An artist who runs a workshop I attend espouses âmaster copiesâ as the #2 best thing you can do to get better. The #1 is drawing from reality. If you think about it, drawing from reality forces you to make a ton of decisions, but copying a drawing is about learning someone elseâs decisions. Ergo, if that someone else is a master, then youâve probably got a lot to learn from.
It reminds me of studying jazz: you usually start learning how to improvise by memorizing solos of great musicians. As you memorize these solos, you usually write them down and study them: look for patterns, etc. Over a period of time, little pieces of each of these solos naturally become part of your own reporatoire, and you begin to sound like yourself, rather than anyone else.
The same principle applies here: as you copy different masters, youâll gradually pick up on cool ideas, and they subtly become part what you are.
mrtristan is right, it wonât hurt. By copying an existing drawing, you can learn how the other artist conveys form, texture, etc. The only way it can be not as useful is if youâre just blindly and mechanically copying the drawing without trying to learn from it
I really encourage you to copy pictures, but be extremely selective. I recommend Julia Margaret Cameron, for the way that she lit her models before taking pictures. Her photos
reveal form and are exquisitely composed.
Hereâs an example:
For now, use master photographers, instead of copying your own photos, or photos that donât have much artistic value (like most sport photos, family pictures, etc⌠which are spontaneus, but with little thought or design put into). National Geographic has several books out with very good photos, also look at photo books by publisher Phaidon.
As for master painters, I recommend Sargent, Rubens, Ingres, Rembrandt, Repin, Zorn, etcâŚ
Just be really selective, and donât just copy any photo⌠pick subjects that are artistically portrayed and have a good sense of design to them.
EDIT: when you said âpicturesâ I understood photos⌠wether thatâs what you meant or not, I think this info is still relevant and possibly one way to learn to draw. Like some have said already copying master work (master photos, drawings, paintings, sculpture casts, etcâŚ) is a proven way to improve your drawing skill and enrich your taste. You sort of become a student of the artist and learn to problem solve like them. In some schools, they even teach master copying before moving on to working from life.
Yes, one does get better by copying. What copying does is make you notice the difference between your own technique and that of another artistâs. This improves your perception.
Itâs very hard to copy another artistâs technique, but if you can, then you can begin to get into their minds and how they see the world. Itâs like reading a book. Copying a great artist can teach us many things that we never knew because copying is slow and painful and we begin to understand what that artist was about. Itâs also a way of honoring those that have gone before us and gave us our visual freedom.
Through copying we learn about ourselves as artists and how we as individual artists, see the world.
I guess its like playing an insturment. You first learn by playing and learning the great pieces of other composers, before you improvise yourself. However, for drawing though, I find its useful to know the techniques first, (For example, the proportions of the human body, the anatomy, stuff like that) so when you go to copy, you can see how the artist used those techniques.
when I copy photos for practice, I pick out one part of the figure. Like either the gesture or and arm, a leg or whatever, and then I just try to visualize it in a 3d space and I try to draw while thinking and figuring out what kind of shape it is, how it moves what it looks like from other perspectives and so on. I rarely try and copy a whole image, i just like to learn from it and it occupies some of my noneventful and very wasteful classes. Hopefully this gives you a look at how I try and learn.
As someone who studied music for most of his life, Iâd say that musicians have to contend with developing extensive motor skills, which is part of âtechniqueâ. In fact, Iâve yet to meet someone whoâs a good musician (well, classical or jazz musician) that hasnât been playing for at least 5-6 years. I also think that the motor skill thing is why I eventually lost passion in music: you spend a lot of time doing repetitive tasks, rather than creationâŚ
In any case, I learned a couple of things about developing fine motor skills playing music, which can be handy:
[ol]
[li]When learning a motor skill, go slow, and do it right the first time, every time.[/li][li]If you make a mistake, do it right at least 5 times before moving on.[/li][/ol]If you make a mistake, your brain tends to learn the mistake. You can only âunlearnâ the mistake by doing it right more often.
Now, this doesnât apply to âvisualizationâ skills, because ârightâ and âwrongâ are vague. But you could probably get way better at drawing if you did things like, draw 5 parallel lines with the same length, draw good circles, draw squares, repeat 5 curves in parallel, etc. (Note: this is a great way to learn brushes like the pallete knife in Painter.) The goal here isnât great art, but simply learning to avoid the undo button as you draw. Ergo, learning to have the brain think âi need a line hereâ and your hand just does it right.
For the complicated aspects of drawing, like âis this good anatomyâ, I havenât found anybody who learned it while avoiding drawing from life regularly. Visualization is amazingly complicated; you have to develop seeing detail in reality, understanding design principles in your work, 3D projection, etc. Using 2D references are nice training wheels, however, and if you need training wheels to have fun, well, thatâs whatâs most important.
At first: Thank you! I hope many more people are going to post here.
Also to the people I spoke to by PMs, thank you for your insight and links.
I have allready learned so much, it makes me really glad to see some progress again after a long time with no such thing.
The tip with drawing straight lines and circles is very good! And also the tip that one should just copy masterâs work, is great. (Though I may have a rather unique impression of who is a master ) but I do not like copying photos so far, it is to difficult yet to transfer them into my mind and then on the paper again. I am trying to learn all the basics and so far I am succesfull.
But so far I realised some thing: By copying other artistâs pictures, I learned how to draw that particular picture, but not how to draw a similar picture by myself. I hope you get what I want to express. Learning the basics by reading those fabolous books which somebody kindly hosted on a server I allready learned so much more.
Though it is encouring to copy a good artwork one likes, because it is like: âHey, soon I will be able to that without using another picture.â
~hope I expressed myself well, English is obviously not my native tongue-
@everyone comparing learning music to learning to draw. Yes, basically a musician learns by âcopyingâ from advanced musicians. In a way, a classical musician does nothing else. But thereâs more to it than that.
All musicians also have to learn the basics of music, wether formally, like in classical music education or informally as in jazz or flamenco. You cannot improvise your own riffs if you know nothing of scales and chords.
The same goes for drawing. Unless you know the basics of drawing, copying a master painting/drawing isnât going to help much if you do not know how to âseeâ and transfer what you see onto paper, canvas or computerscreen. Itâs equally important to learn the âscales and chordsâ of drawing.
@ phynix
Glad to hear you have found something to help you along.
The simplicity of it is you are trying to be successful. Successful in your art that is. You can define what âsuccessâ means to you in this context.
The keys to being successful at anything are hard work and effort. Terms like inspiration, motivation and momentum come into play but these are all secondary to the effort.
10% of the time you are truly creative and everything is flowing. The other 90% of the time âbecoming successfulâ in art is just plain and simple hard work and effort. Once you begin the process of work the creativity part takes care of itself along with the other terms mentioned above.
I would suggest just drawing anything as much as possible. Drawing from life has so much relevance to everything you draw so that has obvious importance.
Master copies seems like a very valid and worthwhile way to improve your art. This is what I have read and what I have heard. Thinking about it - it does make a lot of sense. Success leaves clues. Those that have been successul have already put in the time and effort into figuring things out.
As long as you copy and ALSO understand then you can only improve.
Iâm not saying that one can ever become a âmasterâ ~ itâs nearly an impossible goal ~ but the higher your goal, the better you will eventually be relative to where you are now.
Another drawing from the 15 Minute Sketchathon ~ this one actually took 45 minutes, in 15 minute segments. ~ But, was done from photoreference. Master copies definitely inform your workâŚ
oy as long as ur getting some milage on ur hand anything goesâŚof course u will learn through copyingâŚi copied photos thru highschool only to never look at them todayâŚmakes sense
Beside the ones you already posted, are there any other master artists you can list? Iâm graduating real soon from school and really need to improve in human anatomy. The professors here alway stress about how important human anatomy is and how itâs almost mandatory for you to understand in order to get a job in the industry. Iâm trying to get into the video games industry after I finish school.
This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.
~ But, was done from photoreference. Master copies definitely inform your workâŚ
