Great video and a helpful exercise. I have a related question to the original poster. Just as beginning students have misconceptions about "talent", do you think we also have misconceptions about creativity? As I am progressing, I am getting the sneaking feeling that some of the artist that I have seen are technically very good but not necessarily super creative. Maybe this is a bigger question about what is creativity.
That photoshop trick sounds really handy. Value studies are really a really great way to learn and that sounds like a good way to develop an eye for it. Thanks.
I hear what you are saying but I would say art is full of "fundamentals". Even only up to lesson 2 of DAB is enough to understand other art concepts. Uncomfortable cautions against grinding on one area trying to achieve perfection before moving on. I would say the same applies to perspective as a whole. He encourages (nay, demands) that people draw for fun 50% of the time. Many people try drawing people during that 50%, even when DAB doesn't have lessons on figure drawing. Art skills are interconnected and doing one thing can often help another. While doing DAB, I have also been learning figure drawing. The cylinder challenge was incredibly helpful when trying to draw a manniquinized figure or foreshortening a limb. But I am not done with DAB yet. I have much more to learn. I also am not done with figure drawing (maybe never done learning that). Perspective is really helpful but I don't think mastery is necessary before moving on.
The short answer is no. But this is a good question though because it relates to an idea of "the proper order" of skill acquisition. That somehow you must master one area to move on to the next. Like any skill you try to acquire, learning a sport or new language, etc, you move from one area of the skill to the next. When learning a language, you don't tell yourself: "Cool, I have finally mastered verbs. Now I can do nouns". Perspective is just one skill on a list of skills that you will keep learning and relearning as you explore art. Think of the learning path like a spiral moving out. you practice skills like perspective, then figure drawing, then color theory, etc but eventually you will come back to perspective, but at a higher level. You spiral through the skills over and over again, constantly learning more or at a higher level of understanding. Is perspective helpful for figure drawing, yes. Is it required to understand perspective at a higher level, no. Hope this helps.
I do a short quick version of all the exercises as part of my warm up. Not all of them of course, but I will pick one or two and do some of it. Pull up a google image reference and do a few leaves, a cats head, a beetle, something. When I find myself forgetting a step, then I will pull up the tutorial. I feel that the purpose of Drawabox, developing your intuitive spatial reasoning, takes more than a few attempts at real world objects. You drew 250 boxes, your probably going to need 250 plants, or bugs, or animals too.
Hi Uncomfortable. I have noticed over the past year how many questions concerning texture there are. I did lesson 2, the texture challenge, and have continued to practice texture on my own. And I still find it challenging and confusing. Apparently I am not alone. I know you have been revamping your lessons. Have you redone the texture one yet?
Personally what would be helpful is a wide variety of exemplars, maybe in the 10 to 15 range. I feel that would be very helpful for learning the process. I understand however why you wouldn't want to do this, however, as students tend to just try to copy what the teacher does in the "correct" model. "This is how you do fried chicken", "this is how you do tortoise shells", etc. It does appear to be one of the areas that cause the most trouble for students though, so just spit balling an idea to help.
When you say chicken scratch, do you mean that you are trying to "find the line"? This is what I do all the time too. Ghosting the line first and thinking of drawing from the shoulder does help me though. LIke Somethingx said, I think it is a habit that takes time to break and reform. I would also agree with Aturia24 that when you are doing the 50% rule, it's not practice so you shouldn't beat yourself up if you do it. I am finding that the habits I am trying form with DAB such as line quality and dimesional thinking are slowing seeping into my 50% fun. It just takes time.
I may be wrong here, but I think the general advice for this program is: "When in doubt, stop". As long as the structure is clearly defined, everything else is extra. Detail is the surface. When I did lesson 5, I kept adding that little extra tuft of fur or feather, and Uncomfortable kept telling me to do less. When I look back on many of my drawings, I can see that I am still struggling with this.
Speaking from experience, you are only rushing the lessons if you are not following the lessons (and the 50% rule). In other words, there is no specific amount of time each exercise should take, but make sure that you are really understanding what the lesson is and doing it as correctly as you can. That may mean you have to take your time on observation or rereading the lessons before continuing. Some of the excercises are very straight forward and quick and others take time. Lesson 2 is a great example. Organic shapes with contour lines is not that time consuming but the texture exercise and dissections should take you a lot longer. I have rushed things at times and it really shows up in my submissions. Also, you may personally find some exercises more difficult (or easy) than others. Everybody is different.
Well the good news is that drawing cylinders is part of my regular practice, so I will keep at it. There seems to be a particular speed that seems to be the best combination of confident and accurate for me. Unfortunately I don't always hit it. Too slow and it gets wobbly and too fast and it's all over the place. I did make an effort to ghost and improve the side line quality.
Not to be contentious, but you did say to vary the foreshortening. I freely admit that I didn't have enough variation in my first batch, so I made an effort to increase the range on the second one. The word vary suggested to me a wider range, which would include the parallel sided ones too. When I look across the room at my paper towel roll, it looks a lot like the strait sided ones. I can see plenty of uses for greater foreshortening too, but I thought I should practice the full range. I wasn't trying to ignore instructions. Sorry if it came across that way.
These are what I use when doing these exercises. They usually run somewhere in the middle of the price/quality range, and are often sold in sets of different line weights - remember that for the Drawabox lessons, we only really use the 0.5s, so try and find sets that sell only one size.
Alternatively, if at all possible, going to an art supply store and buying the pens in person is often better because they'll generally sell them individually and allow you to test them out before you buy (to weed out any duds).
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