creating and thinking

[moominmolly]

So, I've been trying to learn to make quick sketches of objects that are satisfying to me, in the hopes of eventually being able to doodle things in a way that amuses Natalie and also to sketch the images I see in my head all the time. But when I sat down to draw, I discovered that I can do crummy stick figures, or meticulously-shaded precise copies of real objects, but nothing in between. Argh! So I've been trying to scale back my meticulous copying and get more confident in the lines I'm drawing in the hopes of eventually scaling it back to something that could reasonably be called a quick sketch. For reference, here are some crummy phonecam shots: here's our TV remote, with the remote placed at a slightly different angle in the photo than I was drawing it at -- that took me about 90 minutes. Here is one of my car keys under the weird lights in Starbucks -- that was about 45 minutes. Better! And here is the result of me trying to draw that keychain in five minutes. (Unfortunately, the crumminess of the phone camera doesn't show you the finer lines there -- this is both good and bad, since they give depth to the drawing, but also are a little lumpy.)

Having such a (relatively) tight constraint did make me much more confident in the lines that I was drawing, but I'm definitely, definitely stuck with the following problem: line drawings are unsatisfying to my brain, since what I see when I look at an object is mostly the way light falls on it. If I look at an object with the intent of, I don't know, perceiving it visually rather than just parsing what it is and what I can do with it, what I see is shading and reflection, where the light sources are and what kinds of shadows the object is casting. So, I don't know, I'm stuck! How on earth do I learn to draw quickly if what I want to draw isn't the form of the thing itself?

Last year, I decided, kind of arbitrarily, to take a photo a day for a hundred days. It was VERY productive to me to get in the habit of taking a picture every day and posting it at the end of the day -- it freed me from having to care about whether it was perfect, since, well, I had to post something. A lot of things came out of that, for me; it was useful enough that I wanted to try it again this year, definitely, but being who I am, I also wanted to shake it up a bit and try it in a new way. So, this year, I decided to break it up into ten ten-day projects. My idea was that at the beginning of each ten-day period, I would choose a different theme and take a photo in that style every day. The first ten days, I devoted to taking photos of letter shapes in an urban setting, with the intent of capturing LOTS of the alphabet during that period, and the whole thing by the end of my hundred days. You can see them on snap_pop, marked 1 through 10 out of 100, and I've got plenty more at home in my iPhoto library. I'm really only missing a couple. Yay me.

The first mini-project as a whole was pretty successful, but I found two interesting and unexpected things: first, that it radically altered the way I looked at the world all the time, causing me to hunt out letters in the forms and outlines of objects, nearly ignoring their light and shadow; and second, that the act of posting each individual photo was FAR less satisfying than it had been last year, being secondary to the mini-project rather than a project in its own right.

When those ten days were up, I took a free-association day, figuring that I'd post my favorite shot from that day and make a ten-day theme around whatever it was. I rather liked this doorbell, so I chose "broken things" as my theme, thinking, hey! there's a lot of pretty broken stuff in the world! But you know what? This theme has also radically altered my perception of the world -- I'm walking around all the time, seeing things that are busted and peeling and dingy and useless. There's a lot more UGLY broken stuff in the world than pretty broken stuff. Wednesday I had to take this just to put in a little whimsy, and Thursday I punted entirely, figuring, fuck! I need a break! I'll just take two on Friday! I am TIRED of seeing broken things! It is depressing! Last night, over margaritas, ectophylla likened it to suddenly noticing plants all over when she started gardening, or the way when I got pregnant suddenly I saw pregnant people everywhere. Except instead of plants or pregnant bellies, it was busted stuff. I tell you, when this theme is over, I am totally not picking anything remotely depressing for the next one.

Anyway, this gets me to wondering: would it be possible for me to alter the way I see things in such a way that I would have no trouble creating and enjoying line drawings? And if I did that, would my experience of the world be slightly less rich? Would my photos be different? Would I be different, act differently?

Please, if you have any experience learning to draw (or teaching drawing, miss_chance!), stop me from this ceaseless pondering and tell me how to learn to draw something simple and cartoony before I disappear into my own navel forever.

Comments

[touchofgrey.livejournal.com]

I can't recommend enough the Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (http://www.amazon.com/New-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0874774241) book. While I'd already taken drawing classes by the time I found this book, my teacher in high school (at least partially) used this method and I seriously went from stick figures to fairly realistic drawings in weeks. This (http://pics.livejournal.com/touchofgrey/pic/000aee4p) was my final project in Drawing II. Not perfect, but I'm pretty proud of it. :-)

[dilletante.livejournal.com]

we have it, actually, because i too keep wanting to learn how to draw; but the excercises seem to take a lot of time and i haven't yet even started to go through it. :)

we also have a number of books on drawing caricatures, which might be more the sort of thing you're looking for, moominmolly? i'm not sure where they've got to, though.

[touchofgrey.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the exercises do take a bit of time. I admit to only making it about half-way through. But it's much faster than taking a class and drawing the same bowl of fruit for two weeks straight. :-)

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I did some of the exercises when I was 11 or 12, and it was really helpful and fun. I want to go through it again some time, too.

But I had totally forgotten about those caricature books! Yeah! I will hunt for them when I get home. Yay!

[tisana.livejournal.com]

Seconding that book, as well as recommending another, Drawing on the Artist Within, if you wanted to get more into the process.

I think some of Edwards' exercises--particularly the one about drawing a line drawing of Picasso's upside down--may jog your brain into doing something a little different.

Your drawings are amazingly realistic (which I admire), but you may simply want a more cartoony, simple look. You could check out some of Scott McCloud's books on comics, as he breaks down the imagery, and how our brains perceive certain things, really well...even if you're not looking to get into drawing comics.

As for practice, how about setting an alarm and only allowing yourself 5 minutes to draw something? Or try gesture drawing, or negative space drawing, or contour drawing...all will change the way you look at the values of an item.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Yeah, I guess I want to be able to distill objects down into simpler forms so that I can then bend them a little and make them funny or sad or whatever. I feel like I've more or less conquered realism (in non-human forms) to the degree I want to, but there's really nothing simple about it yet.

I will try your recommendations! They seem like really good ideas.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I would like to go through the exercises, but the thing is, if I recall correctly, the skills it teaches I basically already have. Here's the car key drawing:



It's basically pretty realistic and representational already. I want to do *simpler* things...

[touchofgrey.livejournal.com]

OH, ok, I misunderstood. (That's what I get for skimming. :-) The car key drawing is better than anything I'd probably be able to do right now...) I have to admit that one of the disadvantages to the fact that I had such a good art teacher is that it drives me crazy if the things I draw aren't vaguely realistic.

Although I do remember having fun with scribble drawings in one of my art classes. The teacher had one of those wooden figure models and would move it every 60 seconds or so into a new position and within those 60 seconds, we had to draw its form using nothing but scribbles - basically long, narrow ovals, if that makes any sense. Vaguely like this (http://www.artexperiences.org/circlescribbledog.htm). Natalie might have fun with those. I do remember being taught that if you're trying to do quick sketches, don't use solid lines, use quick feather-like lines. You won't get a solid edge, but it's great for trying to get a shape down quickly.

And the suggestions about looking into cartooning are good ones.