Monday, February 2, 2004

In reference to...
There was a post in the Art & Design forum today, that discussed what truly lies behind good art. Is it natural talent? Or is it practice? Or is it both? I tend to think about obscure things alot, and with more passion than anything else, so I started to consider what I thought art was made up of.

Well, when you look at it one way, some small children are just good at drawing. (I am focusing on drawing for now) No one knows why, but they're able to put a pencil to paper and get amazing results, relative to their age. On the other hand, some small children will make a scribble. Is it that the first set of children (a considerably smaller group) is interested, unlike the second group? Probably.
It's the love of drawing that makes the initial, and eventual, difference in whether or not you are, in fact, a good artist. If you don't care about drawing, or view it as a waste of your time, you wont put effort into any drawings you make. And, consequentially, you wont care.

Still, some people might say, "But I love drawing! I just...suck at it." My theory about this? They didn't like it as little kids. I remember that I always loved to draw, even when I was a wee thing, playing with blocks. I would draw everything, everywhere. Meanwhile, other kids would ask me why I drew so much. Of course, I would just shrug. That's what we all do when pressed for such things, is it not?^^"
It might be because we really don't know what we love about drawing so much. If you were to ask me, I might say that it's because I love the sensation of having created something on a sheet of blank paper. Something unique, that only I could really ever create, no matter how hard some one tried to copy it. The copy wouldn't have the same thought behind it, the same determination to create a good drawing.
Drawing is an outlet for your feelings. Looking back on my own work, I see that I go through stages of small children playing, and people kissing, and then there are pictures of people with their hands dripping with blood, weapons protruding from every surface, maybe a dead body or two. Big change, huh? Maybe not. It's like writing or playing a sport, when you get right down to it. Your ability and (as far as anything artistic goes) subject matter shift with your feelings. Some people don't see art as a way to express themselves, and there's nothing that can be done for that.
If you learn to put your feelings onto paper with a pencil (or any other writing impliment) and love it at a young age, then you will keep doing it. Here's the practice factor that applies to anything...

Say you took a four year old and had them start lifting weights, or play the piano, or run--pick anything you want. In ten years they'll be able to pick their classmates up and throw them across the room, play a scale as though each note was simply a continuation of the next one, with no break in between (this is a truly amazing sound to hear, allbeit a simple one), or outrun any of their friends. Because they've been trained from a young age. The brain has developed along with this skill, and the individual's mind- and body-set is in tune with what they have focussed on their entire lives.
That's why I think it's extremely important to love art from a young age--starting when you're older wont get the same results. Some one who starts to draw seriously when they're fifteen as oppose to five wont be able to blend features as naturally as genetics itself, create an action pose that simply works without any great amounts of erasing and thinking back to the basics of theory.

Another thing is to think out a drawing. Think of all the details...then just draw it. And draw it, and draw it. And draw it again.

The only way to truly learn to draw without thinking (and do it well :O) is to throw everything else to the wind. Because as long as you have pencil and paper, nothing else matters. Because you love it...
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