Drawing is Seeing
Intro
In my early teens (that's quite a few years
ago if you have to ask) back when I took my first steps into the
wonderful world of art, I had in my possession a danish art book with a
title going something like this: "Drawing is Seeing". Being young and
impatient I never quite understood the essence of what the title was
trying to pass along. Had I only read the book rather than just
looking at the drawings inside, and had I only understood what the
author was trying to tell me, I might have been a more skilled artist
today. Later it turned out not to be such a mystery as I (wisened by
age) realized what the book was actually trying to teach me. Ironically,
given it's title, it never opened my eyes back then, a mistake that
needn't be repeated by hopeful new artists. I therefore strongly
recommend that you read this short tutorial as it contains one of the
most important elements of being a serious and ambitious artist.
Picture It
Take a look at the picture of the young girl on the right. In just a
fraction of a second your mind will process and interpret the
information of the picture. After just glancing at it you could most
likely point out and recognize the face in the picture amongst thousands
of other faces with ease. All by memory. That's because your mind has
processed countless of different faces throughout your life and is
trained and able to distinguish between each and every one of them.
So
having done this many times before you've become naturally more skilled
at doing it. Here is the problem. The human mind is lazy. It takes
shortcuts, ignores heaps of details and remembers only what is
necessary. If you wish to recreate a face (or anything else) using
nothing but pencils and paper you have to reverse things.
Reverse It
Here is an example. If you're looking at a face the interpretation of that particular face ha
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