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Showing posts from January, 2019

Drawing is more than seeing

Learning to draw again as an adult is a tad bit different from learning to draw as a child. There is a freedom of imagination and expression in childhood drawing that gets overshadowed sometimes by the need to control and plan in adulthood. A watercolor sketch from direct observation Some say that learning to draw is learning how to see, but that isn’t quite right. It is important to see certain aspects of form, shape, light and atmosphere in order to better observe what you want to represent realistically. But learning to draw is all about learning to control lines, shapes and edges on a surface in order to build a picture of what you see. So drawing involves much more than seeing. Drawing is a constructive and organizing activity that communicates ideas. In this way it goes beyond seeing and simple observation. It is related to speech. It organizes lines and shapes on a surface so that something new can be seen, felt or understood. A cave drawing organizes lines so that viewe