Help please

#1

Hello
I have been drawing for almost 6 months, and although I think I got most of the foundations under my belt, I still seem to struggle mastering some essential aspects of the art; I always have a hard time drawing the shapes/lines I perceive correctly. Outlining is something I never do correctly. I can always see that something is wrong, but when I compare the actual shape with my drawn line, I can’t pinpoint what I did wrong.

.So, basically, what I’m asking for are some exercises to get over this hurdle.

#2

Stop thinking about what you’re drawing as recognizable objects–think of every single curve, line…etc as simply abstract shapes. Look at scene and start breaking it down. for example, look at a diagonal line from an object and think “That’s a line going from top left to right bottom, and roughly about 20% angle,” or “That curve is about half way between a perfect circle and a severe elipse, and the distance between the two ends is about 2 inches tall,” or “This shape here looks a bit like an inverted triangle, with rounded corners,” or “This big shape here is roughly 3 times the width of the smaler shapes on the bottom”…etc. You could be looking at a face and using that kind of analytical calculation. Don’t think “that’s an eye, that’s a nose, that’s a mouth,” and think about how all those elements could be broken down into geometric shapes and curves.

#3

Luna’s suggestions above are absolutely correct. Trust what you see. I feel like I’ve been really pushing this book today, but look into Betty Edward’s book “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.” Luna pretty much described Betty’s idea of always drawing what you see. Betty has some ideas on how to do this. Basically it equates to what Luna said about ignoring your subject, finding the lines that make up the subject, observe those lines, and just draw the lines. Luna did a better job of descriging it but that is the basic point. My hope is that after drawing things from a reference you will eventually learn how things fit together and be able to draw from imagination vs. having to use a reference.

#4

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