Learning 2D Art - first steps?
polycounter lvl 13
Hi everyone,
I started a drawing class at a local college I attend. The problem is this class assumes that since your major is Fine Arts, you already possess a drawing ability which isn't true in my case. We started with line drawing of still life which is kinda a pretty huge jump for 2d noobs like me. I still have trouble drawing a straight line and the technique in general like holding a pencil, making curves, etc. (getting a hang of it but slowly)
I would think that for a foundation drawing class we would start with cubes and circles before jumping in to drawing objects from life. Hell, I'm not even talking about the required knowledge of perspective so that the objects don't look flat as if run over by a bulldozer.
My question is, what do you guys think is the very first step(s) a starting draftsman should take? In other words, what foundational skills should a beginner start to acquire? Would also love to hear how you began your 2d journey and the essential steps you took that you think helped you immensely in making you the artist you are today.
I started a drawing class at a local college I attend. The problem is this class assumes that since your major is Fine Arts, you already possess a drawing ability which isn't true in my case. We started with line drawing of still life which is kinda a pretty huge jump for 2d noobs like me. I still have trouble drawing a straight line and the technique in general like holding a pencil, making curves, etc. (getting a hang of it but slowly)
I would think that for a foundation drawing class we would start with cubes and circles before jumping in to drawing objects from life. Hell, I'm not even talking about the required knowledge of perspective so that the objects don't look flat as if run over by a bulldozer.
My question is, what do you guys think is the very first step(s) a starting draftsman should take? In other words, what foundational skills should a beginner start to acquire? Would also love to hear how you began your 2d journey and the essential steps you took that you think helped you immensely in making you the artist you are today.
Replies
Here's a digital still life study I did a little while ago showing how I roughed in the shape.
I started drawing when i was young and terrible and kept drawing and being terrible. And you can to.
The thing about drawing straight lines is that you don't do it all in one go. That would lead to slightly curved lines due to the arcs of motion that your shoulder, elbow, and wrist impart on your stroke. You need to first visualize where you will place your line start to finish, then make light small short strokes (maybe as small as 1 cm or less), slightly overlapping end to end, correcting direction as you go along. Eventually your lines get straighter and you get faster at it.
There was a thread just the other day about this here.
In it I linked to a book that I picked up for a beginning drawing class:
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-What-Practical-Books/dp/0823023753/"]How to Draw What You See[/ame] - Rudy De Reyna. This one kind of sucks for figure drawing instruction, but it does do a ok job of showing the real basics of learning to draw with traditional media.
You should also take a look a this one for perspective basics:
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Perspective-Made-Easy-Ernest-Norling/dp/9563100166/"]Perspective Made Easy[/ame] - Ernest R. Norling
Where did you get that idea? That's pretty universally regarded as bad form afaik -- it makes awkward, scratchy, stilted lines. No gesture, no life, no control.
The 1cm length I mentioned earlier has more to do with the paper size, I'm thinking 9x12 inch paper. On a larger sheet with something like a compressed charcoal stick you could make longer marks. Sort of like making a light dotted line. Once you are confident that it's straight you can go back over and darken it.
If you need a straight line use a ruler ;o). Basically in life drawing youre never going to need a straight line, sort of straight for a table top or whatever is generally just fine especially when you're beginning. Line quality however is something you want to focus on. Stay away from small choppy lines, what you want are nice flowing lines. Draw from your shoulder. Confident strokes!
Generally the first few days of classes is something along these lines. Learning about reflected light, core shadows, cast shadows, drawing a cube etc... It's usually pretty boring to be honest, but useful for a beginner. Usually they dont go over perspective to much in the intro classes, it's more to get used to the medium and basics. I'm sure as you progress they'll get into it.
It's a building block more than anything. Don't expect to master life drawing after this class, just get a feel for using charcoal, and an understanding of enveloping your subject to get things proportional.
I was lucky and had an some really good teachers for my foundations drawing classes...
One in particular was huge influence on me. He was always around to help and really knew how to teach. He is very very hard working....couple of videos he has on youtube...
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This vid is a beast to teach you the techniques behind straight lines and curves: [ame="
Keep in mind that it takes a ridiculous amount of practice. Ridiculous. Even after drawing for a year every day I still will sometimes put down a line that makes me think I can't be trusted to feed a baby. So yeah, there's your technique in that vid.
I found that a big help to both practice perspective and just practice drawing inorganic objects is to follow along with these books:
Basic sketching techniques for the industrial designer
Design sketching
Sketching drawing techniques for product designers
They all start basic and you can just kinda try to draw the stuff that is drawn in there.. It helped me. I guess you'll need to learn perspective first but you can do it.
So my advice:
learn perspective
keep drawing from life
follow along with tons of books
Good luck dude!
I started by drawing on sketchbooks. Real skechbooks, not digital. Made copies of photos (athletes in motion, foreshortened angles, art I find interesting). I took night classes in drawing, painting, sculpture while working as an animator by day. Attended life drawing sessions at a local artis co-op.
My suggestion for you in your class is to just "let it flow" and not be too critical of yourself. Your drawing will be wonky for some time until you draw enough to level up.
I never bothered to draw lines or curves without rulers or french curves. If you're into industrial design style of sketching, yeah I can see how this would matter a lot. But outside of that and if you'll eventually go digital where some softwares already include auto smoothing of lines or perspective line snapping, it won't be as useful (in my opinion).
I'm not one of those "drawing since I was a baby", but here's a snapshot of my journey so far:
Sketchbook samples, analog & digital
After 10 years of night school art classes and figure drawing
14 years
Currently cashing in on all that time learning
@equil Great point. I guess the reason I chose to go to school to study traditional artistry is to become a well-rounded artist, that is to develop a better artistic eye, have a greater sense of proportion, try out different things, and learn the foundations (composition, color theory, shadows, etc.) Obviously, the end goal is to become a 3D character artist but since fine arts is such a visual subject, I really think it is going to broaden my overall knowledge of it and benefit me in the long run.
@Ben Apuna Thanks for the book recommendation. I'll definitely check the first one out. I already had a look at perspective books on Amazon just a few weeks ago and added some that seemed interesting to my wish list including the one you linked to. As for the line technique I can totally see the benefit of doing so. Lines that are done in one go tend to be wavy so a more careful approach (the one you described) seems more controllable. I usually go with H3 to make light strokes and then go over them with HB once I'm sure everything is where it needs to be.
@Joseph Silverman Well said on just getting in and having fun. Making art shouldn't be a drag all the time, although it does happen to newbies quite often I noticed. I need more practice but the problem is I allocate time to sculpting when at home because if I don't do that I can get pretty rusty at it. Guess this is natural when trying to tackle 2 mediums at the same time..
@Lombos Danke for the advice. Good pointers all around! Also, that teacher of yours is some seriously good draftsman and that's an understatement! I'd also consider myself super lucky if mine were that good. Beautiful work.
@xk0be I've been a subscriber of fzdschool for almost a year, can't believe I missed this episode. What an eye opener! Thanks for posting. In terms of books, I've been looking into getting "Sketching: The Basics" for quite a while now but I heard it is not really for the beginners. Although I do see the benefit in following along with such books.
@MagicSugar That's the thing mate. I am a perfectionist and the biggest critic of myself which isn't a good thing. Realizing that people don't become good overnight, I can't help it but be extremely harsh on myself. Everything takes time but that is not what my brain tells me. But as you said, I'll just have to "let it flow" naturally. Cool drawings btw!
Thank you for the input everyone! Really really appreciate all the advice given. I can always count on PC
Drawing is very, very fast! Try and motivate yourself to fit the time in. 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there is 2 decent drawings!
you sort of have layers when working with real media
with pencil/charcoal you can use fixative spray to preserve finished parts of work (also if you make a charcoal drawing for painting later, it's a must.);
but you have to start really accurate - light indicative strokes to establish basic proportions, lots of measuring on the early stages, and slow down in the earlier stages
with gouache/tempera, you have a basic version of oils, and with later, you can paint over and over your layers during sessions (just don't abuse it much, overblended oil looks like a traditional counterpart of smudged photos in PS, and I'm telling that from my own painting experience lol)
traditional media forces you to plan better, and better control your strokes - it helps immensely later with painting digitally imo
another option is use a light-table and semi-translucent paper (I don't remember how it's called in English, but 2D animators use it a lot), so you can trace your sketches over and over until they're pefect;
there's another trick I've picked up from one of Russian illustrators - when painting in gouache, get your sketch done first and than make a photo-copy of it to paint on,
so if you screw something up, you can roll back to another copy and start fresh
It's all about finding your own way of learning, like in bodybuilding- you can use someone else's train program, but you cant rely on it all the time, in case you want to grow faster.
I know you can speak russian, so i advice this book as a starting point. Also try to find some Bridgeman and Loomis books.