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Frequently Asked Questions
Is drawing a gift? For every ability, there will be individuals who exhibit an above-average natural aptitude. That can certainly happen with drawing, but by and large, any person who can write by hand can learn to draw. We will not all become major visual artists, but everyone can acquire decent skills, just like everyone can learn to swim or speak decent Spanish, barring specific handicaps, of course.
Why do so many people believe it is?
This is an interesting question that has puzzled me a lot. I think it has to do with the gradual disappearance of drawing as a subject in the schools over the past century. Up to the early 20th century, it was common for an educated person to draw very well. After World War I, the ideas of progressive education gained influence. They emphasized allowing children to follow their spontaneous interests and curiosities. From that perspective, since drawing instruction was indeed dry and repetitive at that time, it started being seen as harmful to the natural creativity of children, and also as obsolete since the art world was changing so fast. Education 'experts' decided it was too difficult and better left to the specialized training of artists. From difficult the perception drifted to mysterious and then to impossible if you don't have a gift for it.
I am the worst artist in the world. Can someone like me really learn to draw?
Absolutely. Look at it this way. I have never had a single saxophone lesson. I could say "I am the worst saxophone player in the world" and that would be true, but that statement would have little meaning since it's obviously not my fault. It's like saying this lamp is the worst saxophone player in the world. It's neither here nor there. The present situation cannot be used to predict what kind of saxophone player I could become with proper instruction.
Here is a conversation that I have had countless times and that continues to amaze me:
- I am teaching a drawing class
- Oh, I would never take that.
- Why?
- Because I can't draw at all.
The speaker would not say that about learning a musical instrument, a language or a sport. He or she would accept the state of beginner as just that – a starting point, but because they see drawing as a gift and not a subject that can be taught, many people somehow consider it 'their fault' that they can't draw. Usually, they concluded a long time ago that they didn't have any 'talent' for it. This is closely related to the previous question. In our programs, we have become very skilled at bringing out and resolving these strange beliefs and the negative feelings that go with them.
How long does it take? Truly surprising results are achieved with as little as one or two hours of instruction. Complete beginners produced these before-and-after drawings of hands within a single 90-minute session.
A 40-hour intensive will allow you to understand and begin to practice all the skills you need in order to draw. A second class will allow these elements to become integrated into a whole. At that point you are really drawing, meaning that you have the certainty that you are not lacking any special knowledge and that it is up to you. You can still make mistakes – correction: you will make mistakes – but you know how to deal with them. You feel safe handling the task. I call that knowing how to draw. The rest is a matter of practice and passion.
40+ hours may seem like a long time but not if you compare it to the hundreds, even thousands of hours people spend in traditional 'life classes' without any systematic instruction, hoping that something, anything, will happen. And it is very short compared to 'never' which is how most people see it.
For a motivated pupil in one-on-one sessions instead of group classes, these numbers can be cut in half or more.
These two self-portraits by a private student are less than twenty hours apart. Incidentally, the likeness in the second one is excellent.
Can you help me draw fashion designs, interior designs, superheroes, car designs, comic books, tattoos, designs for my favorite craft, etc? Yes and no. Directly, no, because I teach observing what is in front of you, not drawing what you see only in your mind's eye. Indirectly, yes, because drawing from observation will build up a visual vocabulary of forms from which you can draw (no pun intended) to invent images. It will also teach you the logic of representation – what something is supposed to look like from a certain angle or under a certain light, for example. These things tend to become second nature through the practice of drawing. Highly skilled draughtspersons such as comic book artists have done a lot of direct perceptual drawing.
There is another fact that is not always well understood. When they work on a specific project, professional artists and designers usually do research and use existing documents. I can show you how to start from existing images to create your projects. That is a part of basic visual literacy of which drawing is an essential building block. You can look at it this way: with basic drawing skills, you are learning to read and write, not to create beautiful poetry. But one could not exist without the other.
Isn't drawing obsolete in the era of digital everything? Is it still a foundation for the study of art? No. Yes. Art directors who hire new art school graduates complain a lot about the lack of visual culture among the younger, computer-savvy generations. Technical skills that do not rest on a solid ground of visual common sense, so to speak, lose a lot of their usefulness. Learning to draw provides that common sense as well as taste and visual reasoning skills. One does not have to become expert to reap these benefits.
My child loves art and is really good at it. What can I do to support her/his development? It depends on the child's age. Children's art goes through several stages that are fairly predictable. At one point (usually between 9 and 14 years of age), they become intensely dissatisfied with the 'childlike' look of their drawings. They will ask teachers -- and any adults who look like they could help – how to make things look more 'real.' That stage is the ideal time to begin the systematic study of drawing. If no help is offered, children are likely to get frustrated with their limited skills and give up art, concluding that they don't have any 'talent' for it. It is easy to reach that conclusion since there is no wide agreement in the culture that drawing is a teachable skill (see the first three questions). If your child is in that age range and is compulsively drawing detail-rich pictures of spaceships, monsters and other fantasy creatures, the best thing to do is find someone who can teach her/him some observational drawing skills. Unfortunately, that is easily said than done. Contact me – I might know someone in your area who can help.
Before that developmental stage, systematic instruction in drawing should be introduced very cautiously, in small doses and by experts only, or not at all. Untrained children's art has an important function in healthy cognitive development. Kids should have all kinds of art materials and projects available and be left in peace to explore them, for the most part. Exposing children to the visual culture of many times and places is important too, as is building links between art and other areas of learning about the world. In those areas, art teachers do wonderful work.
How is drawing from observation related to creativity? The word creativity can cover many things. Some people use it for anything remotely 'artistic' and will call, for instance, painting by numbers a 'creative' hobby. In that sense, drawing obviously belongs in the realm of creativity.
In the more restricted meaning of generating original ideas, designs and points of view , the relationship is less obvious but there is an important one. The words we use to describe a situation to ourselves tend to control our perception of it and prevent it from changing. By shifting into a non-verbal cognitive mode, we 'step out' of the concepts and categories that imprison our thinking. Many people believe that it is impossible to think without words. After you have had the experience and know for yourself that it is possible indeed, you can use the slightly altered state of perceptual drawing to 'loosen' your assumptions about the issue or project you are working on and facilitate the appearance of new ideas. You are in effect using drawing as a lateral thinking technique. Dr. Betty Edwards's second book, Drawing on the Artist Within, has a lot more to say about this approach.
Why couldn't I understand anything my art teacher was saying to me in high school? The answer to that one is not simple, but the main point is that it is not your fault. Most of the talking and writing about art involves an attempt to keep things mysterious, even mystical. Teachers like to preserve the prestige of being an expert by maintaining that special aura around their subject. Most art teachers do not know that it is possible to teach drawing with a structured, systematic method. In fact, many art teachers do not know how to draw, as odd as this may sound. Teachers and students lack the common, fundamental approach to art that perceptual drawing would provide. Without such common ground, much of the conversation about art is vague, misty and mystifying.
Can you come to my school, school district, college, university, business, club, youth program, summer camp, prison, workshop center, village, city or country to offer a program?
Sure, I would love to. Please drop me a line.
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