Help me learn to art
September 13, 2013 5:29 PM   Subscribe

I would like to start learning how to draw, after 16 years of stick figures. I am keeping a sketchbook to practice in frequently, but I was wondering if anyone had some good resources for jump-starting my artistic development (there are overwhelmingly many such resources on the Internet). I am also interested in general modern art, metal art, sculpting, lithography, and photography. Thanks in advance! ^_^
posted by myitkyina to Media & Arts (9 answers total) 49 users marked this as a favorite
 
Drawing On The Right Side of the Brain is the standard suggestion, I believe. I've used it and it's pretty remarkable, just haven't had the time to keep up with it myself.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 5:32 PM on September 13, 2013 [4 favorites]


Draw Squad is fun and practical.
posted by colin_l at 5:40 PM on September 13, 2013


I made great progress with Drawing With Children: A Creative Method for Adult Beginners, Too.
posted by Wordwoman at 7:09 PM on September 13, 2013


I really enjoy Danny Gregory's blog His books are great too. The Creative License, Everyday Matters, and An Illustrated Life are great books!
posted by sadtomato at 7:10 PM on September 13, 2013


Lately I've been following the Proko figure drawing series on YouTube, starting with How to Draw Gesture. Most of the teachings seem a combination of Loomis and Bridgeman, seen from the atelier schools. I really should be up on all this stuff by now, but feel like I missed out on a lot of the fundamentals in my training, and I'm always searching for the basics that escaped me. There's some goofiness to these videos, but most of it is fun, and the guy makes confident lines, so I like to watch him draw.
posted by TimTypeZed at 7:44 PM on September 13, 2013


i was recently trying to draw a fancy butterfly and mentioned to a friend how the two sides were looking uneven. she told me about this trick of drawing symmetrical images which is shown in this video.
posted by wildflower at 1:18 AM on September 14, 2013


Coming in to promote Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards (though I see that Ghostride The Whip beat me to it)...but would also like to +1 Edwards' other book, Drawing On the Artist Within. Both are quite remarkable.
posted by MeatheadBrokeMyChair at 4:12 AM on September 14, 2013


The New York Times did a series called Line by Line on learning the basics of drawing. Here's Parts 2 and 1 (blog order, oldest at the bottom.) Here's the rest, final part (12) at the top.

The series is not long on examples. But the internet is a vast repository of wonderful, big, clear examples of drawings, some by famous artists, some by artists you've never heard of before or ever will again but who still hit it out of the park at least once, because the proof is sitting in front of you. Google image search, Size = Large. Type = Any and Color limited to Black and White turns up shaded drawings better than Type = Line Drawing does, and the Black and White setting doesn't exclude drawings done in blue pencil or sepia ink or any of that, it's just googlespeak for "monochrome" or even "limited palette."

Tip from an addict: internet searches are just as much about not being overwhelmed by how much you found as they are about finding stuff. So MANY drawing tutorials! Which ones are worth putting in the time and effort it takes to follow them? Well, if you just followed an image search link that looked good to you and if, as quite often happens, the link dumps you into the middle of a tutorial about how that particular image was created, you've found one that you'll probably like.
posted by jfuller at 7:41 AM on September 14, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'm an artist, and I went to art school and everything, but Betty Edwards taught me to draw. He book did I mean.

People have said about Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain stuff like, "Well, it's good but it might not work for everybody." I'm highly skeptical of these people's reports of their experiences. I think if you're a marginally competent human being and you do what the book tells you to do, then you will be able to draw. It's not magic. There aren't some people who just can't draw. It's a learnable skill and this book teaches it.

So yeah. DOTRSOTB
posted by cmoj at 8:12 AM on September 14, 2013


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