

Learning To Learn: Pencil, Then Ink - moserware
http://betterexplained.com/articles/learning-to-learn-pencil-then-ink/

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Groxx

      Wayward paths can help us better understand the correct ones.
    

Very true, IMO. It's one of the reasons I love my algorithm textbook more than
any other school textbook I've ever had: it not only explains why you choose a
certain way of proving an algorithm, or how to construct an efficient one, _it
gives you seemingly-logical, incorrect alternatives that people naturally fall
into_ and explains why they're wrong. It actively helps you to recognize
potential mistakes later, rather than having you stumble onto them without
understanding why you made the mistake.

~~~
fgimenez
Well don't leave us hanging! What is the textbook?

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Groxx
Ah, apologies:

    
    
      Algorithm Design
      by Jon Kleinberg & Éva Tardos
      ISBN: 978-0-321-29535-8
    

Or an Amazon link: [http://www.amazon.com/Algorithm-Design-Jon-
Kleinberg/dp/0321...](http://www.amazon.com/Algorithm-Design-Jon-
Kleinberg/dp/0321295358/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1263600138&sr=8-1)

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bmelton
I recently picked up Betty Edwards' "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain"
book. Supposedly, it's been updated recently, to contain her most recent
knowledge on mark-making and 'seeing' the drawing in life.

I used to be quite a decent pencilist, but after 18 years of not having drawn
a lick, and perhaps relating to the drugs that were consumed during my teenage
years, I've simply forgotten how to do anything, how to even see the marks
that need making, to complete even rudimentary drawings.

I'm only a few pages in, but at least on the premise, the referenced book in
this works on similar principles.

~~~
GiraffeNecktie
I think Edwards actually has a completely different approach. The book
referenced in the article uses the idea of making an object out of basic
shapes: put together some squares and circles and you have an elephant. The
only problem is that that approach only works for making a kind of stencil
image of an elephant and totally fails for realistic drawing. Edwards'
approach is totally focused on convincing the brain to drop its preconceptions
(like the squares and circles) and transfer the reality of the actual lines
and shadows that are in front of the eye to the paper. You actually have to
stop the mind from trying to substitute it's template of an idealized
"elephant" (or the idea that I should draw a circle because someone told me to
draw a circle) and let the pencil just follow the eye.

~~~
jcl
I think Edwards's approach is more compatible with Ames's construction
approach than your description implies. Sure, Edwards is trying to get you to
see what is in front of you rather than rely on preconceptions. But what is in
front of you can often be described as a collection of generalized shapes, as
Ames does. And, indeed, this is a good way to get the initial proportions of a
drawing correct; I believe Edwards discusses some helpful construction rules
in the portrait section of her book.

In other words, you should draw a circle not because someone told you to draw
a circle, but because the thing in front of you genuinely has an underlying
circular form at that size and in that position -- as Ames must have done when
he came up with his drawing books in the first place. And the more you do
this, the faster you learn the underlying structure of things, which makes it
easier to draw from memory, draw from imagination, or simply draw from life
without needing to stop as frequently to measure things.

~~~
GiraffeNecktie
Generalized shapes might help if you're drawing extremely regular objects
(books, balls, apartment buildings) or perhaps if you need to draw a generic
"horse" from memory but it's not a big help with life drawing. Edwards and
other life drawing teachers often suggest drawing the negative spaces as a way
of breaking the habit of using the brain to figure out what the object is
"like" (e.g. it's like a square sitting on a circle) and focus on what it is.

~~~
jcl
Yes, negative space is useful for focusing a student's attention on the shape
itself rather than the subject. But it also has the tendency to encourage a
local rather than global focus, so that locally all the shapes look right, but
the global proportions are wrong. Or where you work your way around a bicycle
wheel drawing all the negative shapes, and the last shape you draw is too wide
or too thin.

Which isn't much of a problem for things like still lifes, but it becomes a
bigger problem in, for example, portraiture, where the human eye is
particularly sensitive to errors in proportion -- which is why Edwards
includes some construction rules-of-thumb in her portraiture chapter.

You may be focusing too strongly on "circles and squares" as idealized
shapes... If you look at the picture of the elephant in the article, none of
the shapes is quite a circle. Rather, they outline masses, like the blobs you
might see if you defocus your eyes. Being able to capture the proportions and
locations of these masses is actually very important when drawing from life.
(see, for example, Nicolaides's "The Natural Way to Draw")

~~~
kalid
Just wanted to say thanks for the analysis -- I'm considering learning to draw
again and it's great to see these perspectives :).

