Artist Technician
 

I had this conversation with my son-in-law. It came up in the Beautiful women thread and I think a discussion would be informative.

Crowbob said: "My problem with drawing is that I can’t seem to break away from what my eyes see and put down what my mind sees."

I have the same problem. I replied: "For me that is the hardest part of trying to create visual art. I see a house. I know it has 90 angles at every corner, but of course because of perspective I don’t SEE 90 degree angles. It’s very hard to shift my experience of the house away from what know to what is actually see."


Javadog doesn't have any problem with it:
I'd like to know the secret. When I see an object, like a ball, I know it is round. If I try to draw it in 2D I draw a circle, which doesn't look anything like a ball. I really have to work at figuring out what I actually see that makes it look round in 3D.
Everything I try to create in visual arts comes out looking like stick figures.

Another thing about creating art is knowing when you captured the image you want to convey. I never know when to quit. I know it is because my history is steeped in technical work, where if you haven't torqued that bold to exactly 84 lbft your engine may self-destruct, but an artist can get away with sketching a few lines and the viewer's mind sees it as a face. If I'm trying to draw something I never know when I've put down enough information to convey the experience of the image and when I'm wasting time adding line that just muddy it up.
When I'm trying to create art I'm a guy from a thoroughly objective world trying to break out into the world of subjectivity, and I'm not good at it.

I have always sucked at art , drawing, picking colors etc

But I can think and vizualize in x/y/z dimensions ok, and I can do basic 3d modeling and map building in a few different game engines with OK results - much easier being able to use a tool to draw a shape, move it around, slap a texture on it and fiddle with lighting

Funny that I see this post. I am pretty good at drawing and see in 3D as well. In fact, I found that taking a sketch book when traveling and sketch what I see is a lot more memorable than taking the photo. When I look at the sketch, I created I remember being there.

As for creating a 3-dimensional looking image on paper, one of my art professors told me during a class when we had a live model that helped me a lot. He said don't paint, just help the form.

zK

There are a lot of really good tutorials on YouTube on freehand sketching for beginners. Several on sketching cars and one I found specifically on the 911. Whether it's sketching a person, a dog or a car, it seems to all start the same: knowing where to draw some baselines so the proportions are right.

On a somewhat related note, I've been helping some neighbors clear out a hoarder house down the road the past several days. The guy went into assisted-living and was a renowned artist. His thing was mixed-media collage. There're probably 100+ pieces of his artwork matted and framed in the house. It's stunningly impressive art. Relatives said they didn't want anything and just throw it all in the dumpster :mad: We found an art gallery owner to come out and take a look and he said many of the pieces are valued at $1500+ (he's taking it all and selling it on consignment, thank God). The artist mind works in a different way for sure! Photos don't come close to doing it justice.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1731324265.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1731324265.jpg

This is why I'm better at creating sound than pictures. Although sometimes those sounds aren't easily recognizable as music.

After over 55 years of trying, you could say the same thing about me!:D

Best
Les

Some people just have artistic talents naturally. My uncle had a natural ability to draw. He was in his 20s when I was 8 or so. He had me spell bound as he took a comic book I had and he drew more of the cartoon and put me in the cartoon. I thought it was the most amazing thing ever.

I can draw a stick figure, and like Flatbutt I can make sounds that are not very musical. I can play a CD player and my car stereo, but that is my extent of music artery.

Your ball probably lacks shading and highlights. Lots of basic tutorials on the internet. Books in libraries, too.

Those with talent can convey imagery with the barest of lines.

The basics:

https://finearttutorials.com/guide/perspective-art/

https://finearttutorials.com/guide/shading-techniques/

Thousands more out there.

Another technique is if you are looking for a different view or feel you have hit an obstacle in your ability to finish an art project, hold it up to a mirror to achieve a different perspective. Sometimes this is all you need to get moving in a new direction.

I remember the first year of collage in one of my art classes there was a girl who was not very good at art (keep in mind this was design school, we just took a lot of the same classes as the fine art students). By the end of the year, she improved the most of anybody. It was really impressive.

I think there is talent, but practice and learning helps a lot.

Case in point:
No one seems to know what this wood burning piece is until I tell them. I don't know if there is too much information or not enough, or what ...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1731347609.jpg

Looks like a wire haired terrier to me.
Great image.
I can see it, I can't produce stuff like that.

Best
Les

I see the up-close face of a dog. Nice work...

It looks like laser etched ply of a close up dog.
What breed is it? Looks poodle-ish

I’ll be darned. When people see it in person they have no idea. That’s our Schnauzer Owen. You guys are amazing.

Sketch of liquid droplets. Not mine. How to turn a circle into something more lifelike.

Easy, if you know a few rules.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1731470652.jpg

Count me in the ‘technician’ camp as well. There’s a definite artistic lineage on my father’s side. Great grandfather was a sign painter. My grandfather was also a sign painter by trade but, carved ivory, wood, painted in oils and pastels.

My father is artistic but, when he draws from imagination, it’s in true cartoon form, not in a juvenile artistic sense. He is also very technically adept in reproduction.

I’ve a strong artistic background. I’ve dabbled in many, many mediums including paints, wood, leather, metal, clay, print etc but, it’s all on the technical side. When I try to draw from the mind, it’s very hard, my results are not even as good as the cartooning aspect my father has. It’s a block and no amount of learning and practice over 50 some years has overcome it. Yet, I can reproduce images technically. Some of my pencil and pen/ink work is almost photographic but, it takes me a long time to do.

It took quite some effort to allow myself to let go in my paintings to break from the precise into impression. I’m a control freak by nature. Still, I need to work from photographs. I’ve always felt it was ‘cheating’ in some way though my wife disagrees.

My oldest daughter inherited the abilities but, doesn’t have the block that I have! The girl has amazed me from her earliest drawings. She always had a small sketch book with her, her ideas just free form flow out of her onto the paper. I simultaneously experience awe, pride and jealousy when I look at her work, lol.

My youngest daughter is a bit more like me. Drawing was always a struggle with her. Where art and all of its varied mediums is like a flame to my moth-like oldest, “art” doesn’t pull at my youngest in the same way except,,,,

Her talent is in the tactile. She sculpts and throws clay which doesn’t surprise me because as a young one she couldn’t just look at a thing, she had to touch it which I now know was part of her way of seeing it.

Highly recommend this book if you can find it.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1731524794.jpg

Always liked Leroy Nieman and wanted to try water color with less detail…like this:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1731530109.jpg

Took a water color class and tried my hand at it…can’t seem to escape the details:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1731530213.jpg

A real artist (like Nieman) doesn’t just copy a picture…sees it in his head and puts it on paper. A skill I wish I possessed.

The dog picture is very cool.