graphics software declines basic drawing skills.

[Bowlin]

...emergence of sophisticated graphics software has coincided with a startling decline in the basic drawing skills of university students. (http://slashdot.org/articles/06/04/06/2238223.shtml)

Give me a break, sounds more like teachers aren't having kids draw in class. It's stuff like this that really upsets me because the general public gets more and more of a fantasy idea of what an artist life is "suppose" to be like.

[dogfood]

"Increased global warming coincides with the decline of the pirate population."

[DavePalumbo]

though there's no question that there is an increasing amount of people who want to become professional artists and illustrators. Only so many jobs out there, who are they going to go to? The ones who bust their asses in school as well as out of school in order to fill out any gaps their formal education may have left.

For decades (at least), art schools have been borderline scamming their students and we've all heard of the famous 1% who will actually make a living in the art business (somehow, someway). Just a new excuse for the general low quality work that the masses of uninterested or downright lazy 18 year old art students turn out. Anyone who's been to art school knows who I'm talking about.

[cartoonfox]

I'm IN art school, I know exactly what you're talking about!

[Imp Head]

Shaft?

[Interceptor]

Shaft?
He's a baaad mutha....

Anyways. I don't think graphics software has anything to do with it. if anything, I think graphics software is making art more approachable to young artists. Some people who can't afford a 300$ dollar start up set for painting can much easier spend 120$ on a graphire3 and download open canvas.


I think it has to do with teachers in general. The way schools are now, you're really not allowed to give any negative feedback. You can't even give constructive crits without some parent taking up issues with the school, which is a silly way to work. I remember when I was in high school, my teacher said " loren, you're going to fail, because you're lazy, so you won't graduate and everyone will laugh at you." and I thought " oh shit, i better work harder"... but now... where I live, students can't be held back unless a teacher goes and appeals right to the schoolboard office downtown :S

...that was a rant ;)

[goldenavatar]

Sure, uh huh, fine whatever. Moving on, is there an article with a bit more substance too it than a measly paragraph we could read on the topic because the links leading to anything after the link provided at the top here is giving me nothing.

[Magic Man]

I'd like to also see a study on the number of Wacoms sitting collecting dust after their purchasers found out that tablets don't actually make good art.

[t11]

I'd like to also see a study on the number of Wacoms sitting collecting dust after their purchasers found out that tablets don't actually make good art.

I'd like to find that garage sale.

[stoph]

"Increased global warming coincides with the decline of the pirate population."

wouldnt it increase the population? i mean come on.. there would be 9 or 10 seas, as opposed to your basic 7..

[Blue]

though there's no question that there is an increasing amount of people who want to become professional artists and illustrators. Only so many jobs out there, who are they going to go to? The ones who bust their asses in school as well as out of school in order to fill out any gaps their formal education may have left.
Beat me to it. I always welcome the laziness of my fellow artists at school (i'm not even in the art program, i'm in the school of business), because you know, its a competative market, and i refuse to be hungry.

Besides, no C.A.D can make you a good concept artist, and we do get paid a lot more then some other professional artists. Talent is important, technical skill will still get you the extra 20k a year once you get that job. These kids won't even be considered for the job while we'll be negotiating higher pay. :confident

[bdfoster]

"Increased global warming coincides with the decline of the pirate population."

I have been touched by his noodly appendage....

[Scubasteve]

I was too lazy to read the article... I get the impression many students think that the computer does the work for them, and that you really don't need any actually skills. I remember looking at other students work and think "why are you here?" judging from their skill level, they couldn't of had any more then a passing interest in art, but then again, I suppose this holds true to most other classes as well.

I look at the computer as a tool. To me sketching in Painter is pretty much the same as sketching on paper. The exception would be the lack of going outside, finding a subject or landscape and sitting in the grass and painting it, but even this is getting more plausable, with laptops and so fourth, although, I've never done it and it may be alittle cumbersome.

I do find the undo command makes me a bit more careless with my strokes.

[joelhinxman]

Originally Posted by Magic Man
I'd like to also see a study on the number of Wacoms sitting collecting dust after their purchasers found out that tablets don't actually make good art.

yea mine is kinda dusty :\ . i figured that i would try to remeber all the stuff i learned in college on traditional mediums befor i try to do something new.

i dont think they should even let students use tablets till they take like 2years of traditonal medium stuff.

[Snarfevs]

Yeah ever since adobe released the Anatomy Brush my basic drawing skills have plummeted. Hell I don't even have to draw lens flares by hand anymore!

[aesir]

Any drawing you do, be it on paper or on a computer will increase your skills.

However, I've found that when I work on paper, Im much much more controlled and careful and slow with my strokes. I cant seem to take things as seriously on a computer.

[Elwell]

Since the link to the actual article is broken, I found it here (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/04/06/design_software_weakens_classic_drawing_skills/?p1=email_to_a_friend). It's not very well written, but I must say I'm surprised to see people arguing with the basic premise. Seems like a no brainer to me.

[dindon]

Drawing is a lot more accessible and easier than using a tablet.

[dogfood]

...but I must say I'm surprised to see people arguing with the basic premise. Seems like a no brainer to me.
This is the quote that I don't agree with:
Aspiring artists no longer need to spend hours with pen and paper. Now they may produce polished drawings quickly on-screen with software...
Drawing skills may not be where they were, but it's not because kids are producing good stuff with little work on the computer (obviously, they may think it's good). They may be spending their time elsewhere (videogames, photoshop), but it's not a question of using the computer to make polished art (art that requires proper drawing skills, anyway).

Aspiring artists still need to spend hours with pen and paper.

[Elwell]

That's where the sloppy writing comes in. Typical journalism, where the author attempts to report on a subject the don't really understand. (This is the problem with all journalism, btw. Imagine how frustrating reading a newspaper would be if you were a cop, a politician, or a scientist.) But what if he had said Aspiring "artists" no longer need to spend hours with pen and paper. Now they may produce superficially polished images quickly on-screen with software...

[dogfood]

That's the unfortunate thing about journalism: no one can be an expert on everything, but many readers take news stories to be the gospel, even when they rail up and down when they find stories on their fields of expertise and spot all the errors.

Of course, sometimes it seems like reporters have taken some vow of ignorance in order to preserve their objectivity (as if they think they have any).

[Cthogua]

Honestly I think the decline in drawing skills has WAAAY more to do with the state of art education and general attitude of many in the fine art world.

Now I was somewhat less then motivated for my first few years of school. (went to UNC-Chapel Hill and majored in painting and drawing, not an "art" school or altier) I could have definatly pushed myself way harder than I did, but I was kind of a different person then. The art department however certainly did not help... there was one drawing class, and one life drawing class that you could take multiple times and absolutly NO spirit of competition or anything that might drive one to work harder. I can't tell you the number of times I had to listen to a lecture about how art had "moved on" from the need for craftsmanship...that it just got in the way of the concept or message. If I ever brought up my interest in illustration or commercial art I usually got a rant about how that wasn't "art" Obviously I knew it was, but there was no convincing those people. There was no instruction regarding technique or methods for painting realistically, it was just "paint what you feel" I would say that untill my junior year at college my drawing skills from highschool, that I had honed drawing various DnD, Warhammer, and 40K things atrophied. There was no place in the art department for creatures, skull bedecked chaos warriors, or alien worlds so I stopped drawing them almost entirely. Senior year there was a portfolio prep class that focused EXCLUSIVLY on preparing your portfolio for submission to a grad school....absolutly nothing about commercial art/illustration. That was about the time that I was figuring out that was what I wanted to do :\ Because of that experience I would largely consider myself "self-taught."

[Jakian]

Not only that, but the amount of art classes that have been cut due to state-finacial issues. There was talk about cutting the art classes at my jhigh. Not that I have ever taken art classes there, but it bothered me because that would lead to a more uncreative youth (*cough*emo*cough*).
You know it has always bothered me how people are forced to take an art class because "it's easy". I think that many young artists do have that mentality of "I'll do art because it's easy", and that sickens me.
I myself am a little of a digital artists, and I spend time discussing digital art on Gaia. I have to say that I am shocked by the amount of people that are looking for an easy way out by using photoshop. All the time I hear "teach me to shade on photoshop", "How do I do hair on photoshop", and "how do I make my art better with photoshop". The majority of these artists have never picked up a colored pencil or a pencil for that matter and tried to do the things that they want to do on photoshop on paper. It's really depressing seeing the amount of people that think that 3 clicks on photoshop will make them master artists. That mentality has unfortunatley created the "photoshop is a cheap way out" mentality of many people (like the person that wrote the article". They automaticly assume that because some kid can use a few filters on a picture that, that is how all digital art is.

I love digital art, and I plan to maybe (if time permits) to sell digital prints 'n stuff later on in life. I just hope that many younger digital artists would get back to the paper and just draw draw draw. They'll realize how great they can become as both digital and traditional artists.

[Cthogua]

Not only that, but the amount of art classes that have been cut due to state-finacial issues. There was talk about cutting the art classes at my jhigh.

I think it was my junior year at Chapel Hill...halfway though the first semester in one of my printmaking classes we were told that the department was completely out of money so we had to conserve the inks and to be careful with the presses cause if anything broke it wasn't getting fixed for a while. The way North Carolina distributes funds to the various schools in the UNC system has to do with what the school was already known for...Chapel Hill has an incredible medical, business, and law school as well as pretty high standards for its general education department...the art department was like the unwanted stepchild though...Unfortunatly if I wanted to go to the UNC school that had the good art department I would've had to go to East Carolina University, where everything BUT the art program was crappy. Even then it probably would've been more of the same "down-the-nose" attitude about my interest in illustration.

Art education in the US, especially in public primary schools is totally abyssmal and if it is any good its because of the heroic effort of that particular art department staff. My highschool had 1 art class...if the teacher liked you they would let you take it multiple times, but basically all you did was copy photos using a grid. I took the class for a week then switched it out for an extra science class since all it was just a trailer full of kids that wanted a class they could sleep in. The problem seems to go all the way up to the government...remember, murdering innocent foriegn people is more important than providing cultural education for your children.

[Ilaekae]

The US will never support art of any kind in any way until the public is taught the relationship of art to the rest of society. Take away their TV, movies, comic books, video games, house furnishings and furniture, their fashions, product advertising, good-looking homes, books, new stylish cars, pop music, and the user-friendly internet, and they might get some glimmer of an idea of just fuckin' stupid they are as far as "art" goes.

The dollar rules, and it rules with a very near-sighted short-term squint. It's up to us, in many many small ways, to instruct the people around us--our kids, our brothers and sisters, our school buddies--why it's important, and we have to do it NOW! These people will become the next school board, the next local politician, the next corporate leader, and they will all be consumers. If we don't get them to now, it'll be too late tomorrow.

Part of it also has to do with the way art is perceived by the public, and that perception in this country is always filtered through a biased and/or titillating set of glasses. Because of the rise of the extreme conservative right over the last 30 years, and the ingrained prudishness of the average US citizen, the arts are seen as easy targets for homophobes, the close-minded, and those with a true "Amurikan Agender." As late as 1997, I've had trouble with corporate bullshit thinking that "the guy in the middle of your illustration is just a bit dark-skinned, isn't he?"--and this was from BLUE CROSS of SW Pennsylvania! (There...no anonymous occurance, no small company from "Saath Mizzizzippie).

The US is ruled by assholes, it's tastes are dictated by assholes, and the results they puke out are swallowed hook line and sinker by assholes. At some point, to have any pride in ourselves and what we attempt to do, we have to change the assholes at the bottom end of the food chain into knowledgeable rational people with at least some basic idea of why our kids need to draw, sing, dance and write, and why it's at least as important or more so than fuckin' football and the prom.

[Evil_Sloth]

yeah i think that motivation has more to do with drawing skills than using a pencil or wacom.

[Elwell]

I think, due to the illustrative focus of this particular board, that people are missing the point. Drawing with a tablet is still drawing. But for many fields where a basic level of drawing ability used to be assumed, it no longer is. And fields like graphic design, for instance, are suffering for it.

[Professor Az]

Drawing with a tablet is still drawing. But for many fields where a basic level of drawing ability used to be assumed, it no longer is. And fields like graphic design, for instance, are suffering for it.

I couldn't agree more. Back in the day, cranking out blueprints and schematics that were crisp, clean, legible, and most of all accurate to 10/1000ths of an inch took a great deal of skill. Even though it wasn't fine art, you could tell the craftsmanship from the schlock just by looking at a fine piece. If you could create the master prints quickly, you were an asset to be kept around, and life was good.

CAD software (and others of its ilk) took away the artistic expression and craftsmanship from technical drawing, and graphic design. If you can't use a ruler, that's OK, the software will correct your crappy measurements for you. If you were too lazy to do proper structural analysis, don't worry, the software will keep your project from collapsing under its own weight. The care and dedication to detail that was once part of graphic design has been replaced by the need for speed, and in some cases, that's really not a good thing.

Not like I'm bitter or anything. :P