To trace or not to trace…

There’s a debate among artists of all skill levels about the morality of tracing other peoples work. Is it right or wrong to literally copy someone else’s picture in order to improve your drawing skills? My opinion is: It’s okay when you’re first starting out. As long as you:

1. Credit the original artist if you show anyone else.

2. Don’t do it for too long.

The benefits of tracing or copying are few, but they are useful. Back when I was just starting out, I learned a lot about how to hold the pencil, what position to hold my hand to create certain lines and so on. When you find yourself feeling more confident in your technique, wean yourself off of the habit and focus on creating your own works as much as possible.

Do NOT take credit for the picture. This is a form of “Art Theivery” and is deeply frowned upon! If you want to improve in your drawing, you NEED to create your own stuff. Sometimes, if you claim credit for a piece of work, you start believing that you did create the picture, even saying things like “Well, I changed the colour / design of [a basic part of the image] so I’m the artist” (I have heard people say things like that) or similar, which is an unhealthy attitude!

If you trace for too long, you run the risk of getting stuck in one style, picking up many bad habits and having to unlearn them later. I have personal experience of this: When I first started out drawing, I copied other artists styles for years and ended up getting stuck drawing flat, lifeless images. Because the image didn’t directly come from me, it had no soul. Until I started unlearning the habit and drawing my own things, I didn’t improve at all. Also, you end up not learning the idea of guidelines and rough outlines, because you’re constantly copying from a finished outline.

There are benefits to tracing and copying when you’re a beginner but I want to express this strongly: If you’re doing it just to gain confidence in your art, STOP DOING IT. I know above I mentioned gaining confidence, but that was about physical confidence rather than emotional confidence. Sorry to be harsh, but the trace or copy is not your own work so you can’t really find true confidence in it, only false confidence. The only way to get confidence in drawing is by sucking it up, creating your own works to grow and develop your own style. Be true to yourself!

Sometimes it can be hard to make the jump from copying to making your own stuff and I can sympathise with that. But don’t just stick to copying just because you’re finding it hard, or because you’re getting an ego boost from what you see on the page. Jump into it! What you create might be crap at first, but until you learn how to rely on your own ability instead of someone elses, you can’t really call yourself an artist. Have fun!

2011
04/29
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Don’t reinvent the Wheel

While I’m talking mostly about writing in this post, please don’t think that means it doesn’t apply to artists as well. Art is a visual language, and any advice here can be applied to any aspect of media.

Day three of what is apparently turning into my “daily writing tips” rather than drawing tips, and I’m going to tell you something you’ve already heard of. Sorry, but I’m here to drill it into you some more! It actually took me a very long time to realise how important this lesson is, and it was definatly a hard nut to swallow. But even though my pride took a beating while accepting it, I’ve become a much better writer because of it, and I now watch films, tv and read books a whole new way. So, what is this lesson? It is…

Don’t reinvent the wheel!

Here’s the thing, there are so many stories out there, so many millions of characters that your story has more than likely been done already. Kinda depressing thought, right? WRONG! This is actually a great thing! If you can find stories that are similar to your own, it’s a great way to look at your story in a new light. Try to step back from your own piece of writing and look at it objectively and compare it with the similar one. You’ll be able to gain a new insight into where your story is weak or strong. Remember – If you have strong characters, a story will always be different, because characters will make different choices within the same scenario. Imagine the story of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, but using Magneto as Willy Wonka and Draco Malfoy as Charlie Bucket! It would be a completely different story all together. It’s also been said that there are only SEVEN basic plots!

With stories and characters, there are certain “rules” or “catagories” that bits and pieces of them fall into – if you can find which one your work falls into, you have an awful lot of control over that story now! Let’s take an example – how about the story of Romeo and Juliet? Do I hear a groan? Sorry, but Romeo and Juliet is one of those stories that everyone has heard of, so it’s a great thing to use in this example.

The basic structure of Romeo and Juliet is the usual “boy meets girl” with a tragic spin that reconsiles two groups who were at war. Using that very same structure, we can create a very different story. Disneys “Pocohantas” is an example from the top of my head as a similar story to Romeo and Juliet, except without the completely tragic ending. But the steps are similar – a man and a woman from two different backgrounds who hate each other meet and fall in love. In Romeo and Juliet, the two have to die in order for the feud to end, but in Pocohontas, the feud ends by showing how much she loves John Smith.

The point I’m trying to make is – stop trying to be original and just write a story. Most of the most beloved stories of all time are just different takes on an already made structure. In fact, lets do a little exercise here, shall we? Write a list of about 5 of your all time favourite stories – a mixture of films, books, tv shows, plays, whatever and go down the list step by step and pick out parts of the story that you’ve seen used somewhere else. When you’re done, pick five of those similarities and try and write something using those similarities you’ve seen! (And show me, I’d love to see what you’ve come up with!)

2011
04/29
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Write for the Trash

While I’m talking mostly about writing in this post, please don’t think that means it doesn’t apply to artists as well. Art is a visual language, and any advice here can be applied to any aspect of media.

Writing for the trash is similar to throw away your children, only where throwing away your children refers to binning something that you’re attatched to, writing for the trash applies when you’re struggling to find something to write about at all. A lot of the time when writing, it can be tempting to get stuck in trying to write something “good”. It’s hard to start writing the first few lines because you’re stuck in writing something “good”, and everything that comes out starts looking painfully bad. So, the technique “writing for the trash” comes in pretty handy.

The idea is to stop you from worrying about writing something “good”. Maybe you need to write something “good” for a project, an essay or some other kind of work thats going to be judged by some other person but you’ll find it very hard to write anything you’re satisfied with if you’re constantly worried about writing something good. So, find the rubbish bin, put it in front of you and decide that everything you write in the next five minutes is going straight in the bin. If you’re scared that someone is going to rummage through the bin and look at it, either get over it because seriously no one is going to do that, or buy a shredder.

If you really get into this mindset, you’ll find that your writing improves ten fold, because you’re no longer worrying about writing something good and just letting the natural writer in you do it’s thing! And if you do write something that is a masterpiece, you’re allowed to keep it as proof that the excerise works!

2011
04/29
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Throw away your children

While I’m talking mostly about writing in this post, please don’t think that means it doesn’t apply to artists as well. Art is a visual language, and any advice here can be applied to any aspect of media.

No, parents, don’t throw your hands up in celebration and get the bin bags ready, I’m talking about metaphorical children here (disappointing, I know). What I mean by “children” is the first ideas, the first drafts. And, by “throw away” I don’t actually mean tear it up and put it in the dustbin, although you should be prepared to do that in some cases. I’ll carry on talking about this using character designs as an example, but it really applies to any part of the story you’re writing.

A whole load of writers and artists I find have created a character who is… one dimentional. Another word would be “Mary Sue-ish”. A fantastic example of this would be the movie Waterworld. If you haven’t seen Waterworld, try and get hold of a copy and take note of the central character played by Kevin Costner. Most of the movie is “showing off” the character, even though couldn’ve done so many great things with this world they created! It means being prepared to sit down and be incredibly critical about the character you’ve created. If something doesn’t make sense without having to stretch the audiences willing suspension of disbelief, drop it. Characters are a storytelling tool, not the story themselves! You may feel very strongly about this paticular trait or direction, and if this is the case, question yourself – what are your motives for writing this story? Why is this so important to you? If you can’t come up with an answer which really benefits the story, drop it!

You may throw up your hands and say “hang on, what about stories about that characters life?!” And I admit, yes stories about the lives of characters can be done well (if you know how) but the trick lies in figuring out what the actual story is about. If the audience isn’t going to gain anything from the story other than thinking “Oh, that character was really cool” then the chances are… they’re not going to think the character was cool.

Don’t be afraid of looking at it and saying “this isn’t working” – in fact that’s a very, very brave thing to be able to do. It’s about being able to admit your mistakes, and once you’ve overcome that step, you’re able to move on and create something brilliant. In fact, a lot of people suggest that, when you first have an idea, write out everything you can think of, and then throw it away. Then start again – now all the personal ideas you’re attatched to are out of your system, the really good stuff will start to come out.

2011
04/29
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Understanding Artists Block

What is Artists Block? Most people who talk about the uncomfortable feeling of drawing a blank talk about how to overcome the problem. To really overcome the block, you need to understand the real issue, and thats I want to explore in this post – what it actually is, whether or not you can feel the same way in other areas of your life and real, working tips on how to overcome it.

Here’s an interesting proposal: What if so called “artists block” is actually just a severe case of inpatience? You want to create some beautiful masterpiece, but it’s just not coming out. I actually realised I feel the same way when I’m trying to solve some paticulary perplexing puzzle. And with that situation, if I’m trying too hard to get it right, I’m just not gonna get it!

So, here’s my advice: When you get that horrid feeling of artists block; stop working right away! You’re trying too hard! Most people suggest “listen to some music” or “meditate” and well I tried those things and it made the situation worse! Here’s what I suggest: when artists block strikes, go and spend a significant period of time focussing really hard on something completely different but that takes all of your attention. Last time I got artists block, I went and cooked dinner for myself and my partner. It helped!

Why does this work? Because even though you’re focussing on something else, your mind is still working it out! But the conscious part of your brain, the bit that’s focussing on something else is the bit that gets in the way and stops the subconscious part from doing it’s job. Once you’ve spent a good while focussing on something else, your brain will feel refreshed and be ready to start something new.

Next time you feel like this, try this method out and get back to me. I’d love to hear other peoples experiences on this so I can see how I can narrow down the causes and get some real solutions.

2011
04/29
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Holding the Pencil

It’s quite easy to spot people who are new to drawing by the way they hold their pencil. It’s common to see artists holding the pencil too tight, too low down on the pencil and the hand too tense. It’s understandable, too – when you just start out or if you’re unconfident with your drawing, you’re more likely to tense up.

Having said that though, there’s really no “right” or “wrong” way of holding a pencil – in fact, if I’m working on a picture, I’m more likely to hold the pencil in a variety of different ways to get the result I want. The important things to take into account is this:

Keep your hand and wrist relaxed!

It’s ironic – the more we hold onto something, the less control we get. It’s also going to give you enormous wrist cramp after a long time of squeezing the pencil too tight. Try doing a few excersises with your wrist before you start drawing to loosen up and relax. You’ll have a lot more control of your pencil if you hold your pencil with a relaxed grip.

The basic position that I always return to is with the pencil loosely in between your index finger and middle finger like so:

From this position, you have a lot of control over the pencil and it gives you a lot of freedom to move up and down the pencil quickly. There should never be a real need to grip the pencil any harder than you would a pen as you can still create a wide variety of line thickness and darkness while still keeping your grip relaxed – the line thickness and darkness is about pushing the pencil onto the paper not on how tightly your grip on it is.

So, play around with that for a while, practise drawing and manipulating the pencil in different ways. Remember – pictures are all about creating lines, and those lines are created in the way you want them by relaxing your hand and wrist. Have fun drawing!

2011
04/29
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Drawing lines

Something that drawing tutorials don’t touch on much is line variety. In this post I’m going to concentrate on two different types of line – the clean line, and the broken sketchy line. These probably aren’t the proper names, but heck, I don’t use proper names for things.

The difference between clean lines and broken lines is pretty simple – a clean line is just a continued line, you don’t take the pencil off the page. A broken line is really just lots of little lines making up one line, producing a sketchier rougher picture.

Compare these two pictures of a girl:

They’re both the same character, but the different way in which they were drawn changes the way we look at them. We’d be more inclined to put the girl on the top into a kids show than the girl on the bottom, for example. Drawing with a clean line is generally a lot quicker to do, though its not a great tool for sketching as you lose the clean effect when you start altering parts of your picture if they dont look right. Sketching with a broken line is much more effective, though if you’re not careful you could end up making a confusing mess on the page.

Different artists will prefer using different line styles depending on their personal preferences. Its really up to you what lines you choose to use in your work. My personal preference is a mixture of both styles, and Im a fan of the way the pictures turn out that way. Get a pencil out now and experiment with different lines – draw the same picture but one with clean lines and another with broken.

2011
04/29
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Why to Draw

Why Draw?I like to draw in public. This means I get this statement on a regular basis: “Hey, you’re good at drawing, I wish I could draw that well!” My usual response to this statement is: “Can you hold a pencil? Then you can draw.” The problem isn’t that people don’t know how to draw, but they don’t know why they want to.

Knowing how to draw doesn’t matter any more. You don’t need to be an incredible artist to express yourself. One of my favourite webcomics xkcd has drawn a massive crowd by drawing stick figures. And if you want to actually draw well, the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards teaches princibles that can get you from a childish scrawl to excellent quality artist in 5 days. It’s not knowing how to draw that you need to know. It’s why you want to.

You don’t need to know some amazingly inspiring reason to want to, either. Most people do it for stress relief – thats how I started out in fact. I couldn’t sit still without fidgeting with something and one day someone shoved a pencil in my hand and I was actually creating things. Now my reason for drawing is more interesting (to me, at least) – I want to give life to the characters on the page.

scratchy

So why do YOU want to draw well? Most people, when I ask them that question tend to go quiet on me, like I’ve asked them some complicated question that scares them away. Either that or they say “I want to be able to draw what I see.” which isn’t answering the question at all. Here’s a list of reasons one person likes to draw (link to drawanyway.com) which states some very common reasons of why people draw for personal and professional reasons. Why not come up with a list of your own?

Considering the response I get when drawing in public, I’d say that drawing is a skill that everyone, on some level, wishes they had. Perhaps it links to some deeper level, where everyone wants to express their little piece of crazy into the world. Whats interesting to me is – people CAN draw. Everyone can draw. Ok, if you had absolutely no limbs whatsoever, it might be difficult for you to hold a pencil, but if you wanted to badly enough I’m sure you could hold a pencil in your mouth. As usual, the problem lies not in the how, but in the why.

2011
04/29
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Welcome

Welcome to Drawing Advice, a new kind of drawing tutorial blog. Here I’ll share with you some tips and tricks to increase your drawing ability. There are many, many drawing tutorials out there on the internet today and I’ll be highlighting some of those as well.

What to expect
What this tutorial will give you is a collection of tips on how to get the image in your head out on paper, and getting that picture to be a good enough quality so you will feel satisfied with it.

What not to expect
“How to draw” advice, proportions, and other advice like that has been covered extensively by many, many other artists. Feel free to take a look at those and see what works for you :)

If you feel like this is something you’ll be interested in, then lets go!

2011
04/29
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