Still life drawing help

[Rob H]

I'm just curious but let's just say that I have absolutely no drawing talent whatsoever.... does still life drawing help in the long run and what's the best way of going about it? Practice, practice, practice?

I have a really hard time with drawing hands. I just can't get my head around the shape. I guess I just need some advice. I can draw decent little cartoon characters but I'd rather get into a more comic/human/realism style. I've read up on anatomy but body shapes are damn hard aswell. In fact, it's all kinda hard. I honestly don't know how some of you can do it.

[Rexamus Grumbo]

Well; basically yeah, practice, practice, practice is the way to go.

[Rob H]

I just figured that maybe you have to be born with that kind of talent.

[howyadoin]

I have a really hard time with drawing hands. I just can't get my head around the shape.Me too, actually.

I guess I just need some advice. I can draw decent little cartoon characters but I'd rather get into a more comic/human/realism style. I've read up on anatomy but body shapes are damn hard aswell. In fact, it's all kinda hard. I honestly don't know how some of you can do it.Yeah, it's practice. If you can find any life-drawing classes, try that out.

Either that, or try drawing quick figure sketches. The short time frame basically means you don't have time to fuck around; you've gotta find a solution and you've gotta find it now.

In a similar vein, I got roped into drawing caricatures of people in a shopping mall one Christmas. Apart from the ludicrous amount of money I made, the best thing about it was having to finish a picture while the person was sitting there - no time to look up reference material, and no opportunity to slack off.

[Knightmare]

Well the best way to start is with the structure. You should just use reference material- alot of real life stuff and study the darks and lights. Maybe even before that just try to get the structure down.

But yeah it's alot of practice and studying. Part of it may be innate talent- if there is an interest there, it's worth persuing.

[Greg Hatcher]

I just figured that maybe you have to be born with that kind of talent.

Honestly, this is probably your biggest problem. What I tell my beginning students is this: A lot of you probably think you can't draw. If I told you to draw that desk over there or got someone up here to model for you you'd panic. On the other hand, if I told you to "print your name in capital letters," you'd prbably just do it, without even thinking about it. You wouldn't freak out, you wouldn't spend half an hour getting the middle stroke on the E just right, and erase and rewrite and erase and rewrite... you'd just make the marks on the paper and not think about it any more.

What you need to understand is that the skills involved in printing your name legibly and drawing a recognizable human figure are the SAME. You are making marks on paper designed to be recognized by a third party. Ninety percent of a beginner's problem is intimidation and the other ten percent is usually overthinking and perfectionism. Understand that this idea of the artist being somehow special is a very recent innovation; art used to be a trade, you could apprentice to it.

Which isn't to say that everyone can be great, but damn it, everyone can be competent. This class is about technique. I am going to teach you some tricks about shape and light and perspective and we are going to make all of you capable of drawing accurate sketches that are three-dimensional and instantly recognizable as what you want them to be. Think of it as learning a visual alphabet.

I have the rep as the studio hardass among the other instructors, but damned if the students don't lunge at it. And really that's all it is. Greatness is a talent thing, sure, but basic skills and competence? Anyone can learn that. It really is all about practice.

[Rob H]

Thanks alot everybody. howyadoin... I've been looking for a short course of some description but taking my college hours into account, it'll be hard to find the right one.

Greg Hatcher, you make some great points and I'm with you all the way. I've been practicing my arse off and I seem to be getting the hang of still objects but when it comes to the human body or anything else with alot of curves, I get a little messy.

I'll keep practicing. Thanks guys. :)

[Greg Hatcher]

Me too, actually.

Yeah, it's practice. If you can find any life-drawing classes, try that out.

Either that, or try drawing quick figure sketches. The short time frame basically means you don't have time to fuck around; you've gotta find a solution and you've gotta find it now.

I forgot to mention what a great exercise this is. I led my adult beginner class through it a couple of weeks ago -- we call it "gesture drawing" in our neck of the woods -- and it really lit them up, suddenly they SAW what I was trying to get through to them. I told them stick figures were fine but I wanted to see the POSTURE: get the head, the line of the shoulder, the "bend line" (sometimes this is the waist, others it's the hip) and the elbows and knees. Connect those dots and you can catch anyone's movement and posture accurately, but you have to train your eye to see in scale -- if the head is HERE and it's THIS big than the shoulder is HERE and the waist is HERE -- you know, that kind of thing. We started just doing passersby out front of the studio, I let them have a minute each to start but by the end of class we were down to about twenty seconds. They were really getting into it.

In a similar vein, I got roped into drawing caricatures of people in a shopping mall one Christmas. Apart from the ludicrous amount of money I made, the best thing about it was having to finish a picture while the person was sitting there - no time to look up reference material, and no opportunity to slack off.

I do this every year for the Art Fair studio fundraiser and honest to God if you're any good at all it's like a license to print money. People love this. Here's a tip -- get the collars, glasses, jewelry and hair right and you can get away with pretty much a standard face the rest of the time. And for kids, give them one in manga-style and they will go NUTS, they think that's the best thing ever. The trick is not to overcharge. If you go with $5 for a B/W soft-pencil sketch and you can blow out one in three to five minutes, then you can make as much as $60 an hour. (I peaked at about $70 an hour one year but my hand hurt for the next three days; usually it's about $35-40 with the big rush in midafternoon.) Give the first one away to some passing kid so people can SEE you do one and a line will form. A line of snappy patter helps too. It's probably more related to twisting balloon animals than it is to actual portraiture, but it is fun and you can turn a nice buck doing it.