40 Days of Art: How to Learn a Style
Apr. 14th, 2011 01:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinYou have an artist you admire and want to learn how they do what they do, but how do you learn to draw like them?
The simple answer is: trace trace trace, copy copy copy. But you can't just blindly duplicate the lines, you have to have your brain turned on while you're doing so or you won't learn anything. Try to think about the following things:
1. What sort of shapes does this artist use?
a) are they rounded? squared? angular? blocky? willowy?
2. Does the artist draw fully dimensionally, or flatten things into abstract graphic shapes? Or a combination of the two?
3. Is there a specific thing you really like about how this artist draws?
- Do you like the way they do expressions? Hands? Poses? Drapery? Their line quality? Composition?
3. How do the lines act? Every line tells a story of the way it was drawn.
a) do they meander continuously around the drawing?
b) are they drawn in short jerky spurts?
c) are they wiggly curves or forceful arcs?
d) how does the artist use straight lines? (do they use straight lines?)
e) what does the line quality say about how they were drawn?
- are they wire-thin and precise?
- are they blocky or impressionistic?
- do they taper from thick to thin as if drawn by a pressure-sensitive tool?
4. How do the lines interact?
a) do they flow smoothly into each other or make sharp turns?
5. How does drawing these lines make you feel?
- This might sound like a fruity art question, but when you are copying someone else's lines you are mimicking their physical movements, and so in a small way you are literally feeling what it is like to be them, at least when it comes to drawing. The sort of lines artists choose to use in their own personal style says a lot about their personality and mental and physical state. An artist's linework is their artistic handwriting, and there's a whole discipline devoted to deducing someone's personality or health from the way they write. Often when you try to copy someone's art you can get the lines right but there's something missing; sometimes you can find it by pretending to be the artist – find how the physical act of creating that drawing makes you feel, and extrapolate what you can about the artist's state of mind, then try to put yourself in that place when you draw.
Once you've studied a wide cross-section of the artist's work, try creating your own drawings in that artist's style. Try to make it look like that artist drew it, like you've uncovered a new piece of art by this person that no one had seen before. Forgery is fun, and educational! (Purely for learning purposes, you understand.)
And remember: LEARN FROM A WIDE VARIETY OF ARTISTS. You can be the best Mignola mimic in the world, but the world already has a Mignola! Make your own unique blend of influences!
If you want some informative examples of how other people have dissected artists' styles, the following 'Art of' books have style guides in them, though you may need a jeweler's loupe to read some of the text:
Fantasia 2000 (for Al Hirschfeld)
Hercules (for Gerald Scarfe – 'the swoop with a sudden reversal is a key Scarfe line!')
Mulan
Lilo & Stitch (for Chris Sanders)
I'm pretty sure I've seen Atlantis' somewhere before, but I don't think it was in the art book. Special Edition DVD maybe?
The simple answer is: trace trace trace, copy copy copy. But you can't just blindly duplicate the lines, you have to have your brain turned on while you're doing so or you won't learn anything. Try to think about the following things:
1. What sort of shapes does this artist use?
a) are they rounded? squared? angular? blocky? willowy?
2. Does the artist draw fully dimensionally, or flatten things into abstract graphic shapes? Or a combination of the two?
3. Is there a specific thing you really like about how this artist draws?
- Do you like the way they do expressions? Hands? Poses? Drapery? Their line quality? Composition?
3. How do the lines act? Every line tells a story of the way it was drawn.
a) do they meander continuously around the drawing?
b) are they drawn in short jerky spurts?
c) are they wiggly curves or forceful arcs?
d) how does the artist use straight lines? (do they use straight lines?)
e) what does the line quality say about how they were drawn?
- are they wire-thin and precise?
- are they blocky or impressionistic?
- do they taper from thick to thin as if drawn by a pressure-sensitive tool?
4. How do the lines interact?
a) do they flow smoothly into each other or make sharp turns?
5. How does drawing these lines make you feel?
- This might sound like a fruity art question, but when you are copying someone else's lines you are mimicking their physical movements, and so in a small way you are literally feeling what it is like to be them, at least when it comes to drawing. The sort of lines artists choose to use in their own personal style says a lot about their personality and mental and physical state. An artist's linework is their artistic handwriting, and there's a whole discipline devoted to deducing someone's personality or health from the way they write. Often when you try to copy someone's art you can get the lines right but there's something missing; sometimes you can find it by pretending to be the artist – find how the physical act of creating that drawing makes you feel, and extrapolate what you can about the artist's state of mind, then try to put yourself in that place when you draw.
Once you've studied a wide cross-section of the artist's work, try creating your own drawings in that artist's style. Try to make it look like that artist drew it, like you've uncovered a new piece of art by this person that no one had seen before. Forgery is fun, and educational! (Purely for learning purposes, you understand.)
And remember: LEARN FROM A WIDE VARIETY OF ARTISTS. You can be the best Mignola mimic in the world, but the world already has a Mignola! Make your own unique blend of influences!
If you want some informative examples of how other people have dissected artists' styles, the following 'Art of' books have style guides in them, though you may need a jeweler's loupe to read some of the text:
Fantasia 2000 (for Al Hirschfeld)
Hercules (for Gerald Scarfe – 'the swoop with a sudden reversal is a key Scarfe line!')
Mulan
Lilo & Stitch (for Chris Sanders)
I'm pretty sure I've seen Atlantis' somewhere before, but I don't think it was in the art book. Special Edition DVD maybe?
