12 Biggest Drawing Mistakes – Video, Part 2

Twelve Biggest Drawing Mistakes Every Fine Artist Must Avoid

12 Biggest Drawing Mistakes Every Fine Artist Must Avoid

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VIDEO – Part 2 (of 4)

Erroneous belief #3:

I need to learn how to draw a particular subject like people or animals, or cars, etc.

My answer is a no-nonsense statement: if you have the necessary drawing skills, you can draw everything you see or can imagine without any limitations, even if you have never done this particular subject before.

When you know how to draw, and someone asked you “Can you draw a girl, or can you draw a car?” you would be smiling in return. Yes, you can draw. Full stop. It doesn’t matter if you have never before draw something like a superman for example; if you have drawing skills and necessary knowledge of human anatomy, perspective, drawing techniques, etc. you will be able to draw him.

To put it in perspective, let’s say you have learned to drive a car and now you have all the necessary driving skills and knowledge of traffic rules, etc. When someone asked you: “Can you drive a Mercedes, or can you drive a Ford?” you would take it as an amateur question. Yes, you can drive; in fact you can drive any consumer car available on a market and any car that will be developed in the distant future.

It is like asking a professional chef: “Can you cook a sausage, or can you cook a steak?” Yes, you know he can! Even if this sausage came from a brand new manufacturer and the cook had never seen this sort of meat combination before, yes he can cook it.

So you will be able to draw anything you can imagine if you study and practice well the skills of drawing.

As you have seen from my personal example above, it does not matter what design project I was taking on – fashion design, industrial design, marketing graphic design, digital web design – all these tasks were so easy for me because I have what it takes to succeed in doing creative things – I have drawing skills. The rest are just some tools, like design software, plus some technical knowledge of HTML, etc.

At the Drawing Art Academy, I am teaching the key drawing skills. This education is not based on subjects like “How to draw a girl” or “How to draw eyes,” etc. Instead I am providing video lessons on how to draw professionally, so you would be able to draw a girl, and to draw a face, and so on because you will get skills to draw anything you like, anything you see or can imagine. This is the most essential skill you will have to progress with your creative career.

Erroneous drawing approach #4:

Drawing what you see instead of drawing what you know.

Albert Einstein once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” It is so true. However, the irony in drawing is that you have to draw imaginary things to depict realistic objects.

Many art students are taking a very simplistic approach to the drawing, they draw what they see, not what they know or imagine. I have to explain it in details. For example, you are drawing a still life with a vase standing on a table and a book placed next to it, a drapery goes around the vase and the book, partly covering these two objects. You might just depict what you see – visible edges of the vase standing on the table, a corner of the book showing up from under the drapery. All looks good to you, as you have used to this view. A spectator comes along, and he sees that on your drawing or painting the vase is floating above the table and the book intersects inside the vase under the drapery. What went wrong? You just drew what you saw, not what you knew or imagined.

Your drawing or painting would look much more believable when you draw what you know. Continuing with the same example, a still-life would benefit greatly when you start your drawing as if all object are totally transparent, and you could see through them. You instantly will see that the vase is not touching the table if your drapery, covering the vase’s lower part would be transparent. The same goes for the book. If you draw the imaginary edges of the book, covered by the drapery, you would avoid its intersection with the vase.

There are many other imaginary lines you shall deploy in your drawing. For example, the imaginary vertical line that goes right in the middle of the round vase – it is vertical axes. The imaginary horizontal lines that serve as main axis of the vase’s ovals – its top, middle, and bottom circular edges. The imaginary lines of two-point perspective, which cross over in the vanishing points. The imaginary lines, which indicate relationship and angles of your main drawing masses, and so many other imaginary lines, which help you to make a realistic drawing.

The same goes for all other genres: portrait drawing, human figure drawing, landscape drawing, animals drawing, and so on. All drawing requires you to know the subject and draw what you know using some helpful imaginary lines rather than just what you see.

Of course, you may erase all those imaginary lines after you have constructed a drawing in right proportions, and helping guides are no longer required.

You may say that you have seen some beautiful drawings done with no indication of those imaginary lines whatsoever. There is one secret you shall know. Every professional fine artist uses those lines. Sometimes an artist draw these lines on a paper, sometimes he just imagines them in his head, and sometimes imagination of those lines happens subconsciously, so he is not actively thinking about angles and proportions.

To make your way toward such level of skills that imaginary lines are just that imagined in your head, takes some practice and knowledge. If you are a beginner, it is better to draw helping lines and later decide whether you would like to keep or erase them.

At the Drawing Art Academy your will see in almost every fine art video lesson how to draw what you know. I will teach you how to use imaginary lines that will help you to take your art to the next level.

Once again, to master the art of drawing you shall draw what you know and imagine rather than just what you see.

Erroneous drawing approach #5:

Drawing people without the knowledge of human anatomy.

Everyone instantly recognizes the difference between amateur and professional portrait or human figure. Why is it so? What it takes to draw people like a professional artist?

The answer to this question becomes obvious when we look back in the history of art. Ancient Greek and Roman sculptors had a good understanding of human anatomy and created beautiful busts, portraits, and human figure sculptures now displayed in various museums around the world. After the decline of the Roman culture medieval art lost those antic traditions and for many centuries figurative paintings and sculptures were very simplistic, I would even say amateurish. This was due to the church prohibiting any practical study of anatomy by fine artists. Until the Renaissance era, when several artists like Michelangelo Buonarroti and Leonardo da Vinci, despite the danger of being prosecuted for illegal at a time corpse’s dissection, ventured into unknown subject of the human anatomy. Armed with the anatomy knowledge these artists created the greatest works of art human civilization have never seen before.

How critical to a fine artist to know the subject of a human anatomy? Let us consider the following example. How important for a car designer to know what is inside a car to design a great looking vehicle? Of course he must be aware of the “bones” or chassis and “muscles and joints” or engine and gears inside the car.

Do you still believe that fine artist can draw great figurative artworks without any knowledge of the human anatomy?

This coincides with another erroneous belief that it is enough for a fine artist to draw what he sees rather than what he knows. In fact, the figurative drawing is mostly what you know about anatomy instead of what you see. Of course you, as a fine artist, do not draw the portrait starting from the scull, wrapping it with flesh and finally covering with a skin. However, such process might go inside your head when you draw a portrait. You should understand how scull bones affect the proportions of the head, how facial muscles move lips, jaw, eyebrows, and make emotions on a face.

I have good news for you; the knowledge of all bones, muscles, and tissues is not required. You are not a doctor; you are the artist. However, you must know and understand at least the basic anatomy of the skeleton and scull as well as main muscles under a skin. Such knowledge will propel your figurative drawing skills to a much higher level.

At the Drawing Art Academy you will have special video lessons dedicated to the topic of human anatomy for fine artists. You will discover all main aspects of this subject – how to draw human scull and what bones makes the scull, what important facial muscles influence the shape of the human face; you will also see detailed video lessons on the construction of human skeleton, and most important muscles of the human body every fine artist must know. This also includes the anatomy of human hands and feet. On examples of dynamic anatomy you will see how to draw human figure, portraits, and hands in movement under various angles. All these lessons will give you a valuable resource of better understanding how to draw a man, how to draw a girl, how to draw eyes, how to draw hands, how to draw feet and so on.

If you are complete beginner these lessons will be a great springboard for you to understand and master the drawing of human figure and human face. If you are an advanced fine artist, it is always helpful to refresh your knowledge of the human anatomy so needed for fine artists.