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Ask HN: How do I learn drawing?

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Re: Ask HN: How do I learn drawing?

#121

Post by thraxil »

frainfreeze wrote: post #50

Your hand-brain connection will need some debugging, but just like with engineering, exposure and practice makes you better: 1. draw, the more the better. 2. practice fundamentals. 3. have fun. Some resources worth checking out: - Lessons on drawabox.com for basics - Digital painting lessons on ctrlpaint.com - How to draw by S. Robertson and T. Bertling - Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter - Art & Fear:…

Strongly seconding Robertson and Bertling's "How to Draw". Continue on to their "How to Render" after that. They break it down into a very mechanical process that doesn't feel very "creative" but makes for a great foundation for architectural or engineering drawing and doing any kind of constructive 3-dimensional drawing.

Re: Ask HN: How do I learn drawing?

#122

Post by chevill »

roberthahn wrote: post #46

To learn to draw, you first need to learn to see. So copy things. Try this project: Take a sheet of paper and divide the space into 2 equal halves. In one half make a collage of black and white images. No color - this is important. Try to fill the space if you can. Once done, get a pencil, eraser and ruler. Your job is to copy the collage into the other half as accurately as possible. To do this, measure where every…

>This one project literally took my art mark from a failing grade to 85%

Was this a university course? Unless you're a fine arts major I can't imagine any teacher being such an asshole that they grade an art class based on artistic ability. Usually its just a matter of participation and putting effort into the assignments.

Re: Ask HN: How do I learn drawing?

#125

Post by zeruch »

You might want to start with something "comfortable" , which may not be a digital tool. If you learn well kinesthetically, pencil and paper might be a great start that then becomes easier to translate into a raster or vector based tool.

Or if you feel otherwise, really, its more about understanding some basic fundamentals about spatial relationships, telling stories with visuals, etc. look for content around that rather than tool-specific guidance. Those skills can be abstracted to any tool (much like drum rudiments can be adapted to any configuration of drum kit you could play).

Re: Ask HN: How do I learn drawing?

#126

Post by markus_zhang »

A side question, sorry for invading the topic:

How do I go from knowing nothing about drawing, to being able to draw pixel arts (I'm mostly thinking about tiles, textures and characters for retro RPG, e.g. Ultima series, Golden box games)?

Re: Ask HN: How do I learn drawing?

#127

Post by xtiansimon »

xtiansimon wrote: post #114

> "...career as an engineer. I want to be able to illustrate my ideas when writing blog posts and documentation." > "... drawing complex real life objects using vector graphics..." These two statements suggest to me you're aims are diverse. It would be difficult to help you to _start_ the process of "learn to draw" from these opposite aims. Yes, opposite. "Drawing from life" and wireframes for a webpage or ERD diagra…

Here’s an example for you of another person who “can’t draw”. Enjoy.

https://www.core77.com/posts/105842/Guy-Who-Cant-Draw-is-Act...

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