Is "The natural way to draw - Kimon Nicolaides" woth it ?

[NajamQ]

I found this book at an old book store, I am turned off by the fact that this book needs a whole year of work to get through if you follow the excercises as they are.

Well is it worth it to spend time on this book. Where I have some free days in a week for at least 3 months and was planning on grasping the traditional fundamentals.

One thing you should note that I cannot take art classes as there are none in my area. The best I can do for now is to follow a good book on grabbing fundamentals and find a teacher afterwords for personal lessons. At least when I can afford one ( As artists also pay bills ).

[Psychotime]

Just one year? It should take a heck of alot longer than that.

[NajamQ]

Just one year? It should take a heck of alot longer than that.

I have about 3 months of free time to grab the fundamentals and will continue to improve upon them, the book's roadmap is too slow for me. I think I would try my luck with "drawing on right side of brain" which is lurking around in my books collection for long time.

Any help on fundamentals is grateful. Thanks.

[TinyBird]

I think I would try my luck with "drawing on right side of brain"

You might want to read this first: http://chiseledrocks.com/main/musings/topics/snakeoil

Also yeah, three months is very little time to try to grab anything, so I wouldn't use time as the deciding factor here.

[Tim Murphy]

I have about 3 months of free time to grab the fundamentals and will continue to improve upon them, the book's roadmap is too slow for me.

Good to see you know better than the person who wrote the book.

[NajamQ]

Good to see you know better than the person who wrote the book.

Please avoid sarcasm and help if you are able to, I never claimed and could never think of myself as better than anyone leave alone the book writer. I am just a student trying to learn. I know the above mentioned book is better than a 1000 out there.

Sometimes you have all the best learning meterial but nothing can subsitute a good advice from a fellow learner which can save me a lot of hurdles.

[NajamQ]

You might want to read this first: http://chiseledrocks.com/main/musings/topics/snakeoil

Also yeah, three months is very little time to try to grab anything, so I wouldn't use time as the deciding factor here.

Thanks a lot for the link. Yeah I know 3 months are nothing as learning art is a life long process. By Time I actually mean that I am able to give much more time to excercises and practice than I normally do. Its not like I will stop after that, I will continue to learn as long as my brain is alive .

While recently doing my post-graduate research my advisor with more than 40 years of experience in field pointed out a very basic fault in my learning process, i.e I never did emphasize on learning the very basics of my education speically mathematics, despite of having good grades and good GPA I still stuggle sometimes at most basic things.

I soon realized that over the last few years I have been making the same mistake in learning art. That is why I am going back to basics and than build my skill upon them. Call it self criticsm or accpeting my weakness, but this is where I lack the most ( at the basics ) which is causing me to hit a platue in my learning curve.

A big contribution to this lack of direction and jumping directly to advaced levels is by totally misguided tutorials available on internet or speed painting videos / drawing videos on youtube. They always give one one technique to do one thing and make you live in illusion that somehow you know everything about art by doing one technique.

I have been wrong, misguided, and have been trevelling blindly in any direction someone pointed me to. So as a result I wasted my time. Invested in wacom which is collecting dirt on my desk, bought many books but never opened them in an ego that they are for beginners.

[TinyBird]

bought many books but never opened them in an ego that they are for beginners.

Well, maybe now would be time to open those books instead of just buying a new one? Or course depending on what those books were...

[NajamQ]

Well, maybe now would be time to open those books instead of just buying a new one? Or course depending on what those books were...

Some are by Adnrew Loomis in PDF form, others have a Bridgmans Drawing from life, Drawing on right side of brain. And a kind of printed spiral bound course by the name of Famous artist's course which I got from a friend, Mastering the art of Drawing by Ian sidway & Sarah Hoggett and some printed references.

And what a great website you just gave me. Thanks a lot again for that, now I am greedy for more too .

[Elwell]

Less planning, more doing.
Less collecting books, more reading books.
Pick a book, at this point it honestly doesn't matter which one. Read it, do the exercises if it has them, follow along and copy the illustrations/put the principles into practice on your own if it doesn't. If things don't seem to be working, making sense, or if you just plain don't like the book, pick another.

[NajamQ]

Les planning, more doing.
Less collecting books, more reading books.
Pick a book, at this point it honestly doesn't matter which one. Read it, do the exercises if it has them, follow along and copy the illustrations/put the principles into practice on your own if it doesn't. If things don't seem to be working, making sense, or if you just plain don't like the book, pick another.

Thanks, I am on it. I will journal my progress and post my work here for guidence.

[[email protected]]

I believe "The Natural Way to Draw" is a good book, but it is not very suitable for self-study. The explanations are often vague, don't give clear guidelines ("draw what it is doing, not what it looks like"?), and the examples given are not really helpful. Also, the process described, i.e. first, gesture; second, contour; third modelling, is incomplete, as it lacks construction as an essential step.

I worked my way through TNWTD almost 10 years ago, following all instructions to the letter, and developed an extremely rough and wild style of sketching, which took me years to straighten out. Recently, I picked up the book again, this time under the guidance of experienced teachers, and finally some of the things in the book are starting to make sense.

The book suffers quite a lot from the fact it was compiled after Nikolaides early death. He is probably one of the people I would love to talk to, asking him to explain what he really had meant to say. As far as I know, he does not do email?

[Nezumi Works]

I'm kinda torn about Nicolaides. I'm not going to deny his book has value, it's certainly good enough to gain the respect of a wide range of great artists. However, I think it's the sort of book that isn't for everyone. For one thing, if you've got no art experience, it's bound to be confounding. I certainly found it so. It's also much more geared to painting than drawing, leaving out things like construction and so forth and the focus on modelling the form rather than describing it in line.

I think Nicolaides is best suited for a budding painter who has enough basic knowledge to begin seeing the "skipped" steps, and used in conjunction with other sources like Loomis. It depends a lot on what sort of learner you are as well, I would imagine some respond better to the teaching style than others.

[NajamQ]

for last 3 days I have been digging around everywhere and have come to one conclusion

i.e

Andrew Loomis. These books are right infront of me all the time and I fail to see their value. They are back in print too in 2011. They have survived the test of time for last 60 years so we can't go wrong with the content.

Successful Drawing by Andrew Loomis has everything to build a foundation. I will have it printed soon and will be following it by heart.

Rest nothing can be done without hard work.

[Nezumi Works]

Andrew Loomis. These books are right infront of us all the time and we fail to see their value. They are back in print too in 2011.

I'm assuming this is a definition of "we" that doesn't include almost all of the people in this forum.

He's by far the most recommended teacher here.

[NajamQ]

I'm assuming this is a definition of "we" that doesn't include almost all of the people in this forum.

He's by far the most recommended teacher here.

Probably , Since what I mean here by "We" is mostly the beginners.

[rem92]

Andrew Loomis. These books are right infront of us all the time and we fail to see their value.

Haha, i loled at this, you failed... dont drag everyone else with you on that one, like Nezumi says, he is the most recommended teacher, not only here but in other places also so you would figure lots of people make use of Loomis.

[NajamQ]

Haha, i loled at this, you failed... dont drag everyone else with you on that one, like Nezumi says, he is the most recommended teacher, not only here but in other places also so you would figure lots of people make use of Loomis.

Alright, my bad. I failed. Sorry!.

[NajamQ]

....................

[Nezumi Works]

And you know what, I am never coming back to this forum, some members are so arrogant here to pick on new comers it makes me sick.

Okay, imagine you just ran about an astronomy lab, excitedly telling people that Jupiter has rings too! Sure it's true, but everyone there already knows it. That's pretty much what you did.

The fact that someone patted you on the head and went "aww, aren't you cute?" isn't arrogance. It's experience. Besides, running off now would involve arrogantly blowing off those who left you advice in your sketchbook.

Seriously, to be an artist you need thick skin. You think this is bad, try sitting through a serious critique of your work. It can be a pretty traumatic experience.

[NajamQ]

Okay, imagine you just ran about an astronomy lab, excitedly telling people that Jupiter has rings too! Sure it's true, but everyone there already knows it. That's pretty much what you did.

The fact that someone patted you on the head and went "aww, aren't you cute?" isn't arrogance. It's experience. Besides, running off now would involve arrogantly blowing off those who left you advice in your sketchbook.

Seriously, to be an artist you need thick skin. You think this is bad, try sitting through a serious critique of your work. It can be a pretty traumatic experience.

Sorry again, my mistake.

[Nezumi Works]

Ah, don't worry about it. Brush off the dust, then sit down and draw stuff. That's what it's all about anyway, right?

[armando]

I think Niccolaides is pretty good. The more you know about art then the more implications you can see in the exercises. I also think the book is historically interesting because you can see what ideas he was exposed to at the time, he knew modernist ideas but had an appreciation for traditional art, the best example of that in the book is where he is telling the story about the student asking him to make a composition. Another thing I like about the book is that I've never seen a Niccolaides clone, yet I see Reilly clones and Villpu clones all over the place here and I consider them a bunch of babies who can't think for themselves.
I think it's best for a beginner to just get some art books like the art of starwars or whatever and just make some tries at copying that at the beginning.

[Alice Herring]

... I've never seen a Niccolaides clone, yet I see Reilly clones and Villpu clones all over the place here and I consider them a bunch of babies who can't think for themselves.

There is no need to be insulting. Many people study the artists they consider successful, and there's nothing wrong with that.

[Nezumi Works]

You're just a special snowflake, aren't you Armando?

[armando]

Too close for comfort for you huh?

Edit: made statement more explicit.

[Alice Herring]

Too close for comfort for you huh?

Edit: made statement more explicit.

Ah. Thanks for the clarification. But you really haven't defended your statement. What do you expect people to do when they are still learning how to draw?

[Nezumi Works]

Too close for comfort for you huh?

Edit: made statement more explicit.

Nope, not at all. Just noting that you have an extra special style all your own.

[armando]

Rabbit run. That wasn't directed to your comment. I'm not talking about students, because I am one myself, and I definitely don't hate Reilly's method and I think Villpu is decent. I was just taking a jab at people who don' t think for themselves.

nezumi: you couldn't resist the chance to talk some shit

[mutestar]

I was just taking a jab at people who don' t think for themselves.

Right, I forgot that we should all be conceptual artists here.

Seriously, most people are students of some degree so it makes sense to learn the rules from someone before you go breaking them. Also, consider WB, Disney, and I think it was Fox all hired Vilppu to teach their animators, but had to share him with the other two studios, it sounds like the guy knows his stuff as far as animation is concerned, that's a pretty darn good reason to begin by trying to copy him and his technique.