Practice! Is the key to improve a skill.

[Elfdrinkingtea]

HI everyone. Any one here is a very good realistic drawer; face drawing and human figure? Did it completely help you improve your drawing skill by practicing? Did reading book on drawing subjects help you? If yes please recommend some.

[Aurian]

I'd say practice! I haven't really found any good books for drawing (and I have taken 4 years of art classes in college).

 

I find the best practice is to collect pictures from magazines to work from and try sketching people.

[BrokenWingedFaery]

Also, buy one of those posable wooden figures, they sell em in walmart.

[nottoogreen]

Sure practicing a lot helps a lot.

 

Success in highly mind oriented activites mostly depends on interest++++ "love" if you like. Only you know where your heart belongs.

 

If you feel it's the right thing for you, give it your best and you will succeed!

[laboheme]

Practice, practice, practice. I don't do art anymore, but when I did, it helped immensely to do really quick gesture drawings and gradually flesh out from there. I've always been told to try and capture the essense with the minimal amount of lines before actually bothering with refining the features (vigorous, loose sketching is my best friend!). A lot of students I knew would focus on too much detail right away and lose the overall balance of the figure or the face.

 

As far as books...a lot of instruction manuals are fairly useless, they do a good job of covering the supplies and how to buy them, but not technique. I agree with the previous comment about sketching from magazines. Also, look at works by the great masters, focusing on drawings, sketches and studies rather than paintings. There are plenty of art albums that showcase things like that. It really helps to see what linework there is underneath their masterpieces!

 

Good luck! (What medium do you work in, by the way?)

[LIFE]

HI everyone. Any one here is a very good realistic drawer; face drawing and human figure? Did it completely help you improve your drawing skill by practicing? Did reading book on drawing subjects help you? If yes please recommend some.

 

 

 

I am a good realistic drawer. But I rarely practice. I will tell you this, drawing a human face or a real-life figure have very little to do with technique. It has very little to do with the way you hold the pencil, the way you draw your strokes, lines, curves or whatever the hell. The most important thing is being meticulous, just being very careful in general. All you have to do is take a photo of yourself and try to draw it. The most important thing is see and remember what you look like. Look at the photo for as long as you can, until you remember every little detail. How long your hair is, how your eyebrow is shaped, how big your forehead is, and then slowly draw what you see in the photo. It has very little to do with coordination, but more with memory. Do you get what I'm saying?

[laboheme]

You have a good point; however, oftentimes people can't transfer their mental image to paper. Kind of like knowing what you want to say, but not being able to put it into words, or knowing a song but not being able to sing it because your voice isn't set. Memory is definitely important, but regular practice helps you channel it through your hand onto paper (or canvas). It really takes talent to be able to draw what you see without practicing (you lucky duck!). But you're right, who cares how you hold the brush or what strokes you make? It's a matter of personal taste, and as long as the result is what you like, all is good.

[LIFE]

The thing was that I knew this girl who drew two pictures of her face, one with her hand, and the other with her leg. You couldn't really tell the difference, both drawings looked alike simply because she knew every little detail about her face. Because you can't draw with your leg, if you know what I mean.