Cheating at drawing

[larkie]

Hi all

Thought I'd post something instead of just skulking around all the time.

I wrote a small program recently that puts an 'interactive grid' over a photo and started messing about with the grid method (after rewatching David Hockney's 'Secret Knowledge' documentary that someone kindly uploaded to YouTube). Certainly got better results but was pleased to find it's still quite difficult to get things just right. Roundels for example are just as tricky as ever, and of course you're left to do inking/colouring on your own. I can see how it becomes a crutch though if you're not careful.

Regards, larkie

[NeilF92]

Gridding is not really cheating . Just a standard method for assisting the transfer of an image onto canvas.

If you have it , Photoshop lets you overlay a grid on the photo , go to "View", options and select "Grid" . Not sure if that is the same as your "interactive" grid though Larkie?

Good idea - as long as you don't fall into the traps mentioned below.

Using a photo unadjusted for any lens distortion will simply transfer the photographic distortion onto the canvas . So those of us who can't draw very well ( incl. me) run the risk of finding out that the wonderful painting we have created was flawed right at the start. Tele photo lens shots quite often produce aircraft images where the basics of perspective are stood on their heads - instead of converging at a horizon parallel lines diverge etc. Canopy glazing is also a well known hazard , acting like a hall of mirrors to curve the target aircraft. Fisheye lenses also bend the image.

Edited August 27, 2012 by NeilF92

[TerryJones]

There quite a lot of drawing methods artists employ, using a grid being just one of them. I've never considered it cheating either.There has been a lot of discussion lately on what is acceptable and what isn't, mostly hot air to be honest but the grid method was never questioned. The bottom line is, as long as you don't infringe on copy right and you are happy with your methods what can any body else say?

Good advice from Neil BTW photos can be very deceptive! Have you heard of Joe DeMarco's APM? Keeps you in the loop with drawing and ensures the perspective is right.

http://www.aviart.info/index.html

Cheers,

Terry

[heloman1]

I'm using the gridding method to layout my outline of the two pictures I'm painting at present, otherwise my image would loose all shape. I also use a pair/set of proportional dividers to transfer points of reference once I have over painted the grid. Not stricktly freehand painting but not cheating either. wHATEVER METHOD YOU USE TO GET OT THE FINAL RESULT IS ok WITH ME.

cOLIN ON THE aFRICA sTATION

[heloman1]

And whilst merrily typing the above my computer took over and posted the message all on it's own! Apologies from Bill Gates or what ever his name is now!!!!!!

[larkie]

Hello thanks for replies

Glad to hear other people are using the grid method. I've come to the conclusion that it's a reasonable compromise when working from often quite small photographs and when proportions/angles are critical.

Neill I'll have to look out for the distortions you mention. Actually the number of times I've seen side-on photos of aircraft and it looks like the fuselage is concave (as if the two ends were bending towards you) - sometimes very subtle and other times not so subtle.

Terry thanks for that excellent link I've found there are quite a lot of good photos on flickr and you can filter the results to show only Creative Commons stuff and then filter that to show only images you can use commercially. In fact I should've really attributed those drawings above back to the original photos - I'll find them and then edit the post.

Thanks heloman - I'd seen those proportional divider things before but had no idea what they were used for until now!

Regards, larkie

[TerryJones]

Forgot to mention Larkie, your drawings above are brilliant.Looking forward to seeing more.

Terry

[upnorth]

Definitely not cheating. The grid is just one more tool at the artist's disposal for getting the job done.

In art school and any drawing course I ever went on, they always told us that grids were a perfectly acceptable method as long as you kept possible photographic distortions in mind and compensated for them.

[heloman1]

If I make take the grid method further, during the late seventies I attended a Technical Illustration corse at Ashton Tech in North Manchester, which would have lead to a City andd Guids qualification. After the initial bascis of the course we given perspective grinds to use as an underlay for an illustration exersize. The grid had a six postition cube in the one corner, the angle of view could be determined by the rotation of the grid also the three axis had a scale which diminished along the length towards the horizon/vanishing point.

Unfortunately I was unable to finish the course otherwise my art might have taken another avenue.

As for the proportional dividers, I use them for transfering dimensions from scale drawings or photographs when modelmaking. BTW, they're not cheap, mine are from Staedtler.

I guess we can say the same for elipse guides, circle templates etc also used in tech illustration, they're just another tool.

[heloman1]

As an aside, I have a good book I picked some years ago, The Thames and Hundson Manual of Rendering with Pen and Ink. by Robert W Gill ISBN 0-500-68026-4. It has some interesting notes on perspective and grids as well as it's main topic rendering (shading), which might be worth looking at for anyone wanting to further their studies in techniques.

[pigsty]

Tool, schmool. The only important thing is the result. Technique drives result to a large degree, and there's no substitute for skill, but any method is entirely valid if it gets you to the result you want. (Except for printing off a photo on fake canvas and passing it off as a painting - which is plain dishonest.)

[larkie]

Aw thanks Terry! I'm not too bad at the outlines now so next step is the 'colouring in'. I got a couple of books on painting out of the library the other day and they all seem to agree on one thing, that tone's the most important (full range of values and interesting pattern) - and I think that's probably where I've gone wrong in the past. So I'm going to spend the next few weeks trying out tonal sketches with pencil or watercolour (burnt umber or something). To be honest I don't have a very good intuitive understanding of how tone relates to colour - I can see how it works on its own with just pencil shading but less so when you put everything together.

upnorth, glad to hear you're in the grid camp as well. As long as I don't use it for everything (- I don't) it must be OK.

Thanks for other comments heloman and pigsty.

larkie

[heloman1]

On the first Sunday of each month, The Sedgefield Art Society to which I belong, holds an 'Art in the Park' session, where in the grounds of the local pub we showcase our work and hopefully someone buys a little treasure.

Yesterday I brouched the subject of grids and griding, the concensus was anything that aided getting to the finished goal was acceptable. I made some progress on my current work, John McGuinness aboard his Honda and on his way to becoming the winner of this years Senior TT and twelve time winner. I'll try and post a pic in the vehicle discussion section.

Colin on the FArica Station

[larkie]

I made some progress on my current work, John McGuinness aboard his Honda and on his way to becoming the winner of this years Senior TT and twelve time winner. I'll try and post a pic in the vehicle discussion section.

Hi heloman1

Did you get round to posting any pictures? It's a shame there's no art subsection under vehicles. Could you sneak it in here somehow?

[heloman1]

Hi. Not yet, I did however do some more work on it last week, so it now looks a little less one dimensional. I think I could sneak it into the vehicle discussion section.

It's on the back burner for the next couple of weeks as I'm preparing for our nationals, I have a Lynx to finish.

Colin on the Africa Station

[seadog]

Speaking as a sometime illustrator and painter: Nought wrong with a grid. They've been used since the Middle ages. It's a good way to enlarge or shrink a drawing too. Try googling 'Durer device'. Durer used a gridded frame and a sort of rear sight he could line up his eye on, this was back when artists were still struggling with perspective. If you want to learn how to draw objectively sans grid and computer, i.e. from life, you can do a lot worse than buy Betty Edward's book "Drawing on the Right Hand Side of the Brain" I'v used it to teach observational drawing and basically, if you can write your own name, you have the necessary motor skills to draw. The rest is learning to see...and about six weeks of application. it's a lot of fun and in the end will literally change the way you see the world.

[heloman1]

Hi Seadog. I had a look on Google at the Durer device, some interesting reading thanks for the pointer. I'm hoping to meet up with a guy at our Nat's week after next apparently he can drew car back to front etc, all freehand. His work sounds amazing but I've yet to see it.

Colin on the Africa Station

[larkie]

Hi seadog

Does your sometime illustrating and painting live anywhere on the web?

Thanks for the book recommendation - I think it's in my local library so I'll make sure to borrow/reserve it. I'm already bored with gridding actually - takes too long to set up but I do grid my paper now nearly all the time (freehand) just for my own measuring with pencil and thumb. Googled 'durer device' and found an interesting blog post on that and gridding in general where chap says he just grids to check proportions after drawing freehand which seems a healthy approach.

[wagoneer]

As a practising commercial artist/illustrator working digitally, anything that gets the result I need quickly is good. There's no right or wrong. I'm sure if Leonardo Da VInci had had the use of a camera, he'd have used it!

I work from photographs, tracing effectively, to create product line drawings or vehicles. I do deviate from reality and as your eye is the ultimate judge, as long as it looks right, it probably is.

[Andrew March]

Got to agree with wagoneer, no such thing as cheating these days. You would be amazed at the number of times I have told my other half that the latest jaguar or ford advert had absolutely no real cars in it whatsoever, is that cheating? No, of course not, why pay for the car and camera crew to be flown half way round the world when you can do the whole thing digitally at a fraction of the cost and put it in any light condition or weather condition you want without damaging the real car.

Whatever tools you can use to ease the productive process are considered to be fair game and let's be honest, the last time I was told anything like that might be cheating was in school when I was told to draw freehand. I'm not at school anymore, good job because my old art teacher would have had a heart attack if she saw what I work with now.

[heloman1]

As mentioned above, if Leonardo had a camera.....

Just look athe advances in mediums, paper, board etc. You've got to move with the time and chose a medium that works for you. There is no point in struggling with something that doesn't work for you, you're just going to end up frustrated.

i'm working in acrylics on the back of tempered hardboard as I live near the coast, so I don't want by board subjected to the damp conditions of 80% himidity most days. The acrylic dry fairly quicly but I've learnt a few techniques over the past few months, which help with that.

At 65 I'm one of the younger memebrs of our local art society and they don't like what I paint, action! As they are all into chocolate box stuff, but if that's there bag I'm very happy with what turns me on and if i don't sell anyhting then that's fine too.

If you don't deam, you may as well be dead.

Colin

[Redman]

http://lucyvivante.net/tag/camera-obscura/