my picture

You can be the most creative artistic visionary in the world but it won't do you any good if you can't put into paper what is in your mind! The purpose of copying is to see something clearly in your mind, and put it into paper...and then compare where you messed up. You'll get better at putting your mind into paper faster if you copy than if you draw everything from your mind to start with, that will take much longer to improve.

Bloggo, I like the new Photoshop...please finish it! There shouldn't be any white space left over.

When you draw from life it isn't so much about envisaging the finished picture in your mind - complete and absolute - for me anyway, it's about developing that hand eye coordination that allows the image to filter through and your hand produces the required marks. Practice practice practice is needed to make this happen fluently.

If I envisaged a complete sketch or painting before I started I'd be bored stiff - I have an idea, the light, the mood, etc or the pose of a model, where the tension is in the muscles, where the weight is, the light on the form, a rough composition (subject to change at any time if the painting develops in a more interesting way) etc etc - then it's response to this and changing elements, emphasising subtly, leaving things out, whatever it takes to make the image work on paper/canvas.

Copying cuts out the creativity even if it can occasionally be a good practice exercise.

Copying illustrates something, it isn't fine art, there's a big difference.

There's nothing wrong with illustration as long as you know that's what it is and what you want and don't confuse the 2.

Ok, that's a good point...often times the finished product is not exactly what I imagined or intended, even though I may very much like it. Still, this will eventually be overcome once a greater level of skill is reached (I think). And yes, copying is certainly not fine art...but copying will develop hand eye coordination just as fast and perhaps faster than drawing from life so that you CAN move on to fine art faster...I feel pretty confident drawing from life and I always add a lot of my own personal impression to things and I trained by copying because good subjects are more readibly available that way..

we'll have to agree to disagree! I think it will help hand eye coordination to a degree - but you'll still be at sea when you try to take 3D objects into 2D as it doesn't prepare you for that, dealing with real perspective and shadows etc.

Great job!My favorite is the baby in the second post

Hey There,

You might consider tossing out your photographs and signing up for a life drawing class at your local college. You have a good sense of line and value, but you are not training your eye to see in its fullest capacity. Work from life only until you master the craft of drawing. Then if you wish, go back to using photographs, but not until you can draw from life.

Good luck,

Tianka

What is the advantage of drawing from life?

why?

you see the shape of the skull, muscles etc. (or object)

understand the structure of a thing and how it occupies space.

You see how according to the light on it, parts of it melt into the background and some are clearly defined, the angles and planes

you see where the weight of a body or object is and where muscles are relaxed or tensed.

you aren't merely copying but observing and are creating something more original, small quirks of your own creep in, creating a livelier drawing with your own particular character to it - compare the work of Lucian Freud and Hockney or Leonardo and Durer - they are all observing from life and their results are very different.

link to website

this link is to the BBC website, the section on a new programme (started tonight), on drawing through history and it was interesting, They showed a lot of Leonardo's drawings of anatomy - a current cardiac surgeon had changed his way of doing a particular operation in response to looking at Leonardo's drawings of hearts and in particular the valves, which were in great detail.

Stubbs spent 18 months studying the anatomy of horses, hanging up carcasses and gradually stripping them down to the skeleton, making detailed drawings of each stage,

I'm not suggesting you do this!

but why did these artists think this was important? - they wanted to thoroughly understand the thing they were drawing. If you draw from a photograph you are looking very superficially and unless you have done a lot of drawing from life you won't have an understanding of the object/body/whatever to do anything but a shallow illustration.

Yes Degas used photographs - BUT he'd drawn a lot from life and had the underlying knowledge to take them forward into something creative.

It depends how seriously you want to improve. If you just want to have fun and not worry about learning much, then that's ok - but if you want to seriously get better then you have to work at it. Nothing comes easy.

why?

you see the shape of the skull, muscles etc. (or object)

understand the structure of a thing and how it occupies space.

You see how according to the light on it, parts of it melt into the background and some are clearly defined, the angles and planes

you see where the weight of a body or object is and where muscles are relaxed or tensed.

you aren't merely copying but observing and are creating something more original, small quirks of your own creep in, creating a livelier drawing with your own particular character to it - compare the work of Lucian Freud and Hockney or Leonardo and Durer - they are all observing from life and their results are very different.

link to website

this link is to the BBC website, the section on a new programme (started tonight), on drawing through history and it was interesting, They showed a lot of Leonardo's drawings of anatomy - a current cardiac surgeon had changed his way of doing a particular operation in response to looking at Leonardo's drawings of hearts and in particular the valves, which were in great detail.

Stubbs spent 18 months studying the anatomy of horses, hanging up carcasses and gradually stripping them down to the skeleton, making detailed drawings of each stage,

I'm not suggesting you do this!

but why did these artists think this was important? - they wanted to thoroughly understand the thing they were drawing. If you draw from a photograph you are looking very superficially and unless you have done a lot of drawing from life you won't have an understanding of the object/body/whatever to do anything but a shallow illustration.

Yes Degas used photographs - BUT he'd drawn a lot from life and had the underlying knowledge to take them forward into something creative.

It depends how seriously you want to improve. If you just want to have fun and not worry about learning much, then that's ok - but if you want to seriously get better then you have to work at it. Nothing comes easy.

incidentally - Audubon apparently thought it a poor day if he shot less than 100 birds - he worked from 'fresh' ones as the colours of some parts change within hours.

The faceless woman did something for me. Nice!

wow.....is so beautiful ..... can you make my picture ? I pay you