Can you learn to draw?

[Mister Scruff]

I ask because I've always wanted to be able to draw things, but for some reason my drawings always end up looking like retarded mutations of horrors from beyond the veil of reality. Either that, or beans with pea-heads, rudimentary smiley faces and sausage arms. Yet, I know a few people who can draw really well without ever having taken a class or spent a moiment of their free time practising.

So, yeah. Can you LEARN to draw something that looks like the thing it's supposed to be, or is it something you have to have a natural aptitude for?

[BlackestLily]

I think most people can. Especially people who say they can't. A lot of my kids come into my room that way, because a lot of people have a tendency to draw what image is in their head and not what is in front of them.

Read the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. It gives a LOT of good, solid explanations why it can be difficult for some, and then how to overcome it. One exercise it has people do is take a picture and turn it upside down. Then instead of say, drawing the man in the picture, you end up drawing the shapes, shadows, and negative spaces you see. It breaks down the assumptions and barriers your brain has that make it predisposed to wanting to draw a leg a certain way, even though it's CLEARLY facing another way. It showed before and after examples of people who claimed they couldn't draw, and the results were there.

Here's a link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/New-Drawing-Ri...9804953&sr=8-3

[playgirl]

i completely second her recommendation for drawing on the right side of the brain. the exercises in the book have been the only time, save once, that i've been able to draw something that actually resembles the image i was copying. now if only anything i wanted to draw could be upside down...

the one exception to having to draw things upside down happened years after reading the book. an ex of mine is an artist and was going to teach me how to draw. one beautiful day we drove out to gloucester, ma where several boats were docked. there was a row boat tipped over near us that we decided to draw. expecting my lesson to begin, i waited for her instruction. she said, "draw what you see." i said, "huh?" she said, "draw what you see." i complained that she had told me she was going to teach me to draw and she explained that we often don't draw what we see, which is really a collection of lines and white spaces. rather we draw what we expect something to look like. needless to say, i was frustrated but proceeded to try to really draw what i saw, thinking back on what i had learned from the upside down exercises. lo and behold, it actually looked like the boat with far more detail and perspective than i would have bet money on.

[Mister Scruff]

Book is ordered; thanks for the recommendations Any other tips or tricks to impart?

[Bohemianne]

Drawing is a skill that can be learned, with or without formal training. The only key to be able to harness the skill is by constant practice, patience and persistence to discipline the hands.

No one learned it overnight. There is a lot to each forms, and the best approach is deductive. Example, if you want to draw a hen, look at the whole blank sheet of paper first, establish the scale and boundaries of your subject where it will be placed, then draw basic outlines like ellipses, then out of that you can draw the hen.

If you are serious, the shortcut is to study human anatomy first. Once you learn it, the rest would be easier to draw. If it would be too hard, you can practice drawing from life. Copy what you see.

[maniactickler]

Im a half decent doodler. i took commercial art back in high school. that was back in my comic book phase.

[Snail Shell]

I have no natural aptitude for drawing. Skill with art is like a skill with anything else; practice the basics and invest time into it. Eventually, you'll get to where you want to be.

Snail Shell

[Cy/MiG]

Of course one can learn to draw, if they keep at it and find their style.

It's all about patience and expression.

Draw what you want/like and then keep drawing it until it's the way you want it.

Rome wasn't drawn in a day... wait...