More Links to Learning

If you are here, I’m guessing you have finished the first 8 drawing lessons and are ready for more. Help yourself – I love to teach people how to draw!

Cajon Pass

My maternal grandfather, Eugene B. Maise was a maintenance foreman for the Santa Fe Railroad working in the mountains of San Bernardino. In the late 1940s, he was approached by a photographer who requested help taking photos of the trains as they climbed through Cajon Pass. Note the coal burning engine pulling the passenger cars; the new diesel engines couldn’t quite make the grade. I drew this from a photo from Uncle Frank. That was before I had totally cemented my resolve to work only from my own photos. Besides, I needed a gift for Mom! (Thanks Mom, for rearing me here so I can be a California artist.)

Links to Learning To Draw

In case you are a new reader of this blog and are wondering how to find the earlier chapters of Learning to Draw, here is a convenient clickable list of the first eight.

If you want to click on all these but get tired of going back to this page, just right-click on each one and open in a new tab. Then you can go through them sequentially without wearing out your Back button. How did a California artist become so computer savvy? By asking people and trying stuff!

Ever say a word so often that it ceases to make sense? I just destroyed the word “chapter” for myself!

Fruit On The Vine

Learning to Draw, Chapter 23

Kirby found this photo and it really grabbed her around the heart. I decided they are named Adams and Soldier. Can you tell me why I chose those names?  (besides the fact that I love to name animals) Kirby just smiled when I told her. She’s getting used to me.

When you are deciding what to draw, pick something you love, because you will be staring at it for a long time.

Learning to Draw, Chapter 22

This is Scooter as photographed and drawn by Kim. It is her first drawing. Really! She has been working on it for several months, diligently trying to sort out the proportions and stripes and toes and whiskers. It is upside down because this is the view I have when I am helping Kim. Sometimes I have her work on it upside down so she isn’t distracted by the schooter-ness of Scooter and she can just study the proportions, edges, textures and values.

If you turn both your photo and your drawing upside down, you can often see the angles, proportions, shapes and values more accurately.

When you are learning to draw, you can be fast, or you can be good.

Learning to Draw, Chapter 21

Olivia is drawing this pick-’em-up-truck from a photo of mine. There was a little bit of ambiguity around the door handle. The magnifier/loupe/linen tester/bug identifier is so helpful when the photo isn’t giving up its secrets. I peered through and said – “Oh! The gas tank had a sticky-outy thing with a round cap on top that we are only seeing in profile and it is right next to the door handle”. Good thing I was born in the ’50s so I could explain it to Olivia (although October of ’59 hardly gave me much experience in that decade.)

Know what you are drawing because if you don’t, those who know will know that you don’t know.

Reasons to Learn to Draw

#13 in the series “Thoughtful Thursdays”

Reasons to Learn to Draw

Drawing is a skill that can be both taught and learned. If you compare it to typing, this makes sense: some people top out at 25 words per minute and others can become as fast as 90 words per minute. All are indisputably typing.

Why should a person learn to draw? Back in the “olden days”, it was considered a necessary life skill and was a regular subject in school. Now that we have easy and accessible photography and even easier and accessible internet, drawing has fallen into the categories of hobby or talent. Why draw if you can take a photo?

A few years ago there was a retired gentleman in Three Rivers who had trouble filling his days. We became acquainted at various art shows, and we would discuss drawing. After several conversations, he approached me and asked, “Do you really think you could teach me how to draw?” I responded in the affirmative and asked him why he wanted to learn. His answer still cracks me up: “I don’t really care about art; I just want to meet women!”

Besides the social aspect of taking drawing lessons with a small group, drawing helps us to look carefully at the places and items in our lives. It teaches how to see what is really in front of us, not what we assume is there, or think we see. A number of my drawing students have told me that after a few weeks of lessons, they begin to observe the world around them differently. Details, light and shadow, shapes, and ideas for drawings are all suddenly visible as never before.

Some people choose to take drawing lessons out of curiosity. They’ve heard me say I can teach anyone how to draw, with the qualifier that he can listen to instructions. These folks wonder if they are the exceptions and decide to just give it a try. The only ones who haven’t learned are those who quit too soon!

Other students come to me because they are painters who are dissatisfied with their paintings. Still others want to become painters and they know that drawing comes before painting. By learning to draw in pencil, a person will learn to see shapes, proportions,  perspective, and learn about values. Values are the darks and the lights, and without them, a picture gets described as being “flat”.

Several people have asked me for help because at some time in their past an art teacher crushed their spirits. If someone thinks he might have an artistic bent and his work is thoughtlessly dismissed, it can really damage his confidence. I have spent time listening to people’s stories, looking at their work, showing them new ways to do things, and watching them blossom into people who can draw.

Some of my drawing students draw better than I do! Although I thoroughly enjoy the time together, I ask them why they think they still need lessons. The answer is usually that if they haven’t reserved a spot in their week specifically for drawing, they won’t ever draw at all in spite of good intentions.

The man who just wanted to meet women did make some friends, and before he succumbed to cancer, he completed 2 beautiful pencil drawings. He just kept repeating, “I can’t believe I did this!” Rejoicing with him over his accomplishments is one of my happiest memories in all the years of teaching private drawing lessons.

What you want to see

After I got over the thrill of drawing what was really in front of my eyes, I began to want to make better pictures. Real life is messy; artists get to clean it up. It takes practice to draw what isn’t really there, to make up a tree that you didn’t see, to show the edge of the porch that was previously hidden, to work from multiple photos taken from slightly different angles. It is almost impossible to work from photos taken at different times of day from different distances and at different angles. This often requires the skill of a mind reader, and I have learned to say no to some of these requests. But to a certain degree, I can create what we prefer was there.

When someone asks me to draw a house and provides a perfect photo, I have been known to ask why they want a drawing when the photo says it all. The answer is usually that pencil is so beautiful. This is a thrill to my little pencil-loving heart!

Here is the main photo of Farewell Gap again:

Here is a painting in which I scooted things ever so slightly to suit myself.

If you are standing on the bridge at the end of the road in Mineral King, you are probably just in awe of the view. Your brain knows there is a stream underfoot, a cabin sort of close, and Farewell Gap in the distance. Not very many people outside of careful photographers ever realize that there is no place to stand where all three line up for a complete photo! So, when I draw or paint this scene now, I make the necessary adjustments. Until this blog posting, I have never admitted such treachery and deception in recordable form!

And here it is in pencil from 2005 when I really started becoming bold about deceiving the world! (yes, I exaggerate to make a point – try not to get all worked up here!)

What You Really See

As we learn to put on paper what we really see instead of our symbols, it is shocking to learn how much is really there and how it is really shaped or sized. Drawing upside down is one tool; tracing the basic elements and only looking at the tracing instead of the photo is another tool. Another way to simplify what is in front of our eyes is to squint, and the detail fades.

You saw an example of Farewell Gap as it was interpreted by someone who didn’t see or chose to ignore reality. Here is a drawing I did of Farewell Gap a long time ago when I was still bound to photos. It was such a thrill to put on paper exactly what I saw that I didn’t have any interest in editing or creating. I was lost in the joy of “I CAN DO THIS!”

This is not the actual photo from which I worked – 1994 is too long ago for me to be able to put my hands on that exact piece of paper! However, here is the photo of Farewell Gap for comparison purposes:

What we think we see

When we are beginning to make art, we depend on symbols more than visual information. The symbols come from our memory, from what we know. The visual information comes from what is in front of our eyes, regardless of what we know. You may know that a table has a round top, but what your eyes are telling you is that it looks like an oval. How can this be?? What do I trust? It takes a leap of faith to ignore what is in your mind and draw what is in front of your eyes. The first time someone tries this and it looks “real! it looks like a photo! I can draw!”, it is a thrill!

At the risk of annoying or offending (always a risk – why are folks so spring-loaded these days??), I want you to see a mural in downtown Visalia. I don’t know who painted it and I don’t know their instructions. I also don’t know their intentions. What I do know is it appears to sort of be Farewell Gap, sort of, maybe, kind of. This is an example of someone looking at a photo and painting from symbols in their heads. Those of you who are spring-loaded in the defensive position may be thinking that the artist(s) were being creative, not bound to the photo, and simply expressing themselves with a derivative work, using the photo for reference, et cetera. That’s fine, but I am trying to show examples here, and this fits, so just take a deep breath and try to follow along.

For comparison, here again is the photograph of Farewell Gap:

Workshop in Porterville

What a strikingly beautiful weekend! This type of day is why February is my favorite month. This is the depot where the workshop was held:

This is the mirror so I could show the massive crowds my work and they could watch me produce it. Nice idea, but there were about 9 folks who braved the storm Friday night, so I was able to pass around my examples and let each person examine them closely.

These are the folks who decided to return on Saturday for the hands-on workshop. There could have been a crowd of 30, so this small group was almost just like my regular drawing lessons. It was a real  treat to get to know each person a little bit and spend more time helping each one.

Baxter was my host on Friday night. Terrific dog!