Tracing and transferring images - Page 4

Lon Haverly · 03-12-2002, 03:53 AM

Douglas, I have drawn portraits for a living for thirty years. I really love it. But when I paint a very serious oil, I will trace or transfer for the layout. Nothing wrong with that. However, the art of drawing is a dying art, I feel, in today's world. No one knows how to draw, not even the professors of art. I was trained as a child in a children's art school. We learned classic techniques of drawing. However, my teacher, (my grandfather) could not sit down and draw from life. He was too much illustrator, drawing out of his imaginmation, to be a live portrait artist. He used the grid method for painting serious oils, which worked splendidly for him. And he was a master in the art of pencil drawing.

I do not say that everyone has to be able to draw. But, my painting was very much improved after a year or two of drawing every day, all day!!! Still, I will trace for a tight oil, because I cannot trust my trained eye enough. It lets me down a bit.

I met a man who trained in Italy who was not allowed to do anything for the first year but copy drawings of the masters, line for line!!!!! It drove him crazy. But, he learned the value of the classic styles of line work, shading and technique. It is the "boot camp," as you said it. I highly recommend it. It is something that can be learned. But there are no short cuts, if you want to master drawing. It is time and experience.

Jacqueline Dunster · 03-12-2002, 04:22 AM

I didn't want anyone to think I'd disappeared!

Thanks to this thread and a few other sources, I think I've softened my position a bit - some people trace when they are starting out with art, and it builds their confidence. Some people have other specific reasons for it. I don't envy them for not having this skill, I don't think that deciding to not learn how to draw is a good thing, but hey - whatever. My main bone of contention (as I previously mentioned) is the almost disdainful dismissal of the art of drawing, and its importance.

IT'S IMPORTANT That's it for me. One will never be "better off" because they don't know how to draw. They may still do great stuff, but they are not in an enviable position for lacking that specific skill.

Lon - I happened to see some of your sketches, and I think your work is a prime example of why not tracing portraits can be such an asset. They have a fresh, unique look to them that is not the product of tracing or slavishly copying a photo. They retain the likeness, but with your stamp on each portrait. I guess traced portraits can have their own "stamp" too, but it probably won't be in the interpretation and proportion of the features. Only a freehand drawing can do that. And I think that's a big part of portrait art.

It's funny, I think one of the biggest assets of knowing how to draw is the ability to draw from my imagination. I love to draw from life too, but I am often doodling and drawing all over my sketchpads. It keeps me out of trouble. I bring my sketchpad to work. (It's allowed at my job.) These are joyous activities, so I guess I can't understand why some people (the ones who eschew drawing) want to deprive themselves of such fun.

Steven Sweeney · 03-12-2002, 04:58 AM

Quote:

I am often doodling and drawing all over my sketchpads. It keeps me out of trouble.

It often gets me into trouble. We must be sketching different things. I suppose that life drawing in the margin of my performance appraisal marked the beginning of my new career.

Douglas Drenkow · 03-12-2002, 12:57 PM

Fortunately, my high-school history teacher appreciated my caricatures of Nixon in the margins of my political essays!

It sounds like all of us appreciate the freedom of expression that we enjoy by drawing, as from imagination (harkening back to those controversial comments about the "reality" of lines -- to me, it's all what we see, or choose to see).

My defense of "painterliness" as opposed to "draughtsmanship" (as I have learned the terms of the classical debate) is not to denigrate the art of drawing -- arguably the Mother of Visual Arts -- but rather to praise the virtues of painting as an art unto itself -- something most laypeople don't seem to appreciate.

For me, drawing outlines forms, enhancing my visualization of them; but painting (even more than simple shading with a pencil) further solidifies forms, allowing me to "feel" their surfaces and weight with my paintbrush -- that to me is the greatest creative satisfaction...short of sculpture (as Genesis and Darwin agree, people were ultimately created from the clay of the Earth).

There are many "dimensions" to art!

Lon Haverly · 03-12-2002, 03:36 PM

An illistrator tends to draw from his imagination, and may have a hard time drawing from life.

I was a sign painting apprentice in college, (Bible college, not art school) and learned the art of "one stroke" sign painting. It is a term I have come to appreciate. I use it in drawing. Each stroke counts, and hopefully is the final stroke. I will try to upload an example. It is a very simple drawing, but to me is my best. It took about five minutes. You will have a hard time doing this if you trace. I am a diehard believer in line technique. I was trained very strictly this way as a child, and it now affords me a freedom of expression I am very grateful for.

Douglas Drenkow · 03-12-2002, 03:57 PM

Very expressive (and impressive)!

Without realizing what it was called, I've always envied "one stroke" work (I believe that could apply to some etchings by Rembrandt).

I also appreciate the countless glazes applied by such colorists as Titian (and Rembrandt).

If there were just one way to create art, it wouldn't be art (and there wouldn't be call for our variety of styles).

Here's to diversity, amongst artists and our subjects and patrons!

Lon Haverly · 03-12-2002, 05:29 PM

Here here!!!

Steven Sweeney · 03-12-2002, 07:16 PM

Since the "sculptural" aspect of our 2-dimensional representations has just been mentioned, I wanted to share a neat quote from a book I just received yesterday and stayed up with way too late. Anthony Ryder writes in his beautiful "The Artist's Complete Guide to Figure Drawing" (Watson-Guptill 2000):

"The patient elaboration of value with a very sharp pencil induces a mental state in which you feel as if you are actually sculpting the surface of the body within the virtual reality of the drawing. With practice, you can develop an acute sensitivity to subtle variations in the surface of the form, as if there were nerve endings at the point of your pencil."

Isn't that great? I could never have articulated it that well, but when I read Ryder's description, I was very pleasantly taken back to the experience of precisely that feeling, and I remembered again why all those sometimes tedious hours in the life room were worthwhile.

Steven

Cynthia Daniel · 03-12-2002, 09:42 PM

That's an amazing description Steven!! I love it!

Okay this is a little off the subject, but your post reminded me of something, so please allow me a little foray into fantasy. As I've done web sites over the years, I have at times softened wrinkles, trimmed a scruffy beard, lessened dark circles under eyes and diminished a sagging jaw...on photos of real people, of course, not portraits. As I was doing it, I would fantasize that what I was doing would actually occur in the real world. Wouldn't I make a fortune if it were true?!

Steven Sweeney · 03-12-2002, 10:17 PM

Yes, but then we'd be calling you Dr. Daniel and making appointments at one of your eight day-patient plastic surgery centers -- and we wouldn't have SOG. Incidentally, I've been vigorously resisting for two hours today's visit to the NordicTrack in the other room, but if you could work a little of that PhotoShop magic in my "real world" of The Middle Age, it'd sure save me a lot of grief, and my painter's smocks would fit better, too.

Steven