how you see a seagull? Or you've seen other pictures representing a seagull in that way?
You need to learn to see the real objects with your own eyes and come up your own representations of them.
Unfortunately for me, there is a blockage between my brain and hand and I can't draw anything from memory or imagination. I can copy photos brilliantly, but what use is that? I think you can either do it or you can't, it's not something you can learn.

I decided to improve my drawing a few years ago, as I'm partly a designer my sketches do actually need to be tolerable.

One thing that really helped me was doing it on my lunch break. By taking half an hour to walk to somewhere quickly, sketch out a quick pic of a statue/building/scene it stops you obsessing about the detail and lets you capture the same image several times and compare the results.

I also took to keeping a sketch pad and pencils on my desk to sketch when bored at work.

Ditch the wii. Get a sketch pad and some grease pencils or an automatic pencil.

It takes years to get good, and the people who are good generally practice everyday. A friend of mine who was a concept artist at Disney would draw for 25 mins, minimum, every single day without fail. Even if that meant sketching on a napkin or some bog roll. When I asked why he said he was training, and asked how many press ups someone could do if they didn't train, as opposed to the man who did press ups every day....if you get me.

I used to be quite good. Now I am shit.

As others have said, draw from life. Stay as loose as possible. When you're learning don't worry about, composition, rendering or adding detail, just sketch what you see as loosely and as simply as you can, take it from there.

Practice, practice, practice.

Doesn't matter whether it's from life, from a photo or from your imagination. Always have a pen or pencil in your hand and scribble on whatever's to hand. Get your body and brain totally comfortable with making marks on paper - the key to it all is getting what's in your head (whether observed over made up) out on the paper in a way you're happy with.

And Binners is totally right about the power of composition...

[i]I can copy photos brilliantly, but what use is that?[/i]

I don't see this as necessarily a bad thing. I can copy photos fairly well (in my opinion) but I'm rubbish at life drawing, probably because I've not practised enough. The thing is, I really enjoy copying photos. The results aren't always brilliant but I do try with a variety of mediums, I'm on black ink pen binge at the moment.

[url= https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8803/17044703336_6180516bd1_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8803/17044703336_6180516bd1_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/rYbyts ]Fausto Coppi[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/53067724@N00/ ]Jon Wyatt[/url], on Flickr
[url= https://c4.staticflickr.com/8/7674/16681482604_e8e021bb9e_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://c4.staticflickr.com/8/7674/16681482604_e8e021bb9e_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/rq5XB3 ]Eddy Merckx[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/53067724@N00/ ]Jon Wyatt[/url], on Flickr

As Binners said, if it makes you happy. Other poeple liking the stuff is a bonus.

Great thread! Keep those ideas coming!

Go to a life drawing class? Good for practicing but also good to see other artists who are better than you. I once went to one and stood next to an animator from Superted (!) I was struggling to get the eyes pointing in the same direction he was drawing a skeleton in to 'check his drawing'

Some of the exercises you might get there are:

Quick timed sketches 30 secs or 1 minute
Drawing without looking at the page
Drawing without taking your pencil off the page.

BTW V nice drawings Samuri.

I'd recommend your local library - mine has probably 100 books on drawing and painting. Some are better than others but I can pick up three or four and at least one will be worth some time with.

You want something that will take you through some exercises - tone, shading, perspective etc.

There are those who say that art is in the eye of the beholder but you asked about drawing, not art. Drawing is a skill and a tool that you use to create art (or craft if you prefer). No skill, no tool.

I've done a few courses at local adult ed. classes and the most interesting one was with a Russian who had a whole repertoir of old-school knowledge which was a great help to getting my pictures the way I wanted them to be.

But if you've got a library I'd start there, and get a book or several that give you some exercises and techniques. If you find a book that you keep coming back to then buy it, but otherwise just pick up what appeals.

Theres no such thing as good or bad art. Its all just expression.

Was told off because I was "doing it all wrong".

Teacher was well in to boys, or so we thought, but he eventually got booted for feeling girls. So I don't trust his ability to teach me art.

Bought a pack of watercolours, kind of with the same idea as the OP, of just giving it a try. They've been unopened since 2004. But that big great paint off programme on BBC kind of made me think about maybe trying to draw somethign again.

Bit of effort is required. You first one almost looks like you are trying. Second one screams that you are ripping the piss here.

Hey Binners, seen these guys' posters? So many great ideas. And mugs and t-shirts.
http://thehandmadecyclist.com/

Brian Sewell - Member
Bit of effort is required. You first one almost looks like you are trying. Second one screams that you are ripping the piss here.

...to you, fine. Not to everyone. That's art, basically, but you'd know that. Now go motivate someone else, there's a good chap. 🙂

That's art

You do know how much of a bell-end you come across as, don't you?

Well there's great naive art like that of Alfred Wallis but that pic doesn't have much going for it, I'm all for distilling something down to its intrinsic faculties and representing a tree in its landscape with an economy of marks that still conveys its existence but ultimately I still see the work of an infant mind not somebody understanding a tree's nature and attempting to show me it's 'treeness' and sense of vulnerability yet stoic permanence in the landscape compared to the frailty of human existence.
I should have made that clear, 😳

Excellent riposte. Genuinely meant. Still laughing at the 'Brian Sewell' username though.

I'm all for distilling something down to its intrinsic faculties and representing a tree in its landscape with an economy of marks that still conveys its existence but ultimately I still see the work of an infant mind not somebody understanding a tree's nature and attempting to show me it's 'treeness' and sense of vulnerability yet stoic permanence in the landscape compared to the frailty of human existence.

Oh yeah, that deffo covers it.

Another glass of castrol GTX for Sir?

Person wants to do something: a) let them do it & support/advise.. Or b) put them down like a big man.

No ta, already on my second glass of Pio Cesare Dolcetto.

Drawing is really about mark making.

I think it's worth looking at various artists work to start to understand what constitutes a drawing. For me they are a springboard to possibilities in a painting.

I think it's a mistake to follow 'how to' guides as the way way you will use your medium will be uniquely yours. The most important thing in any artwork is for it to exude a life of its own. Art without energy or personality isn't worth looking at.

Keep experimenting. Don't ever let drawing become formulaic.

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