Line confidence and stuff
https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtFundamentals/comments/ripvzs/line_confidence_and_stuff/
2021-12-17 20:17
AwesomeFilth
Hello there, my dearest art community.
Lately, I've been reading a lot about the line confidence problem. The thing I cannot really understand is the fixation on a single stroke markmaking. According to those reads, line confidence is about the flow, not the accuracy. So, great. The one has great, flowy lines, but sometimes, especially drawing on screenless pentab digitally, or traditionally, where using eraser is a big taboo, all efforts ends up as chicken scratches. Though, one can draw as much cubes or ellipses or whatever simple form in one stroke as one wish, but drawing more complex forms mistakes will always follow you like a shadow. Irony, isn't it?
In other words: what is the key difference between confident lines and chicken scratches considering that we aren't drawing only basic geometry?
Uncomfortable
2021-12-17 21:03
It comes down to the fact that Drawabox is not teaching you technique - how you draw on your own work is entirely your business, and you are absolutely welcomed and encouraged to draw in whatever way you find comfortable.
When doing your own work.
Drawabox, however, is made up of exercises - things we do in order to develop specific skills, and to rewire the way in which our brain functions, and to change exactly what it is we find "comfortable". To build useful habits, as well as patience and discipline.
This in turn changes the way in which you draw on your own, and helps expand the kinds of marks we can make consistently and reliably. Chicken scratch itself speaks not only to the act of breaking a complicated mark down into multiple parts, but rather doing so erratically, without thought or specific intent. It speaks to the tendency to do so as a path of least resistance, to draw in that manner because we don't know how to make the mark in one go.
What we're doing here helps us develop that control, so we can ultimately decide based on what is better for our specific goal for a piece. We may still build up marks in segments (there are later exercises for this in Lesson 3, which help us to do so while having those segments flow smoothly and seamlessly together in a way that chicken scratching typically does not), but whether or not we do is subject to our own choices and decisions. Decisions made based on what is better for the resulting image, rather than our own limitations.
[deleted]
2021-12-18 05:59
Confident lines : you know overall where lines need to go.
Chicken scratch: you're scratching the paper in the hope of making a good line, because you don't know where they need to go, even when you erase almost all of them. This is what creates insecurity.
But anyway, confidence it's not built from thin air, it only comes with time.
Which is why you do the exercises from DaB to build up your confidence and understanding of how lines work.
And also, outside of it...
Pick subjects which are easier for you, and use the knowledge of these exercises to do sketches and finished work.
For example, plants generally have a nice flow applied to them.
Then, by remembering about curved lines exercises, you start doing the same thing when drawing these plants, thus improving your linework, which results in more confidence.
Do pages and pages of these, and don't worry about failure : failure is 90% part of the artistic journey.
orangecrush475
2021-12-18 04:11
Well fucking said, man
kaptvonkanga
2021-12-18 14:40
Very helpful!! Thankyou.