A question for those who draw/paint

cardinalfire

I've been drawing for about six months now and I have started to use 'value' (chiaroscuro - light/dark) to create realistic three dimensional drawings. I realised lately that when I look at peoples faces I can begin to see how they will look on the page in terms of shadows and how I would put it on the page. Does this make sense? Do any of you experience the same thing?

For example I could be watching a film or looking at a person and imagine a sheet of white paper beside them and I can see how I would 'copy' it from life to the page. I never used to be able to see this, do any of you artists have the same skill?

supermarionbros

Oh art history, where I just learned about chiaroscuro this year... My art teacher sucks at teaching art history. =/

Anyways, I know what you mean. Sometimes, when I see what I'm drawing, I imagine how it's going to look like on a piece of white paper. But usually, whenever I do... I end up adding my own shading to random places on what I'm drawing anyways, as if there's a random light source... which is a bad thing, since I'm supposed to shade in what I see and not what I think I see.

cardinalfire

Yeah that's spot on. I'm glad someone else gets this, and it isn't just me, sometimes I post stuff and wonder if I am the only one that gets what I am saying. I don't like to explain myself, I just often assume that people naturally get me.

Do you do art yourself? or you just doing because school says so? What kind of things do you do that practices this technique? I got it from an art book by William Maughan, which I am still reading.

supermarionbros

Yeah, I'm like that too. D: After someone doesn't get it, I give up and say, "nevermind."

Actually, I'm currently in high school, and I major in Visual Arts, so for each year in high school, I take up 2 art courses. So, I do art--and definitely like it too, not because of school though. Some of my classmates only major in Visual Arts because they just want to go to the school and not pursue anything in it in the future. =/

However, since I'm extremely lazy [P = Procrastination], I don't create a lot of art, and if I do, it's either mostly on the computer or for a school project. And as for chiarscuro... actually, I haven't thought about my technique[s] up until now. But for me to do the shading, if I'm drawing from what I see, then I immediately end up finding the dark spots and see where it eventually blends it, and from there, I just basically keep building up layer after layer.

cardinalfire

Do you hold your pencil like a paintbrush? This william guy recommends it, and I have just started doing drawings in that style, I like it feels more fluid, and is... interesting to say the least.

supermarionbros

I do, or at least I'm pretty sure I do... because I usually don't think about the way I hold a pencil or paintbrush, until you mentioned it. I think that if you're able to hold a pencil a certain way, then you should hold it the same way for a paintbrush too, since you'll have more control over what you paint anyways.

windex

I think you are starting to "see" as the artist's would say. Do you pay attention when you go out in the world? How shadow hits objects? Do you look at negative space? Do you look at the contour in wood? Chiarascorro(sp) amazes me. I just saw a neat picture with light coming in from a window. Oh, do you ever do this? Draw when you are thinking or looking at someone's face. Do you ever imagine yourself drawing? I used to see shadow on people's face but never got to the shadows on the pages part you talk about. Sounds great.

snail

Yes. I do this constantly, and have since I was a small child.

assbiscuits

That doesn't happen to me

But I do notice a lot more, like someone's eye colour, which a lot of people don't know for some reason, they even claim they don't know their own eye colour. Pfft, yeah...
And when you actually draw, and this goes for everyone, you notice plenty. You see plenty, you learn to look at things different ways and really explore their every aspect. You start to see ugly things have pretty things just by studying it so much. Drawing is a great way for studying things.

cardinalfire

I do notice a lot, from the fact that someone has had a haircut to the way that my arms could look on paper in mono not colours (yet!!). Sometimes when I look at someone's face I imagine what I would do to put it on a page, though rarely do I look at someone and HAVE TO ABSOLUTELY DRAW THEM if you get what I mean.

I do notice negative space, I didn't before. There are some trees on a hill near where I live and when I walk past them I look at them and see them as if they are paper bits stuck on a blue sheet, a bit like what I used to do way back as a kid in school.

I know what a contour is, though why specifically wood? Is that supposed to be hard?

YAY! I'm so glad i'm not the only one, otherwise I would of been crazy. Which I only do at weekends.

This really made me laugh, I can imagine you saying it in that kind of 'yeah whatever' way. As the woman says to Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura, you make me smile or as Stewie says to Brian 'you're funny'.