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1020 Final Essay
1020 Final Essay
1020 Final Essay
Melanie Thao
Brendan Clery
ART 1020
25 Jul. 2019
Many children start drawing the moment they get a hold of paper and pencil. Whether it
be an out of proportion body, to a square house with flat skies and grass, to simple yet
aggressive scribbles, it is considered art. Many people tend to believe drawing skills are blessed
to someone at birth. In other cases, people are intimidated by the drawing field. Someone who
doesn’t draw can definitely learn how to draw! By giving the time to practice, learn the basics,
Practice makes perfect! Giving yourself a set time to practice is a great way to begin
your drawing journey. Per say, every weekend for 2 hours, this will become a good habit for you
and the skill you intend to cultivate. In the book of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, the
author, Betty Edwards shows the readers her students improvement within five days. She
shows their first self portrait next to their five days after class portraits. There is a significant
difference in line quality and value. Although it was just five days, we can show our own timeline
of our drawing skills and compare them to see improvement. No one is born with a set of oil
paint, a canvas, and a brush. The skills an artist has is learned by experience and sometimes
with a mentor.
Learning from someone who has experience can help you advance your skills more!
You’ll learn more of the basics such as value, perspective, color theory and most likely what
seems to be all of the boring stuff. But, these basics including what may look like the boring stuff
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are important too! One technique called triangulating, will be a continuous skill you will improve
on. You’ll see artists close one eye and hold up their pencil to their eye level. Yes, it may look
weird and a bit awkward, but this skill will improve your realness in a drawing. This helps you
plot out, fix your proportions and find the right angle of the object you intend to draw. When I
began my ‘professional’ journey I didn’t know how to triangulate at all. The first time I ever tried
it was when everyone was doing it but me and to be truthfully honest, I just copied what
everyone was doing. I faked it will I made it and now I know how to triangulate.
Throughout your drawing journey, you’ll find out that it’s pretty difficult to find something
to draw or have a difficult time on an object. Sometimes you’ll have instructors who will tell you,
don’t tone too much, you need to tone more, draw bigger, draw smaller and so many more. You
might sit on your donkey or stand at your easel and scream in your head: “what do you want
from me?!” . Or in other major cases, have the instructor grab their shammy and erase your full
on vine charcoal drawing in front of you. This is where determination comes along the journey.
You have to be determined to continue your education in the arts, in order to have decent
drawing skills. For instance, I myself have times where I want to give up on a drawing, when this
happens, I set that drawing aside for a few days and come back to it to see what I can improve
on. The point is, I’m coming back because I was determined to finish that drawing, I haven’t
given up just yet because I was committed to improve that drawing. If you are committed to
improving your drawing skills, then you will in a few years or months will have decent drawing
skills.
In conclusion, practice does indeed make perfect. As you continue, you will be able to
clearly see your improvement of your drawing skills because you’ve learned the basics. Yes
there will be times where you will want to give up, but stay determined! With practice and
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determination to learn the basics, anyone who is committed to improve their drawing skills will
be able to draw.