I want to draw faster so bad. Do you ?

[penzilla]

This is the one thing that drives me insane more than anything else about drawing. The pictures in your head move so fast. For me its especially when I listen to music. But then......the fucking pencil moves SO slow.

How would you cope ?

I try to meditate before i draw to clear my head.

Other things that sort of speed up the process:
-drawing gesture lines first
-drawing forms with a large brush
-looking at the overall picture
-jumping around

Those things sort of help.

Discuss other methods ITT.

[FraserMcT]

Am I the only person whose pencil moves faster than my brain? I need to stop and think more, not the other way round.

[Ilaekae]

"I want to draw faster so bad. Do you ?"

No. I want to draw faster well. Who wants to draw bad at any speed?

[Xeon_OND]

I wish I can draw faster too. I've seen people who can sketch like crazy and their pencil moves non-stop and they don't seem to place emphasis on accuracy and yet the picture looks good.

[Zirngibism]

Another way to record what you're thinking is to draw really, REALLY small. If you're thinking about compositions, limit yourself to one inch on the longest side. That way, you not only draw out your ideas faster, but you're forbidding yourself from being caught up in unnecessary details and corrections. Most illustrators do this during the time when their brain goes all over the place.

[vijil]

Xeon: that's how I work and that seems the best way to work fast. Scribbling is only a bad thing when it's a mess - scribbles can look good too. Accuracy is for finishing things off and is only an issue in the first stages if you're doing lineart. If you're doing a painting or something without hard outlines then accuracy isn't as big a deal.

[HunterKiller_]

One of the best advice I ever got,
Draw slow to draw fast.

[haste]

you can work on slowing your mind down, which happens gradually as you begin to understand more and more about form, lighting, etc. Pictures fade really fast in your head when there are alot of "blanks" to fill in

the important thing isn't about drawing fast at all, its really about drawing accurately which in turns makes it seem like your faster!

[vineris]

I stopped paying so much attention to the pictures in my head. Most aren't worth working on, and there's always another dozen coming along.

[shreat]

One of the best advice I ever got,
Draw slow to draw fast.

Newbie who's trying to learn how to draw people quickly while out in the field (It's not working out well) here. Could you explain what that advice means to you?

[That fat kid]

@shreat: I believe what HunterKiller_ means is that one must do long, intense drawings at a slow, delibrate pace in order to build up the skills and tools one needs in order to do quick, accurate drawings.

Attempting to simply speed up doesn't mean you'll get any better at drawing faster, you'll just make more bad choices at a faster pace. Good drawing is a set of decisions, an economy of movement based on experiences, trying to skip the early stuff will only result in symbol drawing and sets the stage for some terrible habits.

Gesture drawings actually take far more experience than photo-realism to be good. With a highly rendered, finished drawing, it can take months to build it up and correct it. A gesture drawing only gives you one to five minutes to convey as much as possible with as little as possible, which takes a seasoned eye.

The pictures in your head move so fast

Only novices believe anyone just pours their ideas out. No one draws the pictures in their head, they build the picture up right there on the paper, and if they say otherwise, they're probably lying.

[HunterKiller_]

Could you explain what that advice means to you?

It means to be patient with your drawing, to be focused, to be accurate, to be thoughtful.
It's not a literal instruction to draw at a snail's pace, it's about focusing on what you are drawing and why you're drawing it.

When you are 'drawing slow', you will save the time that you would spend fixing a hastily done drawing.
When you draw slow, you can draw accurately, it's much more important than speed.

A musician doesn't learn his instrument by trying to play Beethoven's No.5 symphony in a minute.
A dancer doesn't learn his routine by rushing through it.
It is the same for us.

When drawing in your described situation, it's better to carefully observe the subject and put down a few well placed strokes than madly trying to scribble everything down.

[George Abraham]

Ditto.

[Whirly]

Am I the only person whose pencil moves faster than my brain? I need to stop and think more, not the other way round.

I find this thread really interesting. I posted this http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=179662 a couple of days back saying pretty much the opposite.

I really need to slow down!

[Bruce Pluto]

Penzilla

I do know the feeling. I’ll wager that there’s a ca-zillion fantastic art images that never reach the art page. Why? Because the image looses something in the translation from brain to paper.

The only way I see to get faster, and better is practice. 1,2, 3 hours a day, every day. I know I’m telling you this and I don’t follow it myself but one day I will have the time.

The more you draw the faster you will get, yet there is a downside. Quantity vs. quality. I’d rather pen something people will want to see rather than wasting 1 minute of a viewer time, and mine.

Concentrate on quality first, then speed and quality will progress together.


Bruce

Ilaekae, sound advice ‘ol friend.

[Farvus]

I got the opposite. I want to draw slower so that I can be more efficient .

[nofu]

A dancer doesn't learn his routine by rushing through it.

offtopic
Actually usually we have very little time to make up, learn and refine a routine and quite often you're backstage ready to go on in 3 2 1 and you're still memorising steps etc.

[Baron Impossible]

I agree with what's been said - practice drawing and speed will come naturally. If you're drawing from life and you're finding your targets moving too fast, draw something that doesn't move too fast, like plant pots, tortoises and old people. And no, I'm not kidding.

[George Abraham]

Drawing from life can be pushed to some oblitterating speeds, learning to capture essential information etc.

Drawing from the mind may be differant especially if you have to simmulate/recreate perspective, the proper feeling of space and in space. Projecting for accuracy from the mind is a step back and think process, breathing and summoning the power of the ancient masters. Hehe!

Experience will make you faster either way, There's a differance between a constructing style and a style that's fast direct copying scetching. Practicing alot of construction I guess will eventually add to your understanding of what you are looking at and therefore speed up your abillity to quick scetch because of your knowledge of what information there is that matters the most.

[penzilla]

One of the best advice I ever got,
Draw slow to draw fast.

I can kind of see why you think that is good advice though how do you not forget? it seems in my nature to pursue speed in anything, but thats just me.

[penzilla]

Drawing from life can be pushed to some oblitterating speeds, learning to capture essential information etc.

Drawing from the mind may be differant especially if you have to simmulate/recreate perspective, the proper feeling of space and in space. Projecting for accuracy from the mind is a step back and think process, breathing and summoning the power of the ancient masters. Hehe!

Experience will make you faster either way, There's a differance between a constructing style and a style that's fast direct copying scetching. Practicing alot of construction I guess will eventually add to your understanding of what you are looking at and therefore speed up your abillity to quick scetch because of your knowledge of what information there is that matters the most.

I agree. I like quizzing myself on construction all the time.

Though I have to admit drawing from life doesn't help me one bit compared to practicing construction from my own mind. I never learn from simply copying things.

Thanks for the sound advice.

[penzilla]

I got the opposite. I want to draw slower so that I can be more efficient .

Instead of "slow down", I'll try "slow". We shall see what happens.

[hunchback]

Speed is somewhat relative.

In my college class, we where drawing models. I have three years of doing this already. I finished my drawing and everything. It felt like i was going pretty slow. Turns out most people hadnt even finishedd there heads Experience man.

I draw fast from my mind though. Im a scribbler ....

[Slothboy3000]

I agree. I like quizzing myself on construction all the time.

Though I have to admit drawing from life doesn't help me one bit compared to practicing construction from my own mind. I never learn from simply copying things.

Thanks for the sound advice.

Drawing from life isn't simply copying from things, though. You might as well draw from photos otherwise. If you haven't already, check out dpaint's and Jeff's drawing from life threads in this section.

[alesoun]

I have a friend from college who works as a cartoonist. He's quick, slick and damned good in a cartoon style where things are stripped down to the essence. He has a good grip of perspective, style and composition. I am in awe of what he can do in 5 minutes.

BUT, he worked damned hard and sweated to be able to do that, and he wouldn't tackle things so fast or so well in another style.

What are you trying to do?

[Pinkish]

I can sketch fast no problem on paper, but for some reason my speed has decreased tremendously when I started using a tablet.

I hardly do rough sketches anymore, thus making my work turn out sloppy.

[Pinkish]

I can sketch fast no problem on paper, but for some reason my speed has decreased tremendously when I started using a tablet.

I hardly do rough sketches anymore, thus making my work turn out sloppy.

[Stile]

That's easy! Take a life drawing class that has timed poses and practice short poses. At first you will be like how the hell am I suppose to draw this figure in a minute? But soon or a later with practice you will draw the gesture and still have time to spare. The longer you practice the faster you develop a rhythm and ways to plan out how you are gonna build the drawing. If you can' t get to a class used sites like pose maniac .com and practice everyday drawing fast short poses.

[Lady Medusa]

I want to draw faster too.
How do I deal? I suck it up and accept that I just can't at the moment. Life isn't made of rainbows.
Learn fundamental skills before fine-tuning speed.

[Star Eater]

Why was this resurrected anyway?