Drawing with Thought

"You have to think about what you are doing. It's no use just mindlessly going over and over the same thing making the same mistakes." My music teacher was talking about Cello: you don't just keep trying to play the note and getting it wrong. You look at where your finger is landing on the string: are you always a little sharp? Then aim lower, and it will be right. What is your right hand doing? Is the bow straight, so the string can vibrate properly, or at an angle, dampening the vibration?

The same principle is useful in drawing. You have to look at nuts and bolts of what you are doing. Consider the mechanics of eye and hand, paper and pencil, just as the musician considers the movement of hand, bow and string. There are so many ways for things to go wrong! There are times when there is no substitute for an experienced teacher to help you know where the problem is (eye, memory, hand, pencil, paper?) and what you need to do to fix it, but if you don't have a teacher, posting your drawing on a discussion board with helpful members is a good alternative.

Sometimes it can be hard to look at your work critically. You just get too close to it, whether you are a beginner and proud of your first efforts, or an experienced artist who has been drawing forever, it can be easy to get stuck in a rut, and often the longer you've been drawing, the deeper it is. Here are some ways to troubleshoot your drawings, and get out of that rut.