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Help understanding the 50% rule

1:26 AM, Saturday August 10th 2024

Hello! I see that this has been asked a lot already, but I'm still having trouble and would appreciate any advice. I'm confused about the 50% rule and whether or not I can use references.

Some facts about me:

  • Coming up with ideas is not a problem, I have more ideas than I could ever draw

  • Most of my art before drawabox was drawing human portraits and figures directly from references and trying to copy the reference.

  • I am not a student (so no portfolio) or a professional (so no selling/gifting work). All of my drawing outside of drawabox is just of things that interest me. Sometimes I do show them to people.

Here's the part from lesson 0 I'm struggling with: "Can I use reference during the 50% rule time? Like everything else with this rule, it comes back to your intent. Are you reaching for reference because you're afraid of drawing something inaccurately, or wrong? If the motivation behind it is fear, then no. Face your fear, draw it without reference."

I definitely make uglier and less accurate drawings without references, I can't deny that. And when my drawings look really ugly, I don't like them very much. Does that mean I shouldn't use references? But then the next part:

"If however you wouldn't have any issue drawing without the reference, and are just looking to have more tools at your disposal to play with, then go for it."

What does 'have any issue' mean here? I could do a drawing with or without the reference, it would just look worse without. What is a 'tool at your disposal' if not a tool for making elements of the drawing more accurate? In what way would you use a reference without impacting the accuracy?

"A good strategy is to first roughly sketch out your idea without reference, so you're forced to make all the decisions as to what goes where, how it's laid out, and so forth. Then, using this sketch, find suitable reference and then redraw it. This will help ensure that the reference itself is not deciding for you what you should be drawing."

This part makes it sound like using references for the difficult elements of a drawing is completely fine?

Some previous posts about this characterize the 50% rule part of the course as the 'fun'; slogging through with no references is much less fun than what I was doing before Drawabox. However lesson 0 specifically says it's NOT about having fun. If it's supposed to feel awful, and the purpose is to slog through being terrible for months, then I guess I'll do that, but if it's okay to use a few references for the hard bits I think I'd be much happier that way.

I'm sorry if this is coming across extremely dense, I promise I'm not being dumb on purpose. I'm just worried if I do the whole course wrong I won't get much out of it.

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1 users agree
1:37 PM, Saturday August 10th 2024

A major goal of the Draw a Box course is to train you how to understand and visualize three dimensional spaces. If you're just copying reference images (maybe using something like the grid method?) then you're working more in 2D rather than 3D. I don't think this is necessarily wrong, but I also don't think it's furthering your ability to construct in three dimensions.

What you might do is try to lay out a scene without reference first (thinking in 3D) and then use reference to refine and add detail. For instance, if you wanted to draw a magic mushroom then figure out how you want it oriented and draw the basic shapes of the stem and cap without reference. Then use some mushroom references for things like texture and color.

This being said, the course instructions do say that you don't need to think about the course content while doing the 50% rule, so I guess you can feel free to do pretty much whatever and unwind. Though do note that copying an image directly is called a study and would not really be in line with the 50% rule.

2:54 AM, Monday August 12th 2024

Thank you so much, this is really helpful. I think part of my problem understanding the rule is coming from drawing portraits and figures just floating in space with no other elements, so three dimensional spaces never really figured in. I've started drawing simple full scenes with background elements from imagination and plan to use references sparingly to correct details in the final piece. I appreciate the feedback!

1 users agree
1:39 PM, Saturday August 10th 2024

The video portion goes a bit more in depth about this. Having a reference and trying to copy what you see is called a study and falls under the learning portion of the 50%. The other portion is described frequently as "play." Try things out, push your boundaries and if you hate what you made, rip it up! Its a no holds barred, no shame, just have fun kind of drawing time.

There are more caveats about references in the video too. (Note: I watched it semi recently so I may not remember the specifics precicely, but hopefully some others here can help out) Uncomfortable was talking about how if you're going to draw something new, and want to use references for it, use multiple at a time so you arent copying an image.

Your situation sounds to me like you should do some without reference, just to get used to where you're at as an artist now. The non-study 50% is meant to be drawing for the sake of drawing and -in my opinion- fighting the part of yourself that says its ugly and instead being satisfied with having created anything at all. Again, it'd be awesome if some other folk could share their viewpoint too.

Here's the link for the video if you want to fact check me yourself.

2:59 AM, Monday August 12th 2024

Thank you so much for the response. I've started drawing scenes from imagination, and I plan to make limited corrections using references before each piece is finished. The full sketch is from imagination though. I'll make sure some of my 50% time is purely from imagination with no edits. I appreciate the feedback very much, I was spiralling a bit when I wrote this.

5:09 PM, Wednesday August 14th 2024

No worries, and best of luck to you!

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