Studying art books, the most effective way to learn from them

https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtFundamentals/comments/vgewze/studying_art_books_the_most_effective_way_to/

2022-06-20 06:34

[deleted]

I'm a 17 year old aspiring comic artist, and I have currently been working through Michael Hamptons Dynamic Figure Drawing book in order to gain a deeper understanding of how the body moves and flows, and essentially teach myself the fundamentals to drawing the figure. When I'd produce art in the past, I'd rely a ton on reference, and none of it would come from my own head, I simply had to see it there Infront of me. Now I am determined to learn properly, go down the long winding path of teaching myself, and learning from greats such as Frazetta, Loomis etc.

I am in a position where (for the next 3 months) I am off college and so have all the time in the world to draw. To make the best use of my time, I wake up at 4:45AM and begin for about 5ish, then work through the day taking short breaks for various reasons. So I'm doing about 7-8 hours a day. Working through Hamptons book, and looking at the drawings infront of me, the trying to replicate them. I try to think about why he made each line, and his positioning, but don't depend too much on the text. I tend to just scan through it, I learn betted visually. I repeat this process throughout the week, drawing from like the same 3 or 4 pages, over and over and over trying to get it to sink in. Then over the weekend, I'll do some gesture drawing of my own, and try to compare them back to his examples and apply his techniques and the ones I'd been soaking up over the week. From here I can see why my gestures feel stiff or uncertain and then know what to focus on next week.

A lot of advice I've been hearing is to set short term, mid term and long term goals. I'm a big fan of the watts atelier YouTube channel, and have found this to be immensely helpful in planning out a routine of some kind. I also listen to a lot of interviews with Kobe (big hero of mine, this is partly why I get up at 4) and his process when he was young of developing as an athlete was to break up his time. I feel my skills are very base level, and I know that there is people my age producing far better work (take art jedi for example, I've always thought of him as my arch nemesis) he's 17 and he's way ahead of me. I plan to commit 6 months to each subject area. So 6 months learning gestures, 6 months on basic anatomy, 6 months on hands and feet, 6 months on tone and lighting etc. Then of course revisiting each subject regularly, not moving on and never touching it again. I'm aware that I'm not going to catch up with these guys in a matter of weeks, months or even years, the process doesn't have a final destination. It's gonna take a while, but I feel by breaking my time into 6 month periods I will be using it effectively.

I have a few questions which I hope you guys can help with. First of all, is copying the drawings out of the book efficient. How do I know when to move on? How much time should I spend on each drawing. Should I have committed it to memory? Or is this unnecessary, should I be more broad.

Do you spend X hours on one figure, or do you spend X hours on a broad range of figures, then throughout the day revisit each one 3 or 4 times and redraw it. Break them up? Or one at a time.

I always find my drawings when I first wake up are rough. I can't get my shapes right and brain just isn't there. It takes about 30 or 40 minutes before I get into a rhythm which is understandable. Are there any exercises you can recommend that will be beneficial to start the day with. Should I dive right into some of his figures, or not?

Am I on the right track? Taking the right approach? Or should I look at things differently. I'm constantly trying to listen out for advice and have watched and listened to countless podcasts and interviews and tips, so I've kinda tried to form a plan based of these things. I've also heard that keeping a journal of some kind, or even maybe a blog would be helpful, to take time to reflect on what I've learned, so that I don't need to keep relearning it and I can track my progress. I think I might just do this.

Thanks for taking the time to read my questions, any advice would be much appreciated!