Drawing on the Scientific Method

[elfs]

One of the blogs I've been reading reliably recently, ever since it emerged, is The Scientific Artist. Like many just-started blogs the lifespan of this could be as brief as a mayfly or it may last for months and years, but what the author has been saying for the first couple of entries has made sense to me, so I've been following along and trying to understand what he's saying.

Until today. Today's entry, his ninth, stopped me. The first paragraph reads:

Some thoughts about drawing exercises: in my opinion the best ones are those which you devise for yourself, or adapt from existing ones, or even follow verbatim, with no changes, IF you first see precisely the reason to do them. If you do them from understanding, that sort of exercise will have the most meaning to you, and hence the best results. However, if you do an exercise "by rote", as an unthinking follower, as if repeating a magic saying that will automatically generate a result, then... there probably will be little obvious result.

To me, this is the baffling massive wall that separates me from illustration. Because, as an absolute beginner, I have no idea where to begin. I don't know what exercises will help me improve-- I just know that the doodles I'm doing now aren't working. They aren't communicating to me anything about the scene, setting, or characters that I can barely recognize when I'm done.

Comments

[mothball-07.livejournal.com]

I read this to say that *which* drawing exercises you do is largely irrelevant. What matters is whether you have a concrete goal in doing it. By your own statement it doesn't sound like your current exercises have that.

Instead of doodling to communicate scene, setting, etc., perhaps focus on clear skills? Do a few (or a lot of) doodles for the sole purpose of exploring perspective. Then move on to facial expressions. Nothing else matters - scene out of proportion? Who cares. Did you capture the look in her eyes you wanted? EXCELLENT. Same thing with materials - "This picture is just to explore the new brand of pencil I've bought." Then that's what you focus on, and you're more likely to actually get that from it.

I think that's what he's saying. You should be able to find many exercises, from the very simple things like repetetive shapes to train hand control, to the sorts of 'experimental' work I described above, to, well, stuff I never got to, online or in art training resources. ;) Then pick something you're interested in, and off you go!