Check Out NMA    Learn More About our Partnership
Close and Enjoy Drawabox Ad-free
View Full Submission View Parent Comment
4:45 AM, Sunday April 19th 2020

Yeah I do. Lesson 5 particularly uses a concept of a sausage that joins the torso and pelvis but is built from two masses attached together. I found it almost impossible to approach from certain angles. Similarly, I needed to rotate my drawing around to help me see certain things as solid 3D objects before rotating again to execute my line. I was streaming my lesson 5 stuff but I don't have any recordings saved anymore to demonstrate.

You'll get used to rotating if you keep doing it. I do it a lot even in my own drawings now... it gets annoying occasionally coz I'll rotate and smack my sketchbook into my keyboard. Haha.

4:52 AM, Sunday April 19th 2020

Thank you! I will keep rotating then. However, how come none of the artists I see on YouTube and Instagram or TV rotate their paper? Will there be a point where it makes sense to stop rotating the paper and draw from different angles?

7:45 AM, Sunday April 19th 2020

Humans are lazy and eventually the angles from which you can draw will naturally expand from there. One of the reasons it's emphasised in Drawabox is because it removes one more obstacle to doing the exercises. It's all about not adding more barriers before you're ready.

2:57 PM, Sunday April 19th 2020

That makes sense. Thank you!

6:05 PM, Sunday April 19th 2020

It could be the case that the artist purposely avoids rotating the canvas when recording a video since that could become disorienting for the viewer.

Certain recording techniques (timelapses, speedpaints) intentionally eliminate the zoom+rotation the artist actually used when drawing.

Traditionally trained painters will likely not rotate the canvas very much because they are used to painting without doing so. Then again, their technique is likely similar to how they would paint on an easel (so they probably also need a drawing surface which is angled vertically when they jump over to digital).

7:54 AM, Sunday November 8th 2020

I know I'm very late to respond to this but I thought it was worth mentioning that I have heard some streamers say they're not rotating their paper because it is better for the viewers that way.

I think there are also different approaches that don't rotate, but we may be getting a skewed view by looking at streams.

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 Science of Deciding What You Should Draw

The Science of Deciding What You Should Draw

Right from when students hit the 50% rule early on in Lesson 0, they ask the same question - "What am I supposed to draw?"

It's not magic. We're made to think that when someone just whips off interesting things to draw, that they're gifted in a way that we are not. The problem isn't that we don't have ideas - it's that the ideas we have are so vague, they feel like nothing at all. In this course, we're going to look at how we can explore, pursue, and develop those fuzzy notions into something more concrete.

This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.