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	Memoirs of the Art Discussion Forum If you've hung around the Art Discussion Forum as long as I have, it's pretty inevitable that you end up repeating yourself. A lot. This stuff is here just in case I need to do so.

	Manipulate Medium or Yourself?
	Manipulate Medium or Yourself?


Another from the Gaia Artist's Hospital: charsiewpau Excellent tips pink. A quick thought.. Manipulate the medium when drawing? or manipulate yourself? I know it's kind of vague, but consider this scenario.. I am drawing on a large piece of paper, about 1.75' x 2.5'? Do I rotate the paper? or do I rotate myself? Should we learn to manipulate the medium? or learn to manipulate ourselves? I meant this in the context of doing lineworks and painting. An artist friend told me to learn to manipulate ourselves to the medium. She says it's an important and good habit to inculcate, esp. when you are forced to draw on immovable, bigger mediums. Do you agree? Honestly I think that's a good practice to turn yourself. If you find yourself painting on a wall I don't think I have to explain why any further. However! Here's some things to think about: we are taught some things in classes that go against the act of doing this. A major problem that people have when they draw is the inability to draw what they see because of an iconical tendency that's ingrained into us by society. If you were to pull someone off the street who does not draw, for example, and the proceed to ask them to draw an eye you would commonly get a drawing of an almond shape with a circle in the center. Through things like road signs, posters, anything you see as you grow up, there are shapes that become ingrained into your mind that automatically have an identity. In beginning drawing classes you can see who suffers from this the most when you see a lot of symmetrical almond-shaped eyes during a self-portrait assignment. In drawing an artist has more developed ideas of what things look like. We can draw a lot of things from memory because we have memorized and understand what they look like at a more precise level, but I think this is still a different level of iconology. We still have shapes in our mind associated to things like eyes, noses, etc, but they are more accurate. If you find yourself wanting to turn the paper or yourself it is probably a symptom of this. In your mind, you know what a person looks like, but maybe only vertically. In order to draw someone sideways on paper the easiest thing to do seems to be to turn the paper sideways. The ability to draw comes in the ability to observe. This is usually taught in classes (at least from my experience) by copying a picture that is turned upside-down or sideways. This emphasizes that the most important thing in drawing from observation is the ability to recognize shapes and form using your other senses beyond thinking, "okay, this is a vase. I'll add a vase next to this bicycle at an angle" so that you can really think, "okay, this oval shape is at an angle against this large mass, and because of that the background behind it is shaped like this..." If you can do this correctly then your picture should look perfect when turned right-side up. However, artists do have to draw from memory in many situations, and because of that the use of a developed icon is necessary! It's hard to observe from memory. But which is correct between turning the piece or turning yourself? I don't know, I need more education. xd ;; I'd do whatever gets the job done. What I notice is that when I work from direct observation or a picture reference I find myself relying on my perception skills; I don't turn myself or the canvas. When drawing from memory I have to turn my head if I draw a turned head. So, er... take what you will from all of that rambling. sweatdrop Pink · Sat Aug 27, 2005 @ 02:52am · 1 Comments


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	User Comments: [1]


	I don't really rely on memory when I draw. I do sometimes, but I mostly freestyle. Let's say I'm going to draw an eye. I don't picture what it's gonna look like, I just do it. neutral Offline Hanzo10 · Community Member · Thu Feb 16, 2006 @ 04:10am

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