Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 136 posts

Re: Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

#121

Post by senectus1 »

commieneko wrote: post #58

Commercial artist for 45 years. Also a developer, FWIW, mostly graphics programming since the late 1970s. _Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain_ is actually one of the best places to start. I know you said you tried it. But try it this way: Ignore all the theory and the stories the author tells. It’s mostly nonsense. But the exercises are actually very good. The trick is to not care about the result and about makin…

This^

Be ready to and accepting of failure. lots and lots of failure. Trying and failing is the fastest and surest way to learn. Once you let yourself fail lots then the cost of failure drops significantly and the ROI increases sharply.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

#122

Post by odessacubbage »

honestly? just start drawing from life every single day. then do some referenced imaginative drawing, e.g; redraw the subject of your life drawings from a few different angles/with different simple lighting setups from your head, try to replicate the rendering style of an artist or painting that you like. supplement this study with ONE anatomy resource and ONE perspective resource and maybe one dynamic drawing resource [scott robertson's how to draw, peter han drawing courses] if you are going to invest money into anything, maybe buy a nice plaster cast, an ecorche figure and a simple lighting setup. try to find figure drawing sessions in your area that you can attend. as you become comfortable with drawing simple indoor subjects, start doing some plein air studies as well.

imo pretty much all the anatomy and perspective books are more or less equal, they are all using different methods to get to the same place, so just look at some pictures and choose the style that makes the most sense to you. personally i like zarins and was very impressed by scott eaton's courses. the most important thing is to simply draw as much as possible even if your output is utter garbage [and no matter how devastating producing garbage is to your ego], no book and no amount of money can do that part for you. similar to language acquisition, the most effective way to build drawing skills in a short amount of time is through pure immersion; turning drawing, like speaking into a natural extension of your everyday life. find ways to incorporate your life into drawing and you will get good.

with that said, these are the resources that helped me out the most in the beginning, plus a few that i wish i had read much earlier

http://www.huevaluechroma.com

https://imgur.com/gallery/Wia19

Alla Prima: Everything I Know about Painting by Richard Schmid

Graphic LA by Robh Ruppel

How to See Color and Paint It by Arthur Stern

Rendering in pen and ink by Arthur Leighton Guptill

https://www.heavypaint.com

Re: Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

#123

Post by odessacubbage »

jstanley wrote: post #60
commieneko wrote: post #58

Commercial artist for 45 years. Also a developer, FWIW, mostly graphics programming since the late 1970s. _Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain_ is actually one of the best places to start. I know you said you tried it. But try it this way: Ignore all the theory and the stories the author tells. It’s mostly nonsense. But the exercises are actually very good. The trick is to not care about the result and about makin…

> I’m in my 60s and have been drawing seriously since my early teens. > I’m just getting started. I think this is intended to be encouraging, but to me it has the opposite effect. If it's going to take me 45 years to just get started, then I won't waste my time on it, I'll do something else instead. Is it possible that you're not just getting started, but you are still learning things, albeit at a much slower rate th…

you can get decent at drawing in 1-2 years, getting good will take a lifetime. the issue is that as you are learning to draw, you are also learning to see. your operable definition of good will be continuously changing, but the fruits of your labour probably would've been very impressive to the 'you' of 2 years ago.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

#124

Post by maroonblazer »

karaterobot wrote: post #41
rg111 wrote: post #30

Draw a Box [0] comes highly recommended. All lessons are free and are taught from scratch. Everything from absolute basics is thoroughly explained and demonstrated. Paid courses by Proko [1] are also said to be of very high quality. I have never bought one, though. I would also suggest that you look into digital art. Sketching/painting/drawing paraphernalia is expensive with time-consuming upkeep and hard to carry if…

As someone who "can draw" by most people's standards, but who never had a formal art education, I benefited a lot from Draw a Box. I liked that it focused so much on the actual, literal mechanics of drawing a good line with your body, which is not something I had ever focused on. I think it builds sort of slowly, and you need commitment to get through to the part where you're drawing "the rest of the owl" so to speak…

Another upvote for Drawabox. Some other commenters here have said things like "Anyone can do decent mark making" and "It's more about seeing than drawing".

Drawabox proved to me that it's a LOT to do with mark making. The difference between a line drawn straight, with confidence, and one that is wobbly and not confident, is huge. It makes a big difference as to the quality of the overall drawing. Just a page of boxes drawn in 3D space, with each line drawn confidently and straight, can look impressive.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

#125

Post by SmileyJames »

Best way to improve at drawing is to go to a life drawing class.

Most cities have them on on the evening. Community centers, universities, art colleges. Most very affordable to attend. And it's not as awkward as you'd expect.

You'll need to take: Lots of BIG (A3 at least) sheets paper Low density drawing charcoal And or 4B pencil Putty rubber Some way of clipping or sticking paper to a board (probably provided)

Re: Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

#128

Post by jodrellblank »

autotune wrote: post #98
jodrellblank wrote: post #86

Possible red flags: - " One day, eventually, if all the stars align, I want to maybe be able to X " pattern. Yes it's good to have goals, and socially approved of to be humble; a risk with this is that people who are compelled to do X are already doing it right now, badly, because they enjoy doing it . You could have drawn many people in the time it took you to write that post, and then said "draw better action scene…

I mean, I agree with all your points, but red flags for what? I want to learn how to draw and am willing to invest resources to do it. Currently going through the free drawabox.com lessons and that seems to have all the exercises and videos I need to get going.

nothing terribly concrete and specific; red flags that the author (you) might be approaching it out of a panicky midlife crisis desire to achieve something, anything, to fill a hole in their soul or a desire that people would respect them more if they had more skills and achievements. X is something therefore achieve X as a checklist item to attain, even if without any particular interest in X. That the author might want to reflect on why they're looking for the best course instead of putting pencil to paper or being halfway through any course already.

The distinction between "I want to learn the basics of conversational Spanish for my holiday this summer" compared to "if I could learn another language people would like me, Spanish is supposed to be easy".

The distinction between "I want to learn to fly a helicopter and need a course which won't kill me" and "I want to learn to cook, I have a kitchen and spare food and money, and it's been years and hopefully what I need is out there somewhere I can watch or research instead of in a messy pile of ingredients in the kitchen right here".

> "Currently going through the free drawabox.com lessons and that seems to have all the exercises and videos I need to get going."

That is good. Nowhere do I mean to say "don't do it"; only to reflect that from the outside your description feels like you aren't really interested, not to tell you that you aren't or shouldn't be interested. Good luck! :)

Re: Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

#129

Post by aklemm »

brimble wrote: post #79
commieneko wrote: post #58

Commercial artist for 45 years. Also a developer, FWIW, mostly graphics programming since the late 1970s. _Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain_ is actually one of the best places to start. I know you said you tried it. But try it this way: Ignore all the theory and the stories the author tells. It’s mostly nonsense. But the exercises are actually very good. The trick is to not care about the result and about makin…

> You think you can see things, but what you are really doing is recognizing things. Any normal adult has the motor skills to make a controlled mark. I have reasonably nimble fingers and at least average overall motor control, and really cannot do this. I got pretty good at drawing a handful of things as a kid by just repeating the same pattern every time, but even on those my lines were just awful. I'm sure I could…

This is EXACTLY my experience. I took an adult learning class at a community art center and it almost literally opened my eyes. On day one, we were to draw an egg and mine looked awful. The instructor said I draw like a child, which really stung but it was true and he was being literal, not cruel.

I was stuck there my whole life, but this class taught me to stop using lines and “sketch light” (shading instead of line drawings) and use the whole arm with elbow up off the table for those circles and lines.

Draw a Box will help you, and pay a mentor if needed too.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone here have good material for learning how to sketch from scratch?

#130

Post by muzani »

commieneko wrote: post #77
jstanley wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m in my 60s and have been drawing seriously since my early teens. > I’m just getting started. I think this is intended to be encouraging, but to me it has the opposite effect. If it's going to take me 45 years to just get started, then I won't waste my time on it, I'll do something else instead. Is it possible that you're not just getting started, but you are still learning things, albeit at a much slower rate th…

“From the age of 6 I had a mania for drawing the shapes of things. When I was 50 I had published a universe of designs. But all I have done before the the age of 70 is not worth bothering with. At 75 I'll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am 80 you will see real progress. At 90 I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itsel…

I love people with that level of mastery. It's sad that so many choose to retire. Those who dive deep into their craft seem to reach such incredible levels of skill.
Post reply on HN