exercising the imagination

[JParrilla]

Hey guys.. lately Ive realized that I neglect imaginative drawing quite a bit. I get so determined to improve so I do studies from life and masters and all that. Basically the training of a fine artist. I rarely do any kind of illustration or imaginative drawing/painting.. mainly because I dont have faith in my ability.. and I know that drawing from life will always produce a better result. I feel like although a lot of the great illustrators and concept artists around here did their share of life studies and all that.. they must have been drawing their own ideas for a while. I just cant imagine studying life and anatomy and masters for years, getting really great at drawing from life.. and having that directly increase your ability to draw from your imagination and be able to suddenly create awesome things from your head. I know It must help.. but can your imagination drawing actually get better without ever doing it?? it seems crazy to think so. If not.. how would a person hoping to eventually illustrate go about mixing enough studies with enough imaginative illustrations? whats a normal balance of the two that would ideally yield the best results? I use Marko as an example quite oftenn.. but he never went through a formal fine artist training.. and he says that he never really did life drawing. Yet he can produce the human figure from his imagination so well.. and exaggerate it to create amazing creatures. Does that mean that learning to draw from life is maybe not related to learning to draw from your head? I know it seems obvious that to create realistic looking things from imagination.. you would have to have drawn them from real life before.. but Its really a confusing and contradicting idea for me to deal with :P

[Zirngibism]

This is a good question, and one I've asked myself often as a result of my own frustrations.

I think the best way to approach it is to kill two birds with one stone, and in doing so, bridge the gap between the two areas. In other words, work on fantasizing your life studies, so that you can dip into the information in front of you to feed what you're trying to do from your head.

Here's an example: Take an object, and light it a certain way (say, from the right). Then, draw it as if the light was coming from a different direction (say, the left). When that's done, position the actual light on the actual object in the way you had imagined, and see how "close" you were. Though I realize that's more of just a shading/rendering exercise, it seems like a good way of "merging" the two skills.

I know that when I'm only doing life drawing for the sake of representing the objects, I tend to get into a "trance", and wake up when the work is done not really thinking I learned anything about light. Changing around what one sees helps to mitigate that.

Perhaps an answer to the question of "what's the ratio" is to look at the CA atelier. I have no personal experience with it, but I hear that they split life and imagination drawing to 50:50. (I'm curious at the order these are given in, though.)

[gamerboi]

If I get what you're trying to say then the answer is experiment with different styles. This is because once you start stylizing life you add a level of freedom to you're drawing wherein you can experiment and use your imagination. Stylizing/characterizing helps to develop your ability to see the emotion and character in life.

When I go subway sketching I see that the more experienced and professional guys do their life drawings completely stylized to the point where it starts looking like they're drawing out a cartoon. And what I've found is that if you do it like that it make life drawing a lot more fun because you're using your imagination and the final result turns out well.

Hope that helped.

[choke up]

Somewhere on these forums I read something really valuable pertaining to this question. They said something to the effect of:

Add some crazy horns to that chick you figure studied, or a big ass bot glove to her arm, give her some giraffe legs, or what the fuck ever. Don't worry about maintaining your precious study. You already drew it, got the "fine art" practice part. Now add something, keeping the perspective in mind. Look at your studies as a base to extend into fantasizing it like Zirngibism mentioned.

Something like that anyways..

[JParrilla]

thanks guys.. Ya I guess this comes from confusion due to finding a balance between traditional drawing and painting training and actual training in illustration. I checked out the CA Ateliers curriculum and its very heavily involved in classical drawing and painting training.. which is what I expected from an Atelier. I just remembered reading a quote.. which I think was from Marko Djurdjevic.. im not positive. But it was something along the lines of.. drawing a paper cup from life will not help you learn to draw the human body.. Which kinda had me thinking if doing still lives and all that was helping me get anywhere. Obviously your drawing skills are improving.. which is necessary. Im just kinda confused about the road that an illustrator would take in his studies. I was always told to do traditional studies because I needed to learn to draw whats in front of me before I could make stuff upp from my head.. which makes perfect sense. But at the same time I dont wanna end up being really good at drawing what I see.. but having absolutely no ability to create the stuff that I wanna create. So in my head the obvious answer was to do both.. draw from life.. but also draw from your mind. But I find myself leaning towards life drawing more and more due to a fear to create. It seems like my artistic knowledge has outgrown my ability by a huge margin. I know what looks good and what looks bad.. I know when somethings awful.. So when I draw from my head.. I look at it and say WTFFF???? thats awful! Back when I didnt knoww a thing about art.. I would have drawn and not thought that way.. But now I know where stuffs going wrong and it causes me to shy away from it. I look at some of the talent on here and wonder.. what did they do to get there??? did they do all of this traditional training.. drawing, painting from life, etc..? I just wish I could figure out some other peoples process to see how they arrived where they are now.

[Ryan K]

But at the same time I dont wanna end up being really good at drawing what I see.. but having absolutely no ability to create the stuff that I wanna create.

Though drawing a "paper cup" may seem like it has nothing to do with what you want to create from imagination, it does(loosely speaking).

What I mean is, visual knowledge of actual forms, and traditional practices will mesh with imaginative stuff eventually. Just run that pencil, be mindful, but also enjoy the process not just the product - and eventually given time/practice I think you'll end up where you want.

This is just logical thinking to me, I'm definitely no one special. ;)

[JJacks]

EDIT Just saw your second post. If you know the answer than just do it. Don't think about everyone else and how good they draw. You can't control anyone's talent but your own. You can't see results now but you will later. Look back at some earlier work and see that you are improving. Instead of asking general and broad art questions that really little people can answer, ask for critique on something specific that you are doing. Why stress yourself out unnecessarily?

Well, when drawing from life you are at least exercising some creativity by creating a composition and deciding what kind of colors to use to best represent what you see. This is why still lives help; it's a simple way to learn more about composition and color while being a bit creative.

The best advice I can give you is to keep up with your studies but draw whatever you want to draw in your spare time, from memory or with reference. This way you are applying what you are learning and exploring your own ideas. The only way I know to get your imagination flowing so you can come up with great concepts is to keep trying out whatever is in your head now no matter how silly it sounds. You don't have to think too hard when you're drawing...just draw. Eventually your ideas will start to develop more fully. Also read a lot, look at a lot of art, listen to a lot of music, watch movies...anything that get's your brain working it's imagination magic.

[JParrilla]

EDIT Just saw your second post. If you know the answer than just do it. Don't think about everyone else and how good they draw. You can't control anyone's talent but your own. You can't see results now but you will later. Look back at some earlier work and see that you are improving. Instead of asking general and broad art questions that really little people can answer, ask for critique on something specific that you are doing. Why stress yourself out unnecessarily?

Well, when drawing from life you are at least exercising some creativity by creating a composition and deciding what kind of colors to use to best represent what you see. This is why still lives help; it's a simple way to learn more about composition and color while being a bit creative.

The best advice I can give you is to keep up with your studies but draw whatever you want to draw in your spare time, from memory or with reference. This way you are applying what you are learning and exploring your own ideas. The only way I know to get your imagination flowing so you can come up with great concepts is to keep trying out whatever is in your head now no matter how silly it sounds. You don't have to think too hard when you're drawing...just draw. Eventually your ideas will start to develop more fully. Also read a lot, look at a lot of art, listen to a lot of music, watch movies...anything that get's your brain working it's imagination magic.

that makes tons of sense.. and I thank you. Your right.. I guess theyre is no golden road to follow.. I just have to do whatever is helping me to improve. And it does seem logical to do life studies.. and then also do imaginative or partially reffed drawings using what you learn from life. Mixing both together to get the most out of your studies. Sometimes when something seems obvious like this... i begin to doubt it.. thinking theres got to be more to it.. theres gotta be something im missing.. maybe not..

[gamerboi]

I feel like I can completely relate to your second post so I'm gonna tell you to do what I'm doing. I take my sketchbook with me EVERYWHERE, I keep it on me so if I ever get bored or if I have to wait somewhere I can draw people around me. And from what I've heard and noticed it helps improve my skills in drawing from imagination because it helps build up this mental reservoir of faces and shapes that you can pull from whenever you need it.

Check Bobby Chiu's sketches out I always find them inspirational.
http://bobbychiusubwaysketchgroup.blogspot.com/

Ohhhh, and obviously if you can join a group of artists in your area and sketch with them it would help you improve so much more quickly. And practice, practice, practice.

[Ito Saith Webb]

A lot of what everyone has said is pretty dead on. I myself am training to become an illustrator and so I live in a world of imagination but at the same time I do my dream studies as well. However, when every I do something that is fantasy/Science Fiction/horror. I still work from "real life" or "near real life" references so I have something to work with. I will grab a ton of stuff off the net, books, documentaries and even movies. I use them like a patchwork quilt and I hardly ever, ever, ever work from my head unless I have drawn it a thousand times or I have no choice at the time. I my signature says it best on the matter however. :)

[cdejong]

Just saying, the only way to get better at something is to do it. While all of those anatomy studies and life studies are definitely great (and keep doing them), you should also draw from your imagination fairly regularly. Personally, I like to do anatomy studies, and then directly afterwards draw the anatomy I just did from my head in various positions. Also I'll draw a lot of poses from my head, as well as do posemaniacs. It's all about creating a balance.

When I went to James Jean's show Kindling in NYC, I asked him what his biggest advice for an improving artist would be, he said: Draw from life, draw from imagination.

[JParrilla]

thanks guys.. it does make sense to just do both life and imagination studies. as well as combining the two. I guess I answered my own question :)

[Bowlin]

Perhaps you should look up threads talking about using reference. There are artist that either use reference (drawing from life or photos), imagination or a combination of the two. If you look at the artist you admire, you can eventually determine if they mostly use reference in most of their work or if they're working from imagination. If not, you could ask them. I think gamerboi had it right that those that work from imagination work at producing a very focused stylized way of drawing. That's why their work always looks very similar. I think one way to look at artist that concentrate mostly from imagination is to look at it as a very elaborate form of comic art, they're own style. So if you look at comic artist, the way they learn their own craft is they become clones of another comic artist, then develop their own styles in some way from there. Perhaps a combination of two or more styles and their own ideas? But even a lot of comic artist use reference incorporated into their style too. It would seem to be sorta obvious how to learn another comic artist style if you studied them enough, copying their style over and over. I'm thinking it may be the same way with illustrators. It's hard work copying with the mindset of how to reproduce this style yourself. But I think that's part of it, to be very particular about the "style" your aiming for. I believe myself as well as a LOT of others on here are way too broad about what all they copy. sebbon mentioned James Jean... if you look at his life drawings they are very similar if not exactly the same style of drawing that he does from imagination. Wouldn't you consider his work as a very elaborate, highly design focused comic art?

[JParrilla]

Bowlin - that makes a lot of sense. Glenn Vilppu teaches that you should draw from imagination the same way you draw from life. Thats why when he draws a model he doesnt copy it.. he anylizes and learns from it.. so that you can reproduce things from your head. But about style.. I do want to achieve a sense of realism in my art.. even If I draw crazy, unrealistic things.. I want them to look like they are in the real world. Just because I draw a 5 headed monster... doesnt mean it shouldnt look like it could be sitting next to you. So I know that I will be using reference for most of my art.. because I want to achieve realism even if create stylized images.

[Bowlin]

Let's put it this way, is there any particular artist(s) that has the type of realism your aiming for?

[JParrilla]

wow my interests vary so much.. but off the top of my head I like Frazetta, Marta Dahlig, James Kei. Those are just examples of artists who draw realistically but still create fantasy and unreal subjects. Im not really into anything too cartoony. superhero comic book art is about as unrealistic as I get as far as what I like. Marko Djurdjevics comic work brings more of a realistic vibe which I like.. also Tim bradstreet

[Bowlin]

Frazetta started off doing comic art for years. Some of his ink drawings are hard to tell if they were for comics or for illustrations. He learned to do different styles of comic art, some were cartoony and some of his comic art was more realistic, but it was still a very distinctive style. Going from doing his comic illustrations to painting illustrations does not look like "too" big of a jump for him. So in a sense you could say his illustrations are very elaborate rendered comic illustrations.

My point is that realism artist usually have a distinctive style. You can easily tell Frazetta, Dahlig, Kei apart. So Frazetta and Dahlig have two very separate approaches. I think it's safe to say that Dahlig uses a lot of reference. There's a few times I think you can tell when she doesn't rely on reference so much, but from imagination and it "feels" more toward some sort of comic illustration rather than photographic. Look at this (http://blackeri.cgsociety.org/gallery/765115/) image compared to this (http://blackeri.cgsociety.org/gallery/425630/) image. I think it's easy to tell which one relied much more on reference but in both you can tell it's her own distinctive style.

[J Wilson]

Figure studies and drawing from life are vitally important, for most artists that are going for realism at least. I wouldn't stop those studies. I can understand that feeling of feeling trapped by the studies though. The more you know, the more you realize you don't know, and suddenly anything done from your imagination starts to feel pretty flimsy.

There are two things that help. The first is just get to work expanding that visual library. Study anything and everything that interests you, so when it comes to drawing it you are backing it up with actual solid information.

The other thing is just give yourself permission to draw "badly" when you are working from imagination for a while. Think of that stage as just preparation. You are looking for neat ideas, cool shapes and patterns, all of that stuff. Anything you like you can retool later by adding in some research and rethinking things. In the meantime, let your sketches be loose and creative and less worried about strict accuracy.

[JParrilla]

Thanks Bowlin.. that makes sense. And great examples of Martas work.. its obvious that the first was reffed way more heavily than the second. That proves that an artist doesnt have to stick to one method. Thanks sooo much

JWilson - Thanks so much. I know what you mean. I never actually doubted the importance of life drawing.. but rather the connection to imaginative drawing. But I see now that they are soo much related. Ill do what you suggested and just accept that my reffed work will be ahead of pure imaginative work.. Ill just work on bridging the gap between the two.

[Bowlin]

By the way, Frazetta's approach, he claims to not use any reference for his paintings, from what I understand. So I assume he just relies on his years of being a comic artist studies to do his kind of realism paintings.

[JParrilla]

Thanks Bowlin.. and yep I can believe that.. enough study and you can do that kinda stuff from your head. Renaissance artists did it all the time from what I understand

[danlambert]

My point is that realism artist usually have a distinctive style. You can easily tell Frazetta, Dahlig, Kei apart. So Frazetta and Dahlig have two very separate approaches. I think it's safe to say that Dahlig uses a lot of reference. There's a few times I think you can tell when she doesn't rely on reference so much, but from imagination and it "feels" more toward some sort of comic illustration rather than photographic. Look at this (http://blackeri.cgsociety.org/gallery/765115/) image compared to this (http://blackeri.cgsociety.org/gallery/425630/) image. I think it's easy to tell which one relied much more on reference but in both you can tell it's her own distinctive style.

I'm pretty sure that she doesn't work from references, although I can't be sure. Those examples you gave were bad ones as they were 3 years apart. The differences you were talking about could very well just be down to the improvement made in those 3 years.


Drawing from imagination I think is just as important as drawing from ref, without practicing applying what you have learned from reffed drawings and studies; how can you expect your imagination work to improve. In the end of the concept art colour thingy, Jason mentions that at the CA atelia (sp), it's 50-50 life and imagination.
I do however dislike the stygma that working from ref seems to have with some people. I think Alex Ross said something along the lines of, 'my imagination stuff is good, but when I'm working from something, my stuff is very good. So why would I deliberately make it difficult for myself?' This made a lot of sense to me, although I don't agree with it completely and it doesn't apply to all situations.

I was under the impression that Renaissance painters worked almost exclusively from references. I read through Michaelangelo's sketchbook the other day and it showed that he worked primarily from life, then used the drawings from life as ref to create his finished works. Obviously he's only 1 painter but I was always told that that was how most worked.
I'd be really interested to find out which painters were working from imagination!

[Bowlin]

danlambert, yeah, maybe Dahlig wasn't a good example to use here. She seems to make it a point if she doesn't use direct copying, but uses reference from several different sources. But still, reference is often used. (btw if you want to see a great artist using heavy reference get the book "Norman Rockwell on Norman Rockwell" that Rockwell wrote himself. You can compare his reference pics with the final outcome.)

I think Dave Palumbo made a good comment in another thread, "No matter how realistic or convincing an image somebody can make without direct reference (and reference is used in some form or another far more often than many people realize), just about every artist can make a better image with it."

[armando]

"Figure studies and drawing from life are vitally important, for most artists that are going for realism at least."

Life drawing is useful for every visual artists because life has so much variety, it's really the source of our ideas.

"By the way, Frazetta's approach, he claims to not use any reference for his paintings"

I believe Frazetta ocassionally used photo reference, although I don't have any quotes to prove it. Elwell and Ferrara said so, so it's probably true.

"No matter how realistic or convincing an image somebody can make without direct reference (and reference is used in some form or another far more often than many people realize), just about every artist can make a better image with it."

The conclusion of that statement doesn't follow the premiss. He could say "an artist can make a more realistic image with it.", but he cannot say "better". I refer here to incorporating elements of photos into drawings/paintings, because in the end anything we draw is referenced from memory and imagination, the source of our ideas is our life.

[Bowlin]

armando - I understand that your saying the realism aspect of the picture doesn't make it a "better" image. But I don't think that's what Dave was trying to imply here. How about, you can always make a better picture if you can find/make reference that will enhance the design and idea? Of course, this is referring to a particular style of realism painting that most people on this site appreciate.

[JParrilla]

yes and If your trying to achieve realism... making a piece more realistic usually is in fact making it better. Of course Im not aiming to reproduce perfectly what I see.. thats what a cameras for.. but instead to make something believeable

[Nickillus]

Scanned through this thread pretty quickly, so apologies if I missed what must have already been said, but - I'd highly recommend burying your head in some anatomy books, on top of the other fine recommendations already made here.

99% of what I do is straight out of my head and ends up being a war on digital paper to try and get to where I want to be. As a teenager I trawled bookshops for anatomy reference and tried to use them to inform me on how the body might look in different poses etc. I produced loads of truly awful efforts, but gradually it got a bit better. There are still huge gaps in my knowledge, but I have a base understanding to build on now.

You have to become a people watcher too - preferrably not from behind bushes in the park, wearing a long coat (that will get you into trouble). It's no good understanding musculature if you apply it to figures in unbelievable poses all the time either (unless that's your goal of course). Study how folk stand, walk, sit etc. We are all natural people watchers to some degree, so when you get it wrong, most people spot it immediately. Of course I never get it wrong - COUGH!!!

Life drawing is a really great thing to help you improve. Grab the opportunity to do some if it crops up. On tap at college, but much harder to find once you escape. I've not done any for years.

Keep trying, even when it drives you bonkers how bad you think you are. You definitely won't improve if you give up. Perseverence is a virtue worth cultivating.
Good luck with it - and don't be afraid to show your efforts occasionally - the crits (yes there will be those) may hurt at the time, but are almost always well meant to try and help you improve. Keep at it.

[armando]

Bowlin: I'll accept that. The issue I have with the phrase "using reference" is that it's so vague, people usually mean taking straight from a photo and that's like a form of collage, it's like a direct quotation. It tends to look pasted on, inartistic.
Research and study go beyond this superficial type of reference. Here the artist absorbs material, ponders it, then creates artwork that has something unique to say. This requires deep thinking that goes beyond reproducing the appearance of things.

biggjoee: By realism I take it we both mean - the surface appearance of things. As you said surface appearance and believability aren't the same thing. When I think of someone aiming solely for reproducing appearance I think of really lame pencil drawings, and tedious photoshop copies of photos, it's just a bunch of details. Many other ingredients contribute to believability.

[JParrilla]

Bowlin: I'll accept that. The issue I have with the phrase "using reference" is that it's so vague, people usually mean taking straight from a photo and that's like a form of collage, it's like a direct quotation. It tends to look pasted on, inartistic.
Research and study go beyond this superficial type of reference. Here the artist absorbs material, ponders it, then creates artwork that has something unique to say. This requires deep thinking that goes beyond reproducing the appearance of things.

biggjoee: By realism I take it we both mean - the surface appearance of things. As you said surface appearance and believability aren't the same thing. When I think of someone aiming solely for reproducing appearance I think of really lame pencil drawings, and tedious photoshop copies of photos, it's just a bunch of details. Many other ingredients contribute to believability.

yes maybe im messing up terms here. By realism were taling about having things look like they do in real life. Not cartoony or super exaggerated. When I say realism I dont necessarily mean it has to be a realistic object or person.. I think you can draw a totally crazy looking alien and still have it look realistic.. meaning it reacts to the light the way it should.. and has colors that dont seem totally impossible. So when I say I want to achieve realism.. that doesnt mean I want to draw portraits and fruit :) I wanna create totally insane things.. but still have them seem like they can be standing in the same room as you. does that make any sense?

[Bruce Pluto]

Interesting question. I don’t know if it’s been covered already and I’m sure everyone that has posted knows there’s a difference between realistic & believability. I understand that's what you’re shooting for ( as many of us are) is the believability factor.

Yes you can produce imaginative artwork that is out of this world and yet believable. It’s a matter of tricking the eye. Isn’t all artwork this way if you really think about it? Taking 2D and making it look 3D.

My advice Joe is, if you’re wanting to express more imaginative work in your art maybe make an attempt at combining elements of different subjects. There are plenty of artists here on CA that merge frogs with birds or robots with cars…..and so on. The list is endless. View photo references, then draw what you see, and I don’t mean draw the photo. I mean draw the fish, bird or crocodile from a different angle or pose and make it interesting. We know there isn’t anything as a leopard/squid but if done right there are plenty of artists here that can do a creature like that and make it very believable. It will just take a little practice and pretty soon your mind with be coming up with all sorts of ideas.

Bruce

[armando]

Biggjoe: I know what you mean. I just want to emphasize that design and composition are indispensible. The alien in Mac and Me looks pretty real, in that it's a puppet and it reacts to light just like the actors, but it's design still sucks and that's what's most important.

[JParrilla]

Bruce Pluto - thanks man.. that makes tons of sense.. and its something i need to try.

armando - ya I know what you mean :) haha great example