beginning a drawing

[Vangou]

Hi Im a newbie.
I think I have something of a small problem.
I just cant get comfortable sketching really rough, like just making a quick circle for a head and just a really rough body and then add detail. I have to focus on one detail at a time. I can have a completely finished eye and a nose and nothing more than that.

I have seen how people just makes a round circle with two lines going horizontaly from one end to the other, showing where the eyes should be, and then work out a great looking head from that. I find that impossible.
I dont know how I could get help with this from you all.
But I thought I could post it and see if anyone has got something to say about it.

[Aven]

I used to have that problem as well. Hell, I still have it now.

I eventually started to draw a rough base first as I just became sick and tired of always getting proportions way off.

Like most things in art, it just requires somne patience. Stick with it and you will eventually become used to it.

[mtw]

You might like the point method of drawing, then. The sight size method is easiest for explaining this. Make a dot for a starting point on your drawing and have it correspond to some point on what you're drawing. Then hold a pencil up to what you're drawing, measure with it to an other point, and then mark that point on your drawing while taking care that the distance is the same. Keep doing this until you have the basics of the whole drawing plotted out and then connect the points and draw in the details.

Try to pick points that have some meaning to what you're drawing, such as the corners of a box. My current drawing professor said Ingres used this method for his drawings. I personally can't stand it, but for others it can be good. One problem I see with this method is that you might get too wrapped up in the technicalities of the drawing that you forget to add expression to the forms, but that's a more advanced topic.

If you want to try breaking away from what you're doing, then try quick gesture drawings. Spend less than a minute on these. Look at what you're drawing, and only sparingly look at the paper. Don't lift the pencil from the paper. Try to look at the whole object instead of details.

[Vangou]

Hmm, that sounds like a pretty difficult method to use, but I know Ingres was good, even though the anatomy looks weird on some of his portraits. In the 17th century they hadnt really discovered everything about deep, anatomy and perspective it seems http://virtualart.admin.tomsk.ru/ingres/ingres6.jpg .
I like the idea with quick gesture drawings though.
Thank you for responding :) .

[mtw]

Originally posted by Vangou
In the 17th century they hadnt really discovered everything about deep, anatomy and perspective it seems
They did know how to make things look realistic, but there's more to drawings and paintings than making them be realistic. Ingres knew this, and he knew how to add expressive value. But don't worry about this right now.