Please, I need your guidance on how and what to start doing (exercises and steps) to train myself to develop a photographic memory over time as an artist just starting out on the journey – visualizing images and memories and drawing them when I have no model or life reference.
Hi Vladimir,
I have been working with portrait drawing. I can end up with a decent drawing, but I am having a very difficult time with measuring the proportions at the beginning. I follow the steps and the basic 1/2, 1/3 measurements, etc., as outlined and shown in the Drawing Academy videos, but somewhere along the way, something goes awry.
I seem to get lost in the process, and proportions get a bit off. One eye might be farther over than it should be, or the side of the head on a slightly turned head isn’t wide enough, etc. I took me about two hours for a head size of about five inches. It’s rather frustrating.
How can I measure out a model’s features and proportions more accurately and with greater ease?
What can I do to make this process easier and more accurate right from the beginning?
Thanks,
Marianne
I am having difficulty with a life-drawing portrait. If it is a picture, I can draw, but if it is life, I am having problems. It is not working well. Please advise me what to do to enhance my skills in life-drawing portraits.
Hi,
I’m planning to attend a figure-drawing class locally. Do you have any advice on how to get the most out of it, how to maximize my learning? I’m going to study anatomy – again. I have studied it twice but never put it to practice and forgot most of it. I was thinking of tackling human body parts separately, studying the anatomy of the hand and/or arm, for instance, by reading on it and doing drawings of the bones and muscles, and then concentrating on drawing just that for maybe a couple of lessons. (There are about 30 lessons total.) Is that a good idea? What would you recommend? Should I concentrate on proportion first?
I’m a young, eager male, seeking knowledge of art to become a good artist, I’m a perfectionist. So I have a motto in my life – Do it right or don’t do it.
Here’s my question:
“How to make a drawing epic and appealing?“
Question from David “I can’t seem to be able to draw accurately from memory or life. I can copy a picture, though. Is it a mental block, or have I taught myself the wrong way by copying photos?” Feedback from Vladimir London, Drawing Academy tutor Dear David, Many thanks for your question. Copying a picture requires very different skills than those needed when drawing from life or imagination. When copying, the following skills are not needed and are therefore not developed: choosing a type of perspective that suits the best for a particular case to minimize distortions using linear perspective to establish the spatial relationship between objects using aerial perspective to give depth using rules of foreshortening to depict planes that are parallel or oblique to viewer’s line of sight constructing objects in drawing as if they were transparent to…
Dear Natalie and Vladimir,
Every time I see a drawing or painting made by Leonardo, I’m in awe of how he managed to achieve such smooth transitions in skin tone. I was wondering if you could shed some light on how he did that and what technique he used.
In this drawing (image attached) for example, I don’t see any traces of cross hatching. My guess is he used charcoal on top of sanguine and then did lots of blending, but for me, these mediums always produce much harsher marks, and the transition between light and dark can never be so smooth. What was his secret?
Hello. I was pretty convinced that I would definitely receive some high-quality educational materials in the Drawing Academy. And I wasn’t mistaken! However, as I continue to advance with the lessons, I can’t help but notice that some of your videos lack photographs of the objects that a learner is supposed to draw. Can you please clarify how to study in the Drawing Academy course?
Can an aspiring animator or concept artist start a career from scratch with this course or is it just for realistic artists?
Also, can a student change to digital after completing the course, provided his career requires it?
The concept of drawing what you see, which is quite common nowadays, is then completely wrong?