Drawing Rant

A detailed and realistic drawing cannot be achieved without patience. You have to pay attention to details, look at proportion, shape, and lights and darks. It takes a long time, and I often find myself running out of time finishing a project that has a deadline.

Proportion always throws me off. Doing a figure, you have to analyze the size of the head in relation to the central body and the limbs. Particularly within the face, you must be careful with eyes, nose, and mouth. I still feel I am only amateur at drawing lips; they always look too small, too large, or too close to the nose.

I used to think shape was often the hardest part, but I see now that I often made it more difficult than it really is. Shape may be the simplest part. My art teacher always tells us to draw shapes, not things. If we are trying to draw a hand, we aren't supposed to think of it as a hand, but just simple shapes put together. The beginning sketch of a composition should usually be basic shapes, before you go back and correct angles and curves.

Shading seems to make many of my classmates groan. I did once, and some days I still don't like to shade, but I know that if I want my piece to look good, I have to have a keen eye for what I'm drawing, and take time with shading. Whenever I finish drawing something in detail, I always look at the subject in a different way. I drew my best friend's face once, and now I see all the curvature of the jaw line, the unique shape of the eye, and where scattered freckles may be. Typing it on the computer, it suddenly sounds creepy, but honestly, it isn't.

Then there's loose, expressive drawing. Some people think that art is purely for aesthetic purposes. Although art and drawings typically look good, and pleasing to the eye, they are often much more than that. The lines themselves are expressive, and have a purposeful- many times emotional- theme. Moving the pencil wherever the hand takes it, sometimes not even thinking about it, puts meaning into the piece the artist never planned.

I want to plan a spontaneous painting hour for myself, where I have my canvas and supplies all set up, and just paint for an hour with music going, and no intention of what I am painting.

Realistic drawings should take time, but art doesn't necessarily have to look pretty to everyone who sees it; art is expressing feelings or themes. Not all feelings in the world are pretty.