I'm not comfortable drawing without references..

[Sleep_Eden_sleep]

Is that a bad thing? Just as an FYI on my skills - I haven't attended any art schools yet (well, I attended Academy of Art's high school programs) so I have no formal training other than a couple of drawing classes at my local community college. I've always been able to draw though, but it's only recently that I've started doing more realism. I consider myself to be very rational/scientific when it comes to doing still life or copying anything from real life basically, in a sense that I have all the information there, it's just a matter of problem solving in order to make it look either realistic enough or as realistic as possible. I never made a "as realistic as possible" drawing or painting but I don't think it's impossible.

Now, I'm putting together a portfolio and I'm having a problem including pieces that I actually like. For me, there's a technical standard in which I personally have to live up to because I know better (my heroes including such artists like Michael Hussar and 15th-16th century artists like Caravaggio and Rembrandt.) Unfortunately my standards aren't living up to my skills yet. I mean, I have no problem doing still life, but when it comes to imaginative/concept art, I'm just stumped.

Don't get me wrong, I'm probably one of the most imaginative people around being that I love fantasizing about fantastic things. I just have a problem executing them correctly on paper. If I were able to get some models in costumes in a set (all of which I can pick out), that would be no problem for me to draw, but I have none of that.

So should I still push forward to try and make things work with my imaginative drawings even though they might turn out mediocre and not live up to my expectation or should I just stick to what I'm good at right now, which would be a lot of still life and self portraits? I have so many good ideas, but at the same time I don't want to show the school art that I'm not happy with.

Are there any tips any of you pros can give me? Any exercises to better my imagination concept-to-paper skills? I know it's a common dilemma and usually I just wouldn't ask for help, but I just need some advice from anyone of you who can provide any because I need to turn in this portfolio asap. I guess I'm getting what you can consider as the artist's equivalent of a writer's block. Such bad timing too.

[Mirana]

Everybody draws better with reference. There are plenty of pros that don't do art without models and props. Of course the old masters did the same thing.

Personally, I think the difference is what YOU bring to the piece. If you're just a copy machine, then who cares? You have to take the ref and make it BETTER. More fanciful, more fluid, more dramatic.

What I suggest is think up your "from imagination" idea, then use yourself to pose it out in a mirror (doing gestures to capture it, or taking pictures), and look up the types of props you need. This way you'll have the reference in pieces, but it's up to you how you put them together.

[Ilaekae]

What she said...

...and I can't draw a damn thing without a moldy cup of coffee and a cig hangin' out of my mouth. Big deal.

Oh...and I was TAUGHT...got that word?--TAUGHT to build a massive reference file on just about everything I could find. It was called a morgue and was basically a couple of hundred pounds of reference clippings, and if real artists aren't supposed to use ref, I wasted a lot of time I wish I had back right now... :P

[DavePalumbo]

basically a couple of hundred pounds of reference clippings

hey gramps, we got this thing now called the internet :P I kid, hardcopy refs cannot be beat.

regarding the issue here: get access to a halfway decent digital camera and shoot some photos. Hell, even a crapy digital camera. If you can't get friends to help you, set the timer and pose yourself. Improvise costumes out of whatever you have on hand, be creative.

[D.C.]

I came across the following advice from mentler in his "The book of bones" thread: http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=26748&page=1


Short Muscles of The Hand (from memory)
.....
I am posting my mistakes along with everything else to let you see the process (that is how u learn)
I study something ::: then try it from memory ::: then study it some more!
It is not an easy process ::: but it is the best process I have found ::: I started out like everyone else coping the plates out of anatomy books, but it wasn't till I started learning to do it from memory that I felt I was really learning to draw!...



...
The the rest of you who are studying the human form and trying to figure out how it works. This is an exercise I started doing two or three months ago that has helped me understand my weaknesses and helped me focus on the areas I need to work on.

What I do is draw the figure from 3 points of view: front, back and side.
This is an old academic exercise called "3 graces" or "tre garzie" in Italian.
I do this without a model or any reference of any kind ~ I try to do this every day even if they are pretty simple poses some days.
...

You should draw from memory every chance you get ::: it will seem hard at first but it gets easier the more you do it ::: if you are working from life you can do this same thing by moving around the room to three different positions during longer poses. Another way to approach this exercise is to find a good piece of reference, ideally an old master drawing of the figure, draw it then draw the other two views as you imagine them. In other words, if you have a front view of the figure, draw it, then use your imagination to draw a side view and a back view. I won't be easy but you will learn a great deal. If you do these "three graces" exercises a few dozen times you will see amazing progress ~ it has worked for me ~ give it a try!

Check out his thread (if you already haven't). It's awesome.

[Noah Bradley]

I was just reading some Loomis last night (Creative Illustration), and his recommendation is to not use any reference for the thumbnails or roughs, but once you get to that point: get some friggin' reference. His argument is that you're not going to be able to consistently beat out the other guy who always uses reference, if you hold to using none at all.

It was advice I myself needed to hear. :)

[johanflod]

when you do the concept for your painting you can simply use stick figures or similiar just to get down the composition and roughly the shading. The mistake I used to make is that i wanted it to look really kick as from the start and I did not allow myself to doodle with simple figures. when you look at Frank frazetta sketches for example they look simple but they capture the essence of what he wants to do. Once you have the picture down with stick figures you can get somebody to pose for you and buid up the level of detail in the picture.

off topic: I have started to draw more from life latelly and it is much easier to get the actual 3d form of an object when you can walk around it. this maybe sounds obvious but I go to sculpture museums and life drawing classes at the moment and it is a lot more fun than drawing from photos. even if you have taken photos of the pose you want i would recomend to get somebody to pose at least for a short while.

[Izi]

...and I can't draw a damn thing without a moldy cup of coffee and a cig hangin' out of my mouth. Big deal.


please don't stop posting...PLEASE

[Jazz]

Sleep...Eden, if you only recently started drawing from imagination, well, that's fine!! It's not easy knowing right away where and how elements measure and fit together on a subject without some refs to be sure! Sometimes, as you'll see, different refs have nuances that might even throw you off (like head shapes, muscles, etc.). It would be pretty difficult to keep all that info in your imagination until you get enough time with the subject(s)!

So, what everyone's saying about references: YES! Keep as much as you can!! I got refs all over the place, but especially on my computer. I even included fictional cartoon characters, because I sure do forget how to draw them from imagination, too! hee hee. And also as said, you add your twist and make the piece your own, no matter how many references you use!

Good success!

[Elwell]

In summation...
Is that a bad thing?

No. Stop worrying so damned much.

[ShroudStar]

Someone either on this site or on DA - yes, there are some pros on there - said that if your art style is focused on realism, you'll always be using and referring to reference. I'm using it constantly for my work now and I'm noticing how much faster I'm learning. Once I got rid of that mindset of "working with reference is not good", it helped.

[Toxdel]

Here is what I would advice. Use reference but only in certain ways. For instance...Ahem: Use reference when you need to figure out how to draw an arm in a certain position for a character your drawing. Try to look at several different reference pictures so you have a broad idea of how that arm could look in different lighting situations, poses, etc, etc. And don't be afraid to use reference for any number of things for one piece.

However there is also a bad way to use reference and I witnessed this on a grand scale during highschool. I had a teacher who use to tell everyone of his students it was ok to completely copy an image and call it their "art". He would take pictures from magazines, merely copy them in graphite or acrylic and label it as his art. He was an older man and had spent his entire career doing such, and one day when he was asked to draw something from his mind he drew up a complete blank and said he couldn't do it. When you treat your art like a copy machine it becomes not only dull and boring but you never really learn how to draw things WITHOUT reference.

Don't use reference to copy, use reference as an indication of what you should do. If you need to look up how to draw an arm in a certain situation please by all means do so. Analyze it, study it, compare it with other photos and decide on what information from that reference your going to put down and what your going to change to match your style and taste. Use reference but still be yourself and not a copy machine.

- Tox, out :P

[J Wilson]

hey gramps, we got this thing now called the internet :P I kid, hardcopy refs cannot be beat.

regarding the issue here: get access to a halfway decent digital camera and shoot some photos. Hell, even a crapy digital camera. If you can't get friends to help you, set the timer and pose yourself. Improvise costumes out of whatever you have on hand, be creative.

Hah, I was in art school in the beginning of the 90's, so the internet was still developing. We were taught all about morgues (and the art school had one of course). Luckily by the time I graduated the internet was a pretty reliable place to find photos of almost anything, and now you can not only find almost anything, but you have a ton of choices as well. I can't help but still file stuff away for future use, but it's at least a digital morgue, so no bulky filing systems.

Another great option is dvds and a computer that can take screen grabs.

To the original poster, use as much reference as you can and do the best you can. It may not live up to your standards and hopes and dreams, but you need to start somewhere. If you let not having all the skills you desire stop you from trying, you'll never get anywhere.

[Flake]

Use reference or memorise what everything has looked like, ever.

Your call.

[dose]

Don't just stick to what you're good at.

Get reference whenever you can. However, the better you can draw from your imagination, the more mileage you will be able to get out of your reference.

I don't know your work, but usually the biggest block to drawing from imagination is a poor understanding of perspective. Learn it very well- beyond just drawing a couple cubes. Most people skimp on perspective and don't take it as far as it really needs to be taken to make it really useful.

[cgaddict]

I had the same problem; What you should do, IMO, is go back to the basics for a bit; Concentrate on building the human form with simple shapes, mainly cylinders. Do this for a while, and this should boost your confidence as an artist.

[tash9]

Start doing drawings, if you are drawing objects, with your eyes on the object 90% of the time. This will attach your eyebrain cells to the thing, instead of the thinking particles attached to the drawing which is probably wrong anyway.
You will start to imagine your pencil is digging at the guy's inner thighs, following that contour.

[BubbaGump]

One neat bit of advice I read: draw the thing you want to draw without reference (i.e. a bike). Then look up the reference and "copy" it. Then draw it again from your imagination and see what you improved on from your first picture.

The second picture will always look the best (duh) but hopefully, the third will be done from memory and better than the first.

[mwillustration]

i'm terrible without refs, period.
but, not many people can do very well even with great refs, so you got a one up on them.

in art school, we had a class where you concentrated on rendering, and we used photos that we'd trace to then practice rendering techniques. it was done to make sure proportions were correct, etc so that you could concentrate on the technique.
well despite that huge shortcut to getting proportions right, when it came to either painting or shading over the initial drawing, some could not retain the proportions in their final piece (not to mention the right levels of contrast and color among other things).
so you still have to observe and be able to draw if you use refs, even if you trace them sometimes!
ability tends to shine through no matter what your method, imo.

[pok82]

So should I still push forward to try and make things work with my imaginative drawings even though they might turn out mediocre and not live up to my expectation or should I just stick to what I'm good at right now, which would be a lot of still life and self portraits? I have so many good ideas, but at the same time I don't want to show the school art that I'm not happy with.

Well, if you're drawing pretty good from references chance are you draw pretty good without them. I learned to draw from comics. I could copy artists like Joe Mad, but couldn't draw off the top of my head to save my life... until I tried to redraw Joe Mad's stuff from memory. Turned out that I could and usually it was better than I thought it was.

Same thing with reference. You're cataloging all that info, so it's really just a matter of letting go of your expectations than your non-reference stuff not being good.

Still, you feel better using reference you could try drawing the piece twice, once with reference and then again from memory and just make the one from memory more imaginative.

[Jie Kageshinzo]

I just use references when I need to draw something a certain way, and then I learn from it. If you're just gonna us a reference to draw and then forget why it's that way, then you're just a copy machine and you'll have a problem with it again in the future.

[emily g]

I can't believe no one has linked to this (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=123346) thread yet!!!

This is what I made it for!!

:P :P

[vvv]

since u said that you are drawing pretty realistic, it might be that ur drawing the way Harold Speed described as "mass drawing" (i think). It means, accurately drawing shapes and values as they appear flat on your retina. That kind of drawing probably wont help u muh when drawing from imagination. U have to get a feel for form (lol). Try Vilppus book or videos. First chapters deal with simple forms like boxes, spheres, cylinders, but it doesn matter which u use. U could use Bridgmans, which are a bit more complicated and get same result. More u know the things u are drawing in more smaller forms u can break them.

its hard for me to describe what i think in english, but i hope u get it :)

[Deadsprite]

God, i have references of everything, styles, people, places, items, body parts ... i even have a whole sketchbook devoted to the finger with the facing page being nothing but images of different fingers.

[sanakris]

It's a common saying among popular artists "That refer to your reference not copy it" I mean if it's a portrait or something, that that could be okay. but if you copy too many refs nothing will flow out of your own brain. and you'll become dependent and almost addicted to refs.

[Deadsprite]

thats true, but then again, if you're drawing something specific and realistically (say a yellow spotted tree frog or coral snake) ... all the imagination in the world can't replace a good reference.

[HunterKiller_]

Learn it very well- beyond just drawing a couple cubes. Most people skimp on perspective and don't take it as far as it really needs to be taken to make it really useful.

How far does it need to be taken?

I'm serious, I don't know how what I should do to practice perspective besides drawing cubes and other geometric shapes in various arrangements.

[alesoun]

I think there's a difference between drawing WITH ref, and drawing FROM ref.
Maybe imagination provides the bridge?

[Mirana]

I don't know how what I should do to practice perspective besides drawing cubes and other geometric shapes in various arrangements.

Draw...real stuff? Like try drawing your desk chair in three-point bird's eye and then actually get in that position to see what it looks like. Draw a full scene with a background and to-scale figures. Just...stuff you'd normally do. :shrug:

[Justice Von Brandt]

photo reference is a gift from the art gods, be blessed

[ArneSReismueller]

How far does it need to be taken?

I'm serious, I don't know how what I should do to practice perspective besides drawing cubes and other geometric shapes in various arrangements.

perspective is nothing else then drawing cubes and other geometric shapes.
look at the book "drawing comics the marvel way" by buscema. he describes how he starts every drawing by just arranging simple geometric forms (and stickfigures for the characters). it might open your eyes and let you say "wow, i can draw anything!"
to be serious: drawing perspective without geometric shapes at the beginning is just a matter of experience.

[HunterKiller_]

Draw...real stuff? Like try drawing your desk chair in three-point bird's eye and then actually get in that position to see what it looks like. Draw a full scene with a background and to-scale figures. Just...stuff you'd normally do. :shrug:

Hmmm... Ok. I already do those things. I dunno, I just thought there was... something else. :shrug:

[Mirana]

drawing perspective without geometric shapes at the beginning is just a matter of experience.

Hmm, and I was taught that sketching out the scene roughly in thumbs and THEN going back in and tightening up the perspective kept you from being too stiff and a slave to the lines (which real world things do not follow to a T). Both work, though.

[kingshaj]

im really digging refs ...but as always have found drawing from reference to be a bigger challenge than drawing from my head, or anatomy knowledge ( as incomplete as it is ).

maybe its that very challenge thats making the exercise so fun lately...

i find that truly capturing a likeness is beyond me....for now:)





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[Farvus]

Drawing without reference is easy if you don't care about being photorealistic but focus on other things like mood or fun :).

[kingshaj]

FARVUS:

'id add motion, energy and dynamism to that list 50% of the time....one can certainly gain understanding of these 2 elements with foto refs....but i suspect that is a rare artist...its just harder that way.

if they animate or sculpt etc to offset the idea that the ref is a real concrete 3d thing and not subject to its own errors ...
they'l be fine...no rule here, just a common pitfall.

you hear alot of :

"well thats how it was in the photo"...:geekg: "so, its wrong"....followed by a blank stare....:\

anecdote:
i took a photo realism class in college with ok results (tons of projection used..not the same as a reference of course:) ) but ill always remember the professor's mantra.... "remember the photo is always...always, wrong."

he simply meant :the illusionistic space is often ruined by flashes or odd lenses or just the compressed nature of a 2d photo. and that we had to constantly remind ourselves to inject our life drawing, life sculpting, and anatomy knowledge into the rendering.


maybe im stating the obvious. ..lol
but i hope its helpful to someone



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---

[Farvus]

Yeah. I agree about the motion and energy. I forgot to mention that.

Painting/drawing is supposed to be built equally on every level instead of being assembled from parts. Badly used reference creates "empty holes" in the creating process and it can be sometimes felt in the finished pic as certain lack of harmony.

There is also one fact. Drawing or painting will always be illusion of reality no matter how many reference you use. You just gotta accept it and it puts everything in slightly different light :).

I'm also propably writing obvious things but whatever :P.

[kingshaj]

yes its the age old dilemma how to be loose and tight at the same time.
flow vs detail ..wich seem to be inherently at odds.

as to illusion and reality: well said
when i want reality i just go outside ... when i want illusion i bring my sketchbook:P



ps: wouldn't "user banned for this post" be a great signature?..lol



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[D.C.]

yes its the age old dilemma how to be loose and

ps: wouldn't "user banned for this post" be a great signature?..lol

-

I thougth it was his sig :), because I don't see anything inflamatory in his post (did a mod edit his post?).

[emily g]

No, it is his sig. If someone edits a post, the date and user who edited it will show up on the bottom of the post. (Unless you edit it right away, then that info won't show up.)

[kingshaj]

doh! i'm gullible. got me..lol

[bhanu]

i like how the 19th century artists used camerasa and pictures