Big agree. That was the advice I started with a year ago, where I began with gesture drawings daily like people suggested. I wasn't improving and I didn't really know why until a few months ago. Turns out, if you don't know what you're looking at, how can you draw it? Weaving in anatomy work is propelling me, because now I can deconstruct and simplify what I'm doing. It's also been a boon for creating my own style, because now I have base "language" to understand what other professionals are doing in their work and why they're doing it. I think "draw what you see" is the right advice for hyperrealism, but most people don't really want to go down that route when it comes to it. It's funny, because back in design school my teacher said he wished he could abstract his pieces more as the realism habit was hard to break (he said it'd take dozen of hours to get something that could be achieved by taking a picture).
Agreed, if all one wants to do is copy, cameras do a way better job. The point, as you say, is abstracting, and creating a version of what you see that is even better. And this is impossible by just copying point to point
Gesture is a very common beginner trap, and I wish people would stop recommending it to them. It's a great exercise, but to get the most out of it, like you said, you need to understand what you see in the first place.
Everyone like defends this book I've noticed and they still recommend it. I was watching a video and this famous Marvel comic artists said he didn't know how to draw and he studied the book and it helped him. But I remember when I was learning to draw when I was in high school. I would just copy stuff but I didn't really learn how to draw by copying. You have to learn how to break stuff down and like make something up from shapes and form. Just copying the silhouette doesn't really teach you how to draw it doesn't even teach you proportions. So I quit drawing for quite a while and then I learned how to do it the right way. Mindlessly copying really holds you back. I think the whole point of the book is just learning how to see by drawing from life and stuff. You have to do that as well, but if you only do that, you're not going to be able to draw anything from your imagination.
Totally with you there. I have this thing myself and must say: its interesting from a psychological point of view (she explains a lot about the way our brain works and such) but if you want to actually design something, the advices are useless. No one cares, if you can make a 100% accurate portrait or replica of something, in times of high quality photos with a stupid smartphone.
@@chaoswolf7976 yeah, that's why I don't find hyper realistic art. Interesting. It's so boring that like some artists just draw a picture of a celebrity or something to make it look 100% like the photo. What was the point? We have a camera you could have just taken a picture of that person. Plus it's not even interesting. It's pretty boring and it's actually harder to draw stylized things out of shapes because you have to design the shapes and you have to make everything look cool and cohesive. With photo realism, you're just copying a picture basically. That's why in like the 1700s late 1800s. When they first introduced the camera, artists were scared that the camera was going to replace them. So instead of making super realistic art, they just moved towards impressionism and more artistic styles. The only reason painters painted realistically in the Renaissance was because painters were basically cameras capturing important people. And the book is interesting but I also think that a lot of the information was debunked on how the brain actually works. So what she was saying isn't even scientific.
I haven't read the book, but I am always a bit suspicious whenever ppl use ""science"" to explain art making like that. Not to mention that the "left brain vs right brain" thing is apparently not 100% proven. So that book's premise feels a bit too pseudo-sciency for my liking. Would not surprise me if that book is the reason I've had ppl tell me I'm a good artist because I'm left handed. But, thing is that we all learn and interpret things differently. That book might actually be useful to some people. Not for others. For all my life I NEVER understood what "draw what you see not what you think you see" - because I have always analyzed references by forms and shapes by default. I think we need to get better at explaining concepts in different ways that makes sense to more people, than just parroting the same phrases over and over.
Totally agreeing here! Also quite honestly I am not a fan of "one size fits all" in general. So the more ways you can explain something, the more people can resonate with one or the other
By saying, "draw what you see not what you think you see", she probably meant to say "observe what's in front of you instead of repeating the symbol for it that you've been using." This is good advice but it won't teach you to draw form because form has to be imagined before it can be drawn.
Hey, that is cgmasteracademy. Unfortunately it's not free. To be honest you can find a lot of that info of UA-cam for free though! It just looked nicer than a UA-cam page lol
Micheal Hampton's Figure Drawing: Design And Invention to start with. If you want a technical perspective one: Scott Robertson's How To Draw (but it's HARD). I am not aware of any good book on form, but check out stuff like dynamic sketching, as well as Proko (and my channel! lol)
@@magdalene5387 I'll have a video about it on Monday! It's about the most fundamental skill . Also in the meantime check my other video in improving your art fast to assess your position
noooooo. Nemo, this is one of my favorite books. it taught me so much about how to see. the copying part is about learning to see. once you get that skill, then you can draw things so much better than before. did you finish the book?
Yeah, unfortunately I can't say anything good about it. As I do concept art and illustration, the things I practiced from it just hindered my progress for years in terms of constructing scenes
Looks like Ron Kempke dropped a rude comment then blocked so I can’t reply. Or so he thought. But the point is that seeing and drawing aren’t identical. Drawing requires learning to see. Even if it were just copying, just like a thousand years of great masters, copying is a very helpful step on the road to learning technique. AND, just because you’re seeing something and drawing it doesn’t mean you’re copying it slavishly, and not bringing your own interpretation and creativity into the process. Seeing while you draw doesn’t automatically mean you’re copying. You’re just taking in the information that’s in front of you and then using artistic license to decide which information to include and how to put that information down on whatever ground you’re using. I’m not saying anyone has to be a follower of Dr. Betty Edwards and her methods. But I for one appreciate them and think they’ve greatly helped me improve my drawing and painting. For what it’s worth.
I used this way to observe and draw for years and years, it was natural for me, it wasn't stuff from the book, but later i realized that i could do better if i also use the structural way to draw things specialy anatomy , nowadays i combine both while struggle to dominate this more logical way to draw
I stopped reading this book on page 70. I understood the message about the "sides of the brain" and observation drawing as a important skill, but for me soon it became clear that is not enough to draw. For me that filters very much what I read and don't take the things so literally, the book was not too nocive, but it can be dangerous depending how much the reader believes in all that is said on the book.
@@theartofnemo I subscribe to a few channels. At least 3 recommended the book. I don’t recall exactly which channels. So many recommended the book ~ It could gave been people in the comments. 🤷🏽♀️ Anyway, I figured it might be helpful. I’m still going to read it. But thanks to you, I’ll read it with an open mind. Hah!❤️
@@brendajeannewyche with all the information available nowadays I really don't understand how people can recommend it :( even the author had to modify it after release cause everyone realized how bad the advice was)
@@theartofnemo Yes. the book has been updated 4 times. I just figured new info was added as the author advanced. I still believe I’ll find some useful info in it. But I appreciate your insights & caution & I’ll bear that in mind as I see what the author has to say.
@@theartofnemo updating a book is extremely common. We all learn and gain new ideas and abandon old ones. At least that’s the hope. Why should authors be any different?
I think it's a good thing to do once in a while when you're feeling burnt out to help make drawing feel like not a big deal, but I agree that it's not a good way to improve long term
Well, I guess it always comes down to what the goal is. Indeed if you only want to chill every now and then, it could be considered ok, but at the same time I find the damaging effects on the way one draws too much of a drawback (no pun intended) to keep doing it
Also this "brainless" advice is good to paint stuff even realistic , i think is just a matter of balance know when to use this abstract vision and when not to
I have to disagree here. I think it actually gets in the way. I really, deeply subscribe to what Jeff says about the three-step process of creating a piece of art. Notice that he is primarily a realistic painter, does a lot of portraits and works from life. The exercise proposed in the book doesn't let you abstract things, but prompts you do be as verbatim as you possibly can. It really, deeply gets in the way when you start getting into gesture and life drawing. Even worse if you dream of drawing your own characters (like, I guess, most viewers of this channel want to do).
@@theartofnemo i haven't read the book yet maybe it is really bad, i going to check later , what i've told i learned from fine arts school and yes i want to create my own characters and i kinda do but not as i want yet
This kind of reminds me of those people who only copy photographs and make everything hyper realistic. I mean you're just copying a photo. You could have just taken a photo with your camera. I find like comic art and stylized art. Way more impressive than like photorealism art. It takes far more creativity to actually design your shapes and make something look good. And you actually have to think about what you're drawing. You're not just copying a photograph.
When I tried this I kept on trying to imagine the object like your video on the one skill to rule them all. This advice is stupid imo, because looking back no wonder my drawings were flat, and I didn’t know what it was I, and stopped within a week.
What, you only wasted eight years with the book? It poisoned my own progress for twenty. And also created ingrained habits that became extremely difficult to break. In fairness, the book does contain some handy tips and techniques to help one see. Also, in "fine art" (i.e. stuff like paintings intended to be hung on a wall), there are many people who make a perfectly decent living out of little more than accurate copying. Still, the book seduced me with its seemingly miraculous "before and after" pictures of student work, and when I tried the techniques in it, at least initially, it seemed to work almost as well for me. Then I hit a ceiling and spent years and years and years wondering why everyone else was making progress, except me. Heck, even my accuracy hit the ceiling; even now, decades later, I still can't copy for the life of me, right brain or not. So on the whole, I agree: stay away from that infernal book.
Oh man, so sorry you had this experience! I understand the frustration, really. Sometimes I imagine where I would be now had I sourced information elsewhere. At least we know better now :) Like you say, the book also probably impressed me because learning to see IS useful... it's just not the whole picture (pun intended)
@@theartofnemo Yup, that's exactly it: accurate copying is part of the process, but the book gave the impression that that is all it is about. A last chapter titled "Where to go from here" would have been useful. :-)
@@brianvanderspuy4514 I heard a newer edition has something like that (probably because people complained) but alas, mine did not have it. It really sucks cause I had picked up loomis right before that and swiftly abandoned it after I found this "miraculous" book.
You're not really drawing though. As soon as you take away the technology, you don't really know how to draw. Wouldn't you want to know how to draw as a hobby like on a piece of paper as a skill. People who like art and drawing enjoy the process of actually creating something. I forget his name but like the AI defender guy. Basically Jazza brother shadaversity. his whole argument is that AI art is art. Basically was making art by typing a prompt and then like spending like 2 hours fixing it in Photoshop. He said it took him like 60 hours to make an artwork so it is hard work. If he actually spent the 60 hours learning how to draw, he wouldn't need the AI in the first place.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Thank you for saving my time
Big agree. That was the advice I started with a year ago, where I began with gesture drawings daily like people suggested. I wasn't improving and I didn't really know why until a few months ago. Turns out, if you don't know what you're looking at, how can you draw it? Weaving in anatomy work is propelling me, because now I can deconstruct and simplify what I'm doing. It's also been a boon for creating my own style, because now I have base "language" to understand what other professionals are doing in their work and why they're doing it. I think "draw what you see" is the right advice for hyperrealism, but most people don't really want to go down that route when it comes to it. It's funny, because back in design school my teacher said he wished he could abstract his pieces more as the realism habit was hard to break (he said it'd take dozen of hours to get something that could be achieved by taking a picture).
Agreed, if all one wants to do is copy, cameras do a way better job. The point, as you say, is abstracting, and creating a version of what you see that is even better. And this is impossible by just copying point to point
Gesture is a very common beginner trap, and I wish people would stop recommending it to them. It's a great exercise, but to get the most out of it, like you said, you need to understand what you see in the first place.
Everyone like defends this book I've noticed and they still recommend it. I was watching a video and this famous Marvel comic artists said he didn't know how to draw and he studied the book and it helped him.
But I remember when I was learning to draw when I was in high school. I would just copy stuff but I didn't really learn how to draw by copying. You have to learn how to break stuff down and like make something up from shapes and form. Just copying the silhouette doesn't really teach you how to draw it doesn't even teach you proportions. So I quit drawing for quite a while and then I learned how to do it the right way. Mindlessly copying really holds you back. I think the whole point of the book is just learning how to see by drawing from life and stuff. You have to do that as well, but if you only do that, you're not going to be able to draw anything from your imagination.
Totally with you there. I have this thing myself and must say: its interesting from a psychological point of view (she explains a lot about the way our brain works and such) but if you want to actually design something, the advices are useless. No one cares, if you can make a 100% accurate portrait or replica of something, in times of high quality photos with a stupid smartphone.
@@chaoswolf7976 yeah, that's why I don't find hyper realistic art. Interesting. It's so boring that like some artists just draw a picture of a celebrity or something to make it look 100% like the photo. What was the point? We have a camera you could have just taken a picture of that person.
Plus it's not even interesting. It's pretty boring and it's actually harder to draw stylized things out of shapes because you have to design the shapes and you have to make everything look cool and cohesive. With photo realism, you're just copying a picture basically.
That's why in like the 1700s late 1800s. When they first introduced the camera, artists were scared that the camera was going to replace them. So instead of making super realistic art, they just moved towards impressionism and more artistic styles.
The only reason painters painted realistically in the Renaissance was because painters were basically cameras capturing important people.
And the book is interesting but I also think that a lot of the information was debunked on how the brain actually works. So what she was saying isn't even scientific.
I haven't read the book, but I am always a bit suspicious whenever ppl use ""science"" to explain art making like that. Not to mention that the "left brain vs right brain" thing is apparently not 100% proven. So that book's premise feels a bit too pseudo-sciency for my liking. Would not surprise me if that book is the reason I've had ppl tell me I'm a good artist because I'm left handed.
But, thing is that we all learn and interpret things differently. That book might actually be useful to some people. Not for others. For all my life I NEVER understood what "draw what you see not what you think you see" - because I have always analyzed references by forms and shapes by default. I think we need to get better at explaining concepts in different ways that makes sense to more people, than just parroting the same phrases over and over.
Totally agreeing here! Also quite honestly I am not a fan of "one size fits all" in general. So the more ways you can explain something, the more people can resonate with one or the other
By saying, "draw what you see not what you think you see", she probably meant to say "observe what's in front of you instead of repeating the symbol for it that you've been using." This is good advice but it won't teach you to draw form because form has to be imagined before it can be drawn.
can you tell me at this timestamp 3:56 what website it is & is it free & great video with good advice thank you .
Hey, that is cgmasteracademy. Unfortunately it's not free.
To be honest you can find a lot of that info of UA-cam for free though! It just looked nicer than a UA-cam page lol
What’s a better book to study from then?
Micheal Hampton's Figure Drawing: Design And Invention to start with. If you want a technical perspective one: Scott Robertson's How To Draw (but it's HARD). I am not aware of any good book on form, but check out stuff like dynamic sketching, as well as Proko (and my channel! lol)
@@theartofnemo and these are for complete beginners?
@@BigToody The books? No. Dynamic sketching is
A free version is also available on drawabox.com
You can get the Hampton book as a PDF by googling it I believe
It's literally the book I was reading. T.T
I know the feeling :/
@@theartofnemo I don't know where to start now
@@magdalene5387 I'll have a video about it on Monday! It's about the most fundamental skill .
Also in the meantime check my other video in improving your art fast to assess your position
noooooo. Nemo, this is one of my favorite books. it taught me so much about how to see. the copying part is about learning to see. once you get that skill, then you can draw things so much better than before. did you finish the book?
Yeah, unfortunately I can't say anything good about it. As I do concept art and illustration, the things I practiced from it just hindered my progress for years in terms of constructing scenes
Looks like Ron Kempke dropped a rude comment then blocked so I can’t reply. Or so he thought. But the point is that seeing and drawing aren’t identical. Drawing requires learning to see. Even if it were just copying, just like a thousand years of great masters, copying is a very helpful step on the road to learning technique. AND, just because you’re seeing something and drawing it doesn’t mean you’re copying it slavishly, and not bringing your own interpretation and creativity into the process. Seeing while you draw doesn’t automatically mean you’re copying. You’re just taking in the information that’s in front of you and then using artistic license to decide which information to include and how to put that information down on whatever ground you’re using.
I’m not saying anyone has to be a follower of Dr. Betty Edwards and her methods. But I for one appreciate them and think they’ve greatly helped me improve my drawing and painting. For what it’s worth.
@@EnglishwithAlan I have removed the quarrel because I'd like to keep a positive mood in the comments
@@theartofnemo as you wish.
Marshall Vandruff and Proko tear this book apart in a podcast if I remember right.
Oh man, do you remember more or less what episode/year? I'd like to watch it
Ok found it! I love Marshall lol. Totally agree with him
Link? 👀
@@ChadScarbs Here ua-cam.com/video/lj58m-KGxHo/v-deo.html
I used this way to observe and draw for years and years, it was natural for me, it wasn't stuff from the book, but later i realized that i could do better if i also use the structural way to draw things specialy anatomy , nowadays i combine both while struggle to dominate this more logical way to draw
The advice of how to do proportions is the only thing that i used from this book 😂😂😂
I stopped reading this book on page 70. I understood the message about the "sides of the brain" and observation drawing as a important skill, but for me soon it became clear that is not enough to draw. For me that filters very much what I read and don't take the things so literally, the book was not too nocive, but it can be dangerous depending how much the reader believes in all that is said on the book.
I just bought that book on a UA-cam recommendation.😬
Agh, sorry to hear that :/ out of curiosity, who recommended it?
@@theartofnemo I subscribe to a few channels. At least 3 recommended the book. I don’t recall exactly which channels. So many recommended the book ~ It could gave been people in the comments. 🤷🏽♀️ Anyway, I figured it might be helpful. I’m still going to read it. But thanks to you, I’ll read it with an open mind. Hah!❤️
@@brendajeannewyche with all the information available nowadays I really don't understand how people can recommend it :( even the author had to modify it after release cause everyone realized how bad the advice was)
@@theartofnemo Yes. the book has been updated 4 times. I just figured new info was added as the author advanced. I still believe I’ll find some useful info in it. But I appreciate your insights & caution & I’ll bear that in mind as I see what the author has to say.
@@theartofnemo updating a book is extremely common. We all learn and gain new ideas and abandon old ones. At least that’s the hope. Why should authors be any different?
I think it's a good thing to do once in a while when you're feeling burnt out to help make drawing feel like not a big deal, but I agree that it's not a good way to improve long term
Well, I guess it always comes down to what the goal is. Indeed if you only want to chill every now and then, it could be considered ok, but at the same time I find the damaging effects on the way one draws too much of a drawback (no pun intended) to keep doing it
Also this "brainless" advice is good to paint stuff even realistic , i think is just a matter of balance know when to use this abstract vision and when not to
I have to disagree here. I think it actually gets in the way. I really, deeply subscribe to what Jeff says about the three-step process of creating a piece of art. Notice that he is primarily a realistic painter, does a lot of portraits and works from life. The exercise proposed in the book doesn't let you abstract things, but prompts you do be as verbatim as you possibly can.
It really, deeply gets in the way when you start getting into gesture and life drawing. Even worse if you dream of drawing your own characters (like, I guess, most viewers of this channel want to do).
@@theartofnemo i haven't read the book yet maybe it is really bad, i going to check later , what i've told i learned from fine arts school and yes i want to create my own characters and i kinda do but not as i want yet
This kind of reminds me of those people who only copy photographs and make everything hyper realistic. I mean you're just copying a photo. You could have just taken a photo with your camera. I find like comic art and stylized art. Way more impressive than like photorealism art. It takes far more creativity to actually design your shapes and make something look good. And you actually have to think about what you're drawing. You're not just copying a photograph.
I love your videos
Thank you!
When I tried this I kept on trying to imagine the object like your video on the one skill to rule them all. This advice is stupid imo, because looking back no wonder my drawings were flat, and I didn’t know what it was I, and stopped within a week.
What, you only wasted eight years with the book? It poisoned my own progress for twenty. And also created ingrained habits that became extremely difficult to break.
In fairness, the book does contain some handy tips and techniques to help one see. Also, in "fine art" (i.e. stuff like paintings intended to be hung on a wall), there are many people who make a perfectly decent living out of little more than accurate copying.
Still, the book seduced me with its seemingly miraculous "before and after" pictures of student work, and when I tried the techniques in it, at least initially, it seemed to work almost as well for me. Then I hit a ceiling and spent years and years and years wondering why everyone else was making progress, except me. Heck, even my accuracy hit the ceiling; even now, decades later, I still can't copy for the life of me, right brain or not.
So on the whole, I agree: stay away from that infernal book.
Oh man, so sorry you had this experience! I understand the frustration, really. Sometimes I imagine where I would be now had I sourced information elsewhere. At least we know better now :)
Like you say, the book also probably impressed me because learning to see IS useful... it's just not the whole picture (pun intended)
@@theartofnemo Yup, that's exactly it: accurate copying is part of the process, but the book gave the impression that that is all it is about. A last chapter titled "Where to go from here" would have been useful. :-)
@@brianvanderspuy4514 I heard a newer edition has something like that (probably because people complained) but alas, mine did not have it. It really sucks cause I had picked up loomis right before that and swiftly abandoned it after I found this "miraculous" book.
I don't think this advice is useful for those who only want to draw copies
I don't think copies should be done like the book explains anyway
I just type a few words into AI and get a much better drawing in seconds, so who cares LOL
Why eat food when I can just watch a Mukbang instead so who cares LOL
You're not really drawing though. As soon as you take away the technology, you don't really know how to draw. Wouldn't you want to know how to draw as a hobby like on a piece of paper as a skill. People who like art and drawing enjoy the process of actually creating something. I forget his name but like the AI defender guy. Basically Jazza brother shadaversity. his whole argument is that AI art is art. Basically was making art by typing a prompt and then like spending like 2 hours fixing it in Photoshop. He said it took him like 60 hours to make an artwork so it is hard work. If he actually spent the 60 hours learning how to draw, he wouldn't need the AI in the first place.
@@varishnakov why did you even come here then?