"You don't need to draw from life" - Feng Zhu
Why is drawing from life (I mean drawing from life as accurate as possible, with a lot of measuring, cast/bargue drawings etc, like many artists advocate) so overrated as a way of learning, /ic/? Why go so far to learn? Everywhere on internet, people do studies of quick gestures, hands, perspective, construction, anatomy, personal work etc. They don't do a full rendered still life, the ones who do, end up with bad habits when they try to draw without reference or get bored of trying to be human photocopier. Still, there are people who advocate as the best thing in the world, what the fuck?
I'm sure this could be a pointless thread of one school of thought vs another.
But I'll just say that Feng Zhu has natural born talent and can translate his mind on to paper much easier than most people.
>>2467076
the best way to learn to draw is to do everything. Holistic learning is undeniably the most effective route to true mastery. If you aspire to be a great artist then you shouldn't just read one book on perspective. you should every published thing on perspective you can. same goes for anatomy etc. the same goes for drawing techniques (life, reference, imagination), they all have different feels, different strengths and weaknesses. Included all the different mediums you could possibly render or work in and you have a lot of work to do. Don't fall into the trap that most people do of worrying about it. Drawing from life definitely has its merits. If you can do it. Then do it. If you really can't you aren't going to fail, you just won't be as good as you could be.
>>2467076
Cause it gives you an idea of how things are constructed anatomically.
You don't have to solely dedicate yourself to drawing from life, but it's recommended to expand your knowledge and skill of human anatomy.
Of course, there are always exceptions.
If you're going for a stylized work, then yeah, by all means, go nuts.
In the end I think it really just is a question of personal preference, and how creative and knowledgeable you are as an artist.
(Also, regarding Feng Zhu: don't most of the students that go there end up having drawings that look like one another's?)
Your eyes aren't as accurate as you think
Drawing from life strengthens your ability to measure shapes, values and colours.
Even Vilppu admits that he still needs to measure the number of heads when drawing figures sometimes as your eyes will forever deceive you.
What Feng Zhu means when he says you don't need to draw from life is that you don't need to draw from life to gain good enough measuring skills for concept art because the skill level for concept art is pretty low in the overall journey of art
Drawing from life doesn't just mean drawing a still life or drawing a figure it means to understand the world. All creative works originate from life, would you rather learn from the master or the master of the master (of course the second master had created new things to help speed up the process to be more efficient in some aspects than the first master - studying star wars is a better method to learning to draw star wars than studying what the guys who made star wars studied you get the point)
>>2467083
>Also, regarding Feng Zhu: don't most of the students that go there end up having drawings that look like one another's?
Teaching individuality and a unique style is not the job of a 1-2 year school program that is focusing on perspective and hard surface design. If FZD graduates keep drawing in Feng's personal style then that's either their choice or their lack of interest to find their own artistic voice, but certainly not the fault of the school they went to..
>>2467085
I explained that I'm talking about measuring as much as possible, measuring the heads for the overall height is different from exactly measuring every landmark, angles, shadow shapes, negative spaces, etc. Of course everything is based on life.
>>2467076
It's actuall more a about the other things than just the actual drawing. When you draw from life, you are outside your bubble full of dragons and space marines or cartoon pon. You are around people, with different ways of seeing and drawing style. Some might be better so you are confronted with being shit artist in person. You actualy have to go out of your way to attend lifedrawing lesson in opposite of being 3 clicks away from whatever you ficking want. You have work with what you have. You cant pose the model how you want, you draw with what you bring. You are trying to get best result while model can change position little bit after a break. You draw what you see but it feels off until you walk around the model and starts understand the construction. You socialize with your peers and get their insight to their process. You make friendships that might land you jobs in future. You go outside to smoke a ciggarete and have a nice conversation with a cute girl who draw across the room.
And that's what it means to draw from life.
After that you can go home and do your gestures, quickstudies, hands, perspective, construction. All the thing you can do alone anytime you want.
But hey, why would you ever do something like that since your ambitions ends with dragons, space marines and cartoon porn :^)
>>2467083
You learn anatomy from doing studies. In the kind of drawing I'm talking you can do a excellent job just from copying, not understanding anatomy, you can spend years drawing from life without any formal knowledge of perspective, anatomy and etc, because you are just measuring.
>>2467077
>Feng Zhu has natural born talent
No. Gonna stop ya' right there, that's not an actual thing, buddy. He crawled out the of his mother's vagina the same way we all did. There's no spark, or exceedingly rare brain function that allows certain people to do art better.
>>2467246
There is spark, but Feng Zhu didn't had it.
>>2467246
It's funny because Feng Zhu actually disagrees with both of you. He mentions in his "learning on your own" video that in his experience 1/100 (or less) of his students seem to have a natural proclivity to learning the subjects he's teaching or from tutorials at a much faster pace than their peers. He does not consider himself among them.
>>2467246
Mate, you're an idiot if you don't think some people have a mental advantage over others.
A total blithering idiot.
>>2467296
Somewhat relevant
>>2467296
Listen, mate. If you believe that a mental advantage is so much greater than that of practice and patience, then why are you here? You'll never compare to those people with the spark, unless if you're so full of yourself to believe you have the spark. There's a reason it's a meme on here.
Now, that's just what I like to believe. Honestly, it's nothing more than my ass talking. The thought someone could cruise by while I spend everyday working hard and we both equate to the same skill level is a huge fuck you to my face, and I need every bit of reason to stay determined nowadays.
>>2467307
There will always be someone who's art is above you until you die.
Even if you try your hardest rejection will still slap you in the face until you want to quit.
Though,
Someone who sounds as depressed as you has probably never even read the correct books to even surpass the people ahead of you.
https://www.depts.ttu.edu/upwardbound/books/the-7-habits-ofhighly-effective-people.pdf
This book is more important than Loomis if you even vaguely want to succeed.
If you treat it as your bible, you might have a chance.
But you're never going to be Picasso.
>>2467302
I don't think that citing one article (which doesn't seem to even mentioned who did or where this study can be accessed) is proof positive that genes affect your ability to make art directly. Even in the article itself it says nurture is important to overall well being, even if it doesn't make you "smarter".
You can have all the latent talent in the world, if you are too lazy or full of neuroses, you'll never succeed. Aptitude isn't the end all of ability, and if someone wants to use talent as an excuse for failure, regardless of their natural ability they're already behind someone whose well adjusted and driven.
>>2467410
I understand why you are denying any sign of, talent because it is true anyone can make it as an artist with hard work and practice. But peoples brains are different its just a fact, some people literally cant even imagine anything.
https://www.rt.com/news/313610-mind-eye-aphantasia-scientists/
>not having the spark
You should kill yourselves to end the suffering tbqh senpaitachi
i dunno but petey hang has been posting a lot of sketchbook drawings from life at museums he goes to
>>2467158
pretty sure its mostly about drawing and not all that other normie shit senpai
>>2467307
people like you should be weeded out of the gene pool then
>>2467497
>don't want to open the link, suspect it's yet another book full of worthless banalities
>open it anyway
>go to the end
>" I believe that there are parts to human nature that cannot be reached by either legislation or education, but require the power of God to deal with. I believe that as human beings, we cannot perfect ourselves. To the degree to which we a
lign ourselves with correct principles, divine endowments will be released within our nature in enabling us to fulfill the measure of our creation."
oh boy
If you looked at the one guy posting on/ic/ who went to FZD, you'll see he's pretty bad. Since feng doesn't advocate life drawing (or teach it), this student probably doesn't do life drawing.
Now on the other hand, catbib- who does life drawing, is evidently good (self taught and much better than ex-FZD student). A logical conclusion therefore- life drawing is key to being good and the quote should be reworded to -"You don't need to go to my school to get good" - Feng Zhu
eh, drawing from life also means you observe from life. which good artist already do, but some noobs never wanna stop with their pretty photostudies so you have to tell them t actually go out. fooking basementdweelers, i swear.
>>2467246
What about having superior visualization abilities?
>>2467246
Are you retarded?
Of course there's a thing as natural born talent. It's like everything else, genetics and such play into it. It's not everything, but it's still a thing.
>>2467497
Where in that post do I deny talent, or that brains aren't different? I don't. What I'm saying is that whether or not you have "talent" isn't the end all determining factor of how successful you are, if it's even all that relevant, in the arts.
Frankly, there aren't that many masters in any field, and yet hundreds, even thousand thrive regardless of their "talent" relative to the masters.
I wish some anons on /ic/ didn't see art as this zero sum game, either you're on the level of whatever flavor of the month master or your some kind of genetic inferior. I can see why some would find that comforting, it protects the ego when your failure is ultimately out of your hands, but ultimately it's useless to think that way. Leverage your aptitudes. If you're not a master draftsmen, get as good as "your genes will allow", and find a niche you can fill.
>legit thread turned into spark thread
thanks
>>2467158
> smoking beyond the age of 15
stop trying to sound like a braindead normie, anon. Smoking is so stupid.
>>2467158
So, you are agreeing with Feng? Because you just made drawing from life sound like its only value is akin to going out for a drink.
I guess when you are this autistic and have no regular social contacts, the little bit of social interaction you get from life drawing might indeed be important to you, but that's kinda your own problem and doesn't really apply to most other people. Most artists don't go to life drawing classes for the social interactions. That's what friends are for, you fucking weirdo.
>>2467595
If you go to drawing lessons just to draw, you are wasting your opportunities.
>>2468212
The amount of interresting interactions I got buy sharing a cigarette with someone is worth it. Feels good when former art director of MPC ask you for a smoke and then gives you portfolio review.
>>2468290
No, you should do both. You draw from life to get gud (as I said, you get gud through limitations, not by having unlimited time to do study of hot girl photo) and also socially interact to and widen your view of what is possible and what is new on the scene. I'm not aying that you cant get gud buy neeting in basement, but it's harder and it shows in your work
>>2467246
>he thinks there's no such thing as talent
'lack of talent' is not an excuse. That doesn't mean some people don't learn skills more intuitively than others. They're usually not flat out talented at art in general (given the variety of elements involved), but take to certain aspects more easily than others - I fucking guarantee you if you do a poll of "which artistic element did you find really easy / really difficult to learn?" between shit like lighting, form, perspective, construction, color etc you will get different answers. Some people don't get why others have trouble with certain things. You need to be intentionally obtuse to miss this reality.
People are predisposed to certain skills. It's not an excuse for failure - effort and determination trumps talent, but it's reality. Get over it.
>>2468340
if you're better at something of find it easier, you've spent a lot more time on it and have had things in the past that make it easier :), you're the one who should get over your awful mindset
>>2468579
It's not an awful mindset, it's just being realistic rather than some delusional fuckwit who's managed to convince himself that everyone is 100% equal in all respects.
As I said, saying "the only reason i can't do it is because I'm not talented" is no excuse. Anyone can do it. That doesn't magically mean some people don't find certain things more intuitive. /ic/ has taken contrarianism of the "I'm just not talented enough ):" to its opposite, equally stupid extreme.
>>2467076
I've never advocated that.
But life drawing is still much useful. You don't have to render everything to 100% perfection though desu sempai, in fact, you'll just waste time that you could use for more gestures. If you want to practice rendering, you might as well do it from a photo, or by studying masters.
Go to those life drawing sessions where the models do a lot of less than 10 minute poses if possible, I improved noticeably after I started doing that.
>>2467246
There is something called intelligence though. Some people are smarter than others and learn things faster.
The guys who are "natural" at drawing would be "natural" at quite a few other things if they put their minds to it.
