What happens when you ask people to draw a bike (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: What happens when you ask people to draw a bike (2016)

#151

Post by Dylan16807 » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 5:56 AM UTC

taneq wrote: post #141

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Completely untrained people can trace a drawing with a good degree of accuracy, yet fail completely to draw even simple forms with any degree of verisimilitude. I always felt this was an argument against what you are saying. Tracing doesn't require much fine motor control because you can rest your hand on the paper and go over the existing image with very small strokes. For example, try drawing the simplest of all…

> Tracing doesn't require much fine motor control because you can rest your hand on the paper and go over the existing image with very small strokes. Drawing requires exactly the same motor skills as tracing, except that the thing you're tracing isn't there yet .

Only if you can track your absolute position with exceptional accuracy.

I know a lot of artists that talk about the importance of learning how to better draw longer lines in one go. Are you saying they're all wrong, and that skill isn't important?

Re: What happens when you ask people to draw a bike (2016)

#152

Post by Dylan16807 » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 6:08 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #143

lucb1e wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that has more to do with being able to draw. As I argued in another comment here, I think sketching a bike has nothing to do with drawing skills. But sketching a face is not enough: the level of detail that goes into a face is much more sophisticated than a bike. On a bike you connect the lines right and you're good, but in a face... there is no logical, mechanical structure to it that you can easily replicat…

I don’t know if I agree with the distinction. Both require you to simplify the actual appearance down to something that will be recognizable. For a bicycle, that’s just a few circles and lines, but skilled artists can draw recognizable faces with the same simple elements.

If you're ten percent off with each bike line, it looks almost perfect. If you're ten percent off with each line while trying to draw a specific person, it won't even resemble them.

A caricature is one thing, and might be doable by an average person, but knowing how to do a caricature is a skill all by itself. A portrait is extremely art skill intensive.

Re: What happens when you ask people to draw a bike (2016)

#153

Post by Dylan16807 » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 6:20 AM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #147

>> Some diversities are gender driven. Nearly 90% of drawings in which the chain is attached to the front wheel (or both to the front and the rear) were made by females. It would be more interesting to know what percentage of drawings had the chain attached incorrectly, first- then how many of them were by female participants. If it was just a couple of drawings, there's not much "gender driven diversity" to speak of…

I'm curious about more numbers, too, but even if it's 1 vs. 7 I think it's worth noting.

Re: What happens when you ask people to draw a bike (2016)

#154

Post by torben-friis » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 7:04 AM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #71

mrob wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The mechanical skills of wielding a pencil or mixing paint are almost trivial I strongly disagree. Try drawing a large shape without using a template. If you move the pencil with your fingers, you quickly run out of range of motion, and have to reposition your hand and join the new line segment without visible discontinuity, which requires extreme accuracy[0]. If you move it mostly with your arm then you have to lea…

Completely untrained people can trace a drawing with a good degree of accuracy, yet fail completely to draw even simple forms with any degree of verisimilitude. Teachers like Betty Edwards and Bert Dodson have proven that pretty much anyone can learn to draw to a high standard in a remarkably short space of time once they understand the visual principles of effective drawing. Mastering draftsmanship requires a lifeti…

>Teachers like Betty Edwards and Bert Dodson have proven that pretty much anyone can learn to draw to a high standard in a remarkably short space of time once they understand the visual principles of effective drawing.

As someone with pretty much zero ability to draw, that caught my attention. What would be "a short space of time"? Are we talking days, months, years?

Re: What happens when you ask people to draw a bike (2016)

#155

Post by Doxin » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 7:30 AM UTC

blt wrote: post #130

jdietrich wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clench your fist. Take a moment to notice the complexity of the geometry. Consider how you might reduce that shape to simple geometric forms. Consider how you might represent the three-dimensional form as a set of two-dimensional lines. Turn your hand around and look at it from a different angle. Open your fist and make an "OK" or a "peace" sign. Go to your refrigerator and take out a lettuce leaf or a piece of brocc…

You conflate geometry and topology * . The topology of the human hand is right in front of you to examine. A lettuce leaf is like a disk plus a wavy boundary and noise. Broccoli is a tree. A bicycle is topologically complex object with high genus. A bad drawing of a hand can still has the right connectivity, it could be smoothly deformed into a realistic hand. Not true for most of these bicycle drawings. * using "top…

> it could be smoothly deformed into a realistic hand.

It's probably a good thing that this isn't what defines a drawing as good. A bicycle frame has a couple straight lines and that's about it. A hand, or broccoli, has complex compound curves all over the place.

Ask any artist to draw a bicycle and it'll probably end up pretty good. Ask any artist to draw a hand and there's a good chance it'll not end up good, even when using reference material.

There's a reason a lot of artists have problems drawing hands.

Re: What happens when you ask people to draw a bike (2016)

#156

Post by Doxin » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 7:35 AM UTC

torben-friis wrote: post #154

jdietrich wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely untrained people can trace a drawing with a good degree of accuracy, yet fail completely to draw even simple forms with any degree of verisimilitude. Teachers like Betty Edwards and Bert Dodson have proven that pretty much anyone can learn to draw to a high standard in a remarkably short space of time once they understand the visual principles of effective drawing. Mastering draftsmanship requires a lifeti…

>Teachers like Betty Edwards and Bert Dodson have proven that pretty much anyone can learn to draw to a high standard in a remarkably short space of time once they understand the visual principles of effective drawing. As someone with pretty much zero ability to draw, that caught my attention. What would be "a short space of time"? Are we talking days, months, years?

You can improve your drawing about a thousandfold in the span of a couple minutes by learning to observe things instead of just what you think they look like.

Go grab something as reference material, anything moderately complex will do. Now when you look at this thing, ignore what it is or even what three dimensional shape it has. Look for edges. The edge between the background and the object, The edges internal to the object. Look for the position of these features relative to the others. Keep doing this while you draw exactly what you see. Resist the temptation to draw without looking at what it actually looks like.

Of course once you've managed to look at things properly you'll still need tons of practice with drawing, but just doing this is going to stop you from drawing pictograms instead of pictures.

Re: What happens when you ask people to draw a bike (2016)

#157

Post by azernik » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 8:01 AM UTC

tabtab wrote: post #134

lev99 wrote: post #11

There seems to be two things tested in this exercise. Technical drawing capabilities and knowledge of bicycle mechanics. I assume most people that drew bicycles have ridden one, but there are a few basic common mistakes. The location of the pedals (closer to rear wheel, very near to floor), the way the chain operate, and the triangle frame are some examples. I did not notice anyone drawing details around the gear mec…

Re: this exercise highlights a great amount of ignorance around bicycles. I purpose society would benefit from better bicycle education. You don't have to understand or remember technical details to ride a bike: you just hop on and go (once you learn to ride). It's not like you have to rebuild one every time you hop on: they pretty much stay as they are. Let's not invent problems that are not real problems. Sure, it'…

> I suppose in an extreme case the bar between the peddles and the back tire could just fall off, and a typical rider wouldn't notice it's missing until something bad happens.

Even that is quite rare; that bar is an integral (usually welded) part of the frame. More common failure modes for frames are cracks (the tube comes loose in one point, usually close to a weld, and starts flopping around) or bottom bracket failure (pedal getting stuck or breaking loose).

The more important skill for dealing with those is not memorizing the geometric structure of the frame, but knowing how to recognize early signs of wear (creaking in the frame, visible spreading hairline cracks, clicking when turning the pedals, etc.) Sidenote: This is a big drawback of carbon fiber composite bicycle parts - they're stronger per weight than metal, but they don't give a lot of warning before failing and said failures are usually more catastrophic (shattering rather than bending - see [1] for a video, and [2] for a more general discussion of the market for lemons that this creates).

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxfJ-upYUXQ - note that this is a cheap part, so snapped under relatively low amounts of wear and force, but it was harder for the rider to realize this through inspection and riding before catastrophic failure

[2] https://www.outsideonline.com/2311816/carbon-fiber-bike-acci...

Re: What happens when you ask people to draw a bike (2016)

#158

Post by theshadowknows » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 8:22 AM UTC

So what’s wrong with the bike?

Re: What happens when you ask people to draw a bike (2016)

#159

Post by pvaldes » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 8:42 AM UTC

torben-friis wrote: post #154

jdietrich wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely untrained people can trace a drawing with a good degree of accuracy, yet fail completely to draw even simple forms with any degree of verisimilitude. Teachers like Betty Edwards and Bert Dodson have proven that pretty much anyone can learn to draw to a high standard in a remarkably short space of time once they understand the visual principles of effective drawing. Mastering draftsmanship requires a lifeti…

>Teachers like Betty Edwards and Bert Dodson have proven that pretty much anyone can learn to draw to a high standard in a remarkably short space of time once they understand the visual principles of effective drawing. As someone with pretty much zero ability to draw, that caught my attention. What would be "a short space of time"? Are we talking days, months, years?

It depends. Drawing and programming share some aspects. You can do a short program in "oil painting language" easily, but it takes years to master the media.

You need to keep the focus on it for a long time and build it in small steps. A telephone or somebody breaking in the room and your work could be permanently damaged and you will need a lot of effort to keep the focus again. Sometimes the image just "dies" in the way of being painted.

Painting is often done in imperative style and can be a painful, demanding and really tiresome work. Some people underestimate the effort needed to do it right. You need to "declare" all your tones in advance, fill the shadows and keep in mind a rigid frame to place it. If you do it in several sessions you will need to obtain the same exact tone again (or have a plan B in advance), so you'll need to make a lof ot comments and document your work.

And there are bugs. You will find a lot of bugs in the process and will need to fix it in a short time. Some mediums dry fast and crack easily. Different pigments spread in different ways. Some tones are notoriously complex to obtain also (realistic 3D gold for example) and you can't learn the right way in a week. The eyes of your public have evolved to detect abnormal tones for good reasons (would denote diseases or people faking emotions so is survival relevant). A skin too pale or with a greenish tone or a slight curve in the rictus and your picture can enter in autopilot mode or just sink.

Sometimes the painting turns in a such mess that you just trown the code away and start again.

Automatic drawing is drawing in functional style and is a totally different creature.

Re: What happens when you ask people to draw a bike (2016)

#160

Post by slesslytall » Tue, Aug 07, 2018, 9:16 AM UTC

theshadowknows wrote: post #158

So what’s wrong with the bike?

It's missing the part of the frame connecting the rear wheel's axel to the that of the pedals, often referred to as the "chain stay". Without this the seat stay (rear forks) would snap under the rider's weight.