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Help with smaller parts of a drawing

3:27 PM, Sunday November 13th 2022

Hi, I need help with the smaller parts of a drawing.

Are these not supposed to be drawn with the wrist or elbow?

Whenever I use the whole arm, the result is disproportionate and breaks with everything. I usually block a little with my wrist to stabilize and still use the whole arm.

I will give as an example the legs of this bird, in which I work (this one was not even going very strange): https://imgur.com/zYt4kq2

Maybe one of you with experience could give me some advice.

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4:00 PM, Monday November 14th 2022

Students are often inclined to want to distinguish which pivot we use for our marks based on their length, as that is fairly easy to understand - but as explained here in Lesson 1, I stress that it is more about the nature of the stroke you wish to make, not its length. Either you need a mark that flows fluidly, in which case you use your shoulder, or you need a mark that focuses more on stiff precision, in which case you might use your wrist instead.

By virtue of having less experience drawing from your shoulder, one will inherently not be as accurate when doing it - but everything we do here is an exercise, and so this is where we're supposed to get that experience and practice. You'll make mistakes, but the work we do here was never expected to be perfect anyway. It is an opportunity to improve your skills, and that means tackling the specific things we find difficult head-on.

12:36 AM, Thursday November 17th 2022
edited at 12:37 AM, Nov 17th 2022

But, Comfy, aren't there times when drawing from the wrist is necessary because the details are just too small (or at least anchoring your elbow or forearm to your side)? I recall you saying that you drew with your wrist in one of the texture videos.

edited at 12:37 AM, Nov 17th 2022
3:59 PM, Thursday November 17th 2022

Again - it's not about length.

Texture often requires more control in tight spaces, which is better handled by the wrist, but there are certainly still textural circumstances - fur for example - that will benefit from the kind of fluidity we can achieve from the shoulder. In normal practice many of these cases would be fine to handle with the elbow, but that is not permitted in this course, because we are specifically pushing students to get more comfortable with their shoulder due to it being an area students have less opportunity to develop naturally. The goal is for students to be comfortable enough with their shoulder that they won't be prone to just doing everything with their elbow because it's that much more familiar.

4:46 PM, Friday November 18th 2022

Okay. Are you saying that within DAB fine texture can be done with the wrist, but anything that could be done with the elbow should be attempted from the shoulder?

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