/loomis/ - Art Gains

Draw basic shapes from life

You want to do observational drawing first, being able to draw from imagination well is the final destination. Observational drawing is much easier but still an essential skill to have so practice that first a bit and then move on to more imaginative "construction" drawing.

There's a lot of overlap between the two, I'd say do both in either order.

>>806
…Depending on what your end-goal is, anyway.

>>805
I agree that drawing from life is easier. I tried doing the exercises in Loomis' "Fun with a Pencil" and I didn't have as much fun as I thought I would.

When I just drew my own foot like Bert Dodson told me to do in "Keys to Drawing" I was astonished by the relatively good result, it was by far the best thing I'd ever drawn up to that point.

>>807
I don't really have a specific end-goal at the moment, other than "learning to draw". I don't know if I'd like to be an animator, or do portraits, or something else.

Anyway, thanks for the advice.

You might be wondering "if you find one approach so much easier than the other, why did you even bother asking?" The problem with drawing from life is that you need something to look at, preferably something interesting, and that can be difficult to find. I was also worried that making a wrong choice at the beginning might jeopardise the whole learning process.

>>809
Fair enough. I think the consensus is generally that drawing from observation is a good starting point. When you draw from imagination you're actually drawing things you've already seen in some capacity anyway. It's hard to explain, it's called the "mental library".

One thing that Loomis doesn't explain in FWAP is how to hold your pencil or how to draw a circle, the only way to do that is by repetitious grinding. If you look in the Resource Hub® ( 8ch.net/loomis/hub.html ) there's a few videos on the subject. Make no mistake, doing that sort of stuff is really key and will make ALL of your drawing and learning from this point forward easier, so give it a shot.

>>810
That proko video about how to hold your pencil was really helpful. It should be required watching for any beginner.

>>811
It really is, I don't think I've ever seen anyone just 'decide' to draw holding their pencil like that even though the limitations of the wrist make it so necessary, we're all just too used to writing. It's nice to have a pro spell it out. Follow along with the Peter Han videos too. Don't worry about using a pen either. Big waste of money imho when a well sharpened pencil will do.

>>809
the flower/decoration section of grocery stores usually have interesting things you can buy and then make still lifes from

>>878
that's not a bad idea actually