Ron Kempke
Somewhere over the rainbow
I am not a monkey. This is my cousin's photo but the engineer's cap is mine and I wish he'd return it to me.
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Ron Kempke
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15d
added comment inHow to Think About Gesture
Michael, how do we learn to express our ideas with lines and shapes? Is this a skill artists possess innately or is it something they've had to learn and, if so, how and where have they learned it? I find this aspect of gesture drawing to be an unlearned foreign language, so maybe I'm delusional to believe I could someday communicate ideas and emotions through drawing.
BTW, I've had a long career as a working technical illustrator which has probably influenced my confusion with communicating feelings through drawing because I've associated the act of drawing with reporting tangible facts. How do I unlearn that mindset if that's what's required to express with gesture?
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15d
Hey Ron, great questions. Don't know if I have the capacity to answer them here. I guess it just depends on how you choose to see drawing. I see line, shape, and value as components of a language. As such, while some may posses an innate familiarity, the rest of us develop proficiency in being visually literate with said formal elements. From there the question is to what end do you use it. You already concede that drawing communicates tangible facts. To me this is an idea about what you see and how you choose to convey it. Gesture in the way I discuss it here conveys tangible facts about the body and it's design through rhythm and asymmetry.
Maybe it's a matter of how we frame it?
Dermot
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1mo
Asked for help
Marshalll, great lesson.
I for sure need this !
Here are some of my attempts.
My lines are terrible messy sorry, but I have to draw something.
When drawing the card boxes from blobs, I found my blobs were too small or the wrong shape.
The sellotape dispenser had me lost when working on
simplifying it with blobs.
I feel I compromised the purpose of the blobs!
Help!
Please.
:)
You're never going to learn how to draw boxes unless you actually set one up and draw it from many different locations. This is the only way perspective is going to make any sense to you too.
Ron Kempke
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1mo
Asked for help
It may be due to the camera angle but, when I use your suggestion of rapidly comparing your drawing to its reference, I see the drawing as being slightly stretched vertically compared to its reference. Are you seeing that too on the video?
When I was a student, this type of distortion was a common issue for those of us who didn't begin a drawing with an envelope that established the overall proportions of the image. What are your thoughts about using measured envelopes as a beginning, as Raphael Ellender teaches in his book, Basic Drawing?
BTW, Andrew Loomis offers a "visual survey" on page 88 of, Figure Drawing For All It's Worth, that's kind of similar to your "inside to outside" method of measuring.
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1mo
I have no idea what you mean by envelopes.
Ron Kempke
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1mo
Asked for help
I think it's interesting (and frustrating) to see how far off most of us are on our first attempt. Beside your rapid eye suggestion, are there any other exercises you can recommend that will help develop a hypersensitivity to minute differences, because most of us seem to lack that ability?
Ron Kempke
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1mo
Asked for help
Thank you so much for making this method crystal clear. I believe it's the same method that Harley Brown uses to produce his images.
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1mo
I love Harley Brown and I could only hope that this is similar to the way he works
Ron Kempke
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1mo
Asked for help
I have two questions:
1. Are you drawing sight size?
2. How do you know you won't run off the paper when you get farther away from your starting point?
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1mo
No I am not sight size. I’m drawing from the inside to the out is the better way to look at it and that’s why using some type of graph even if it’s minor to know where to begin helps a lot
@aakerhus
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1mo
Asked for help
Trying another one were I try to think about it as "I'm about to slice through the subject" ( Poor froggy :( ) I think it looks good, but I don't feel confident about it.. Don't really know if what I do counts as cross-countour or if I am just enhancing the forms you allready are seeing in the reference, I guess it is a little bit of both?
Copying is easy. Draw it from another point of view to see if you really understand it.
Izak van Langevelde
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2mo
I'm afraid you're clueless when it comes to the notion of talent. Talent is not just some innate god-given ability, it is also the ability to learn. You show us you have been able to learn, to conclude you don't need talent? Yes, every Tom, Dick and Harriet can learn art, but some will learn so slowly they will never achieve a useful skill level in this life. Please leave telling there is no such thing as talent to third-rate schools who sell the idea that art skills can be bought. You are better than that!
I think your idea of talent is as wrong as it can be. Andrew Loomis sums up talent very well on page 11 of Successful Drawing: "The truth is that we do not see the talent until the means of bringing it forth has been developed."
Your inability to learn is closely associated with your personal discipline commitment. How often do you practice, for how long, and for what specific purpose is your practice intended?
The digital age has spoiled anyone who thinks he/she can acquire the skill they want by shortcutting traditional practice methods. Stan spent 10 years of intensive, disciplined practice to arrive at his current skill level. I submit to you that your expectations far exceed what can be realistically expected, so stop feeling sorry for yourself and get to work!
Ron Kempke
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2mo
Thanks for being honest. When and what made you decide that you wanted to become an artist?
@omnesilere
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2mo
Asked for help
Straight edge was used on the goblet. I ended up using a 90* triangle on the face so I could try to get some perpendicular help going. At least one of these lines based off the center I screwed up on and of course that was for the eyes so I ended up "fixing" them a couple times more times than I'd like to admit; before I caught that. Wolfs carbon on printer paper wasn't much fun either but I'm mitigating that by just not going full dark. Ie I'm too lazy I guess. Great exercises though. Practicing eyeing and measuring angles is never bad.
Fold your vase in half along its centerline and hold it up to light to see where you're off. Maybe turning the drawing upside down will reveal the discrepancies to you too.
