Minds eye, blind or what?
2yr
Antti Kallinen
So just wanted to ask or rant or whatever about this stupid thing.
I have what I think a vivid imagination, like when I read books or something I see the story in a dreamlike color film as opposed to aphantasia. But the problem is, when I sketch or draw from imagination most of the time I can't imagine anything, and just see a blank paper 🥵.
Anyone else like this, or have any input to help me see the drawing in my mind? Most of the time I just go with the sketch and iterate from the lines I do, but when I have a piece in mind I have a hard time sketching it because my mind doesn't see anything 😁
@cherryboi57 has some solid advice. The only thing I’d add to it is to also work on gesture and composition, so that you can get better at figuring out how to translate the vibes you’re thinking of onto the page.
Looking at other peoples work that I like and studying the composition (roughly sketching the main shapes, sometimes redrawing a small thumbnail with just black and white) is pretty helpful
I also have this problem. But I've found its gotten easier as I've learned to break more complex things into simple shapes like cubes and spheres.
For example, say I want to draw a car. I cant really imagine the whole car in my head. But I can imagine a box, and I can rotate the box in my head. So if I decide on a general perspective for the box and put that down on the paper first it gives me a good starting point for the rest of the car. Its easier for me to imagine the car inside the box than it is to just conjure it straight from the blank page.
References also help out. Sometimes its easier to recognize a desired aesthetic or design aspect in another picture than it is to make it up on your own. And so a lot of the time I kind of splice various aspects of things that give me the right vibe together to create my own design.
This comes from your mind seeing a picture in the imagination and you want to put it on paper. When you get to the paper or the digital program your mind sees the paper. Your mind sees a computer. First thing is you have to start out drawing each day for about an hour or more. You have to train your mind to see shapes to see your visions. I been drawing for a very long time. I practice four hrs a day just on drawing alone. When I first started drawing, all I would do is sketch shapes and fill a whole sketch book with just shapes. Until I could draw the shapes in memory really fast and quick. Gesture drawing shapes. Then another day I would open up more gesture drawing shapes until my hand would just glide across the paper with no stiffness and that my brain was in my hand. At that point I was ready to draw from imagination.
So you have this idea in mind, I like Irish folklore. Faeries and the magical lands that live among us. First thing I do is find some reference of where my creatures live. I take my own pictures. I have this magical land in my memory. Besides fairies, I have visted a waterfall near my home town. Looking up at this waterfall from down below i have envisioned a castle above the water fall. A king on a horse following the path through a wintery scene with ambient light and light sun shades. fairies below. trolls running to the waterfall. You have to write down your thoughts and create a story line.
Then you have to go from drawing shapes too learning landscape drawing, perspective, anatomy and figure drawing from life. Drawing from life would be like taking my ipad and sketching on the go. Go to a restaurant order some food draw the perspective. Draw a scene at the restaurant. Start to see your characters in real life. Practice seeing art in reality. Your at a amusement park draw everything. Even if you are not drawing you are seeing with your minds eye and collecting your visual memory sketchbook. Everything you see is being stored in memory. When you get home practice your visual memories. The idea is to train yourself to see with your hand not with your mind.
Artistjay
