A learning question

[cute]

Hey lads,

I am considering booking art lessons (fundamentals and such) to get a foothold on how to get started and techniques.

However, i have never really been good at art because i rarely committed to drawing something/anything.

I send forth this question to be answered, 'How hard is it to learn how to draw?'
(Take away time, patience and anything similar, i understand you get better as you practice and take your time, but im wondering in regards to base knowledge and applying it).

Thanks people!

[Template88]

Learning to draw well is difficult. It requires a lot of time devoted to practice as well, dont disregard the time portion, its very important.

[Kanade-Chizuru]

At 3/17/16 10:58 AM, cute wrote: Hey lads,

I am considering booking art lessons (fundamentals and such) to get a foothold on how to get started and techniques.

However, i have never really been good at art because i rarely committed to drawing something/anything.

I send forth this question to be answered, 'How hard is it to learn how to draw?'
(Take away time, patience and anything similar, i understand you get better as you practice and take your time, but im wondering in regards to base knowledge and applying it).

Thanks people!

Hi!

I will give an analogy to "learning how to draw" so that you have a good grasp of how you can do it. Take note that this is how I see the learning process. Other people might have a different perspective :)

Learning how to draw is just like schooling. When you go to school, you start at Kindergarten, then move up towards Elementary/Grade school, then Middle School, and Junior High School as well as Senior High, and finally to College.

Going through the education system in that manner builds you up (literally), so that when you grow older, you will be equipped with the needed knowledge, literacy and maturity to tackle the real world. At least that is what your gov't thinks so XD

Learning to draw almost works in the same manner.
- Kindergarten would represent the Fundamentals of drawing (Basic Techniques, Values/Color Theory, Line/Contour, Light/Shadow).
- Grade school covers the next set of Fundamental Skills (i.e. Figure Drawing & Anatomy, Composition, Perspective).
- Middle school is a continuation of your previous fundamentals.
- In High School, you'll probably start learning (and mastering) drawing using other mediums, as well as learning more advanced topics such as dynamic figures, life-like rendering of clothing & drapery, drawing animals, architectural rendering, and the like.
- Finally, when you go to College, that is where you start drawing in a highly specialized field of art. Whether or not you want to be good at Caricatures, Comics, Anime/Manga, Horror or any style of art, this is the phase of your drawing progress to learn it best, when you have all the fundamentals under your pocket. And yeah, you can't be a great Anime/Manga-style artist if you don't know realistic Human Anatomy as a fundamental skill. It's like doing Calculus when you haven't even learned basic Algebraic concepts. Because Anime/Manga, like Calculus, is already an exaggerated form of its base material, it will make your life all the more difficult. Fundamentals is key!

Learning how to draw, of course, does NOT take that much time as going through your entire schooling life, but it works nearly the same way. If your schooling would take around 16+ years in total, learning to draw won't take as much as that. Probably 6 years, or 3 years if you're a fast learner, or around a decade, if you're like me who is slow-paced. Unlike school, there are no Math subjects in drawing. Just your passion, dedication and motivation will take you to where you want to be.

If drawing is something you do for reasons other than the love of it (i.e. to intentionally impress people, solely for money, to make yourself popular), then you will have a difficult time. If you intend to become a professional one day, you will not survive on your first day with those kinds of motives. Trust me.

Hope this helped!

[Cairos]

I think the hardest part of learning to draw is that the majority of it is mainly self analyzing and mostly focusing on your mistakes. You really do become your worst critic.

As an individual, your self-esteem will take constant hits as the mistakes you make become more and more apparent. Ironically this is seen as a positive way to develop your skill, it's just unfortunate that a lot of folks forget how to see the good stuff in their work. This is why it's advised to show other people your stuff, and what you should try and get from them are two things:

Stuff you should know (Critiques)
Stuff about you that you forgot (Compliments)

Feedback I think, is one of if not the most valuable thing for developing a drawing skill. It is quite difficult to try and get the type of responses that you're looking for - but if anything, it should be seen as a goal to get someone to react the way you want them to.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

It depends. There are many aspects of art, learning to visually analyze sources, how to make strokes, how to deal with color, how to use a drawing program or how to a particular media, learning to master shapes and proportion, learning to make intricate detail, composition, narrative, there's a lot. Some of this is very logical and natural, some of this is impossible to pick up without help.

A lot of art classes in school teach how to be creative rather than how to create, which is useful for life, but doesn't give you what you need to be an artist, especially not a professional artist. So even if you've been exposed to art, you probably haven't scraped the surface of what's really involved. If you take an art lesson, it's better to find one that's geared for a professional career, rather than namby pamby "use your right brain and feel good about yourself" introduction.

The main thing is that if you can learn the terminology of art, stuff like line weight, line of action, perspective, etc, there's a huge amount of information on the web that is often much better than what they teach in school. If you know what you're looking for, it's easy enough to find.

I'm a big fan of Stan Lee's How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdWsNp5KWdE It's an hour-long program, longer of course if you're following along. Don't worry if you don't want to actually make comics the Marvel Way, I don't either, most of what they teach is universal.

I just want to add, that a lot of people are under the impression that if you just practice, you can get better. I tried that for a long time, and never really improved. When I stopped drawing the same old things over and over again, and looked around for tutorials and lessons, I got a lot better. So if you try to draw by just practicing, it's going to be crazy hard. If can find decent advice, it goes a lot faster.

[JKSSN]

At 3/17/16 10:58 AM, cute wrote: However, i have never really been good at art because i rarely committed to drawing something/anything.

I send forth this question to be answered, 'How hard is it to learn how to draw?'
(Take away time, patience and anything similar, i understand you get better as you practice and take your time, but im wondering in regards to base knowledge and applying it).

A lot of what people already said above.
So, really, it's the easy part is to learn how to draw. Almost all the knowledge you need to learn how to draw is available and even for free in the internet. You can easily join art communities online if you cant find a local art groups. Even an abundance of online art courses with skype/livestream critics.

So, "'How hard is it to learn how to draw?"
Well depends on the answer on how you can actually start being committed to drawing.

[FuShark]

Learning anything is a self generated gauntlet. Know that anything you wish to dedicate your time to learn will have a difficulty set by you.

It will always be a challenge.