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Practicing Drawing from Books

8:20 AM, Tuesday December 22nd 2020

Art books are great. However, I think there's a flaw in some of them. Drawing is a practiced skill, more so than knowledge based. While the information is helpful, it can be hard to actually apply the knowledge. I think I only own one instructional book that bridges this gap and provides exercises, Scott Robertson's How to draw/How to Render the thing's chock-full of exercises and concepts building upon each other.

So here's my question, how would you take something like say; Loomis How to draw head and hands? Copy each of the drawings, then reinvent it? Try to go for accuracy rather than concept or vise versa? Just read the text and try gosh darn it!

Even more so, what about the Digital Art Masters Series books?. What information do you get from those? How do you extract it into something tangible and practicable? How do you look at something like a demo from those books, and say; "Alright, I'm going to practice X, Y and Z in this way so I can get the same results."

I'm interested to hear your opinions.

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5:24 PM, Tuesday December 22nd 2020

Lemme see.. If I was studying Loomis Book on the Head and Hands I'd start by

1) Drawing circles and elipses, since these are the building blocks for the Sphere

2) Practice drawing spheres and finding the two main centerlines, then cut the sides, copy the examples and then draw more from imagination.

4) Add the simple geometric shape of the face, mark the proportion of the hairline, brow, eye, and nose, copy the reference and then draw from imagination untill I feel confident with how the proportions shift with perspective

5) copy the reference on the constuction of the skull, maybe try to look at a real skull and draw it using the same process, then do it all from imagination.

6) Add the facial features, copy the step by step plates, try to do it again but from memory

7) From here onward I think it'd be the same thing, move on to the specific parts like the nose, ears, eyes and different head shapes, round, squareish, etc. copy the drawings, maybe draw from photos to get more examples but using the same principles mentioned in the book, then draw from imagination. If I can't then I'd revisit the previous steps.

I guess my general methodology would be, start simple, make sure I'm confortable and I have the skills to do the first steps, then move on to the next, more complex exercice. Go from simple to complex and general to particular, start with the very general idealized shape of "a head" and refine it gradually to a more particular head using the illustrations as guides and allways drawing from imagination after each step to make sure I can do it on my own.

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6:11 PM, Tuesday December 22nd 2020

What I do, I personally learn best from copying drawings. Usually, I watch tutorials online, and slow it down as much as it can go, then follow the artist's marks step by step. I think attempting to copy an artist's marks helps you understand why they use such marks, and how you can apply them. For example, while watching someone draw legs, I noticed that the artist slowed down near the knee, and used a quick stroke to finish drawing the leg. Idk if this is helpful, and I know this shoots off on a different topic, but this is my general advice! :)

The recommendation below is an advertisement. Most of the links here are part of Amazon's affiliate program (unless otherwise stated), which helps support this website. It's also more than that - it's a hand-picked recommendation of something I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
The Art of Brom

The Art of Brom

Here we're getting into the subjective - Gerald Brom is one of my favourite artists (and a pretty fantastic novelist!). That said, if I recommended art books just for the beautiful images contained therein, my list of recommendations would be miles long.

The reason this book is close to my heart is because of its introduction, where Brom goes explains in detail just how he went from being an army brat to one of the most highly respected dark fantasy artists in the world today. I believe that one's work is flavoured by their life's experiences, and discovering the roots from which other artists hail can help give one perspective on their own beginnings, and perhaps their eventual destination as well.

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