I Didn't Know How to Draw Until I Learned This

The word 'draw' used to exclusively mean To pull or to drag. In fact, Drag and Draw come from the same ancient root, dhregh. Around 1200CE it was first applied to the act of forming lines with a marking instrument or chalk/charcoal. The word draw – as in drag/pull – was used (instead of To Push, for instance), because a sharp point such as a sharpened reed or quill could not be pushed on most rough drawing surfaces of the time without snagging in the pits of the material. Likewise, chalk or charcoal could snap if pushed against a rough ridged surface. So pulling – "drawing" – it would be! :^)

Best book I ever found was called " The natural way to draw" by Kimon Niccolaides....if you can find it. It's a journey, no "right" way, just a lot of "wrong" ways! I beg to disagree with you here, best way is to go outside and sketch in nature.

Wow… Antonio this has taken me back to when I was helping my own children to work within their learning styles. An early childhood educator friend showed me how to encourage writing skills by drawing. We would get the children to spend 20 or so mins a day doing shapes, lines, concentric circles, zigzags and many other lines from small size to as large as possible on white paper. (For dyslexic children coloured paper works best.) My children learned so well this way, the expansion of their mind (how to remember the shape or line instinctively) was linked, I believe to the expansion and movement of their whole arm from the shoulder out. We encouraged the children with starting to draw/ make marks or lines or shapes from the wrist first and then with each ‘drawn line’ move the arm ever wider up eventually till the whole shoulder was involved in the drawing activity. The success in learning to write letters with ease was much enhanced in my dyslexic, challenged children. To think a similar style of learning can expand one’s ability to both draw and paint is to me nothing short of wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing.

A lot of youngsters tend to move the paper around to meet angles. The issue with is that it puts the draftsman at the mercy of altering their line strokes and movements. You end of up losing your consistency. For those who do life drawing at large scales, you can't afford to shift a giant sheet of paper around. Another thing to point out, depending on which drawing implement you use, that can change your grip and arm or wrist movements. If you use conte or charcoal sticks, it forces you to draw from the arm (shoulder all the way down to the wrist). With enough practice, this facilitates that large movement of lines. As opposed to drawing with ballpoint pens or ink pens, you're restricting yourself to smaller wrist movements which happens quite often to novice drawing artists. The reason people are able to handwrite, is that as young children, we were taught to learn those 'shapes' or 'characters' to the point of second-hand nature. Most people don't realise that certain techniques for gripping a drawing implement can affect the overall presentation of their drawing. Hence, the importance of line quality and form. You can be really well-versed at shading but if you lack the form, it will reflect in the drawing. This can be a very hard thing to comprehend as young artist. It's a culmination of years of understanding of line and form that needs to be put into practice like anything else. It doesn't happen over night.

When i was a kid there was a great art book series called; 'How to Draw...' by Walter Foster. I would sign them out from the library and covered a wide range of subjects from animals faces etc.

Just beginning to draw and paint, and I appreciate you sharing your journey so much. The discipline in learning to draw is a tremendous challenge for me, and the support of the class structure and your content may be of great help. Thank you! New subscriber and grateful for your presence and content. 🙏

Thank you for that review/explanation and the link. Much appreciated.

This may have come at the perfect time for me. Lately I've been trying to work with larger brushes in order to make more confident strokes and fuss less/overwork the paper less. When I started painting, I knew I was terrible at drawing, but thought it was never a skill I'd need with painting. I've come to realize that knowing about drawing plays into many other skills in painting. Perhaps this is something that folks learn in art school, but as someone who came to painting through the University of Youtube, it's not something I realized initially.

This was very helpful! Thank you!

Thank you for pointing me to drawbox - I will give it a go! :)

This is what I’ve been looking for…THANK YOU!

Wow, this is such an interesting perspective to come at drawing from, starting back at the fundamentals after 19 whole years of art experience just in a different medium that I would think of as related. And yeah, it makes sense that the art of painting, where you frequently end up with strokes that are much more focussed on tiny detail adjustments than the big movements of just creating a continuous outline, ends up giving you a habit of only working with those smaller strokes. The end result is certainly unique, because of how the work still turns out amazing in a ley person's eyes, despite it having been made without the artist actually understanding the tool they are using. Makes me wonder what other intricacies of each medium would be revealed if someone else with over a literal decade of experience in one was to attempt working in one that still works in the same dimensions, but would normally require a different thought process and workflow to go along with the new set of tools. Regardless though, as an absolute beginner myself (I am all of roughly 10 pages deep on an A5 noteblock... yes, my stroke confidence is pretty much complete garbage as a result and I am working way too small for the amount of detail I could put into my sketches and scribbles), I thank you very much for introducing me to this course along with showing this unique perspective of yours. Literally the exact thing I thought I could need right about now.

Thanks, Antonio! I've just taken up watercolour painting, and I'm loving it. At the same time I realise that I also can just copy and have no clue how to draw properly. So your insights are much appreciated!

I am almost to the 250 box challenge hearing this encouragement help me to keep going. Thank you.

Thank you.

"i didn know how to draw until I learned how to draw"

Dude you are so right ! I can copy and interpret ( sorta ) but real bare bones drawing yep nah . So I’ll be watching your videos for your progress. Whole arm movement !? yeah ive used this application in calligraphy textualis quadrata , copperplate and I don’t want to think about fraktur ( that’s scary ) but I resonate with you on real understanding of drawing and getting to the bare bones of it .

Man your grip on the pencil is WILD! While it's certainly not as bad as I've seen, I think switching that up to be something looser could help you a lot too

This is awesome.,

At the end of the day.....all art is a rendering.....art is how an artist interprets an object ...living or not. Classical learning is a great....and fundamental s are core to any discipline ....but some ppl just like to draw or paint . We all have been lead to believe that if you don't have a piece of paper or take a course that you have no knowledge of a subject. Which is not true....art is so subjective...unless you just feel the need pay someone learning thru trial and error is what makes the artist journey enjoyable