Funny though that comment of yours is precisely one of these things I don't like about this book. That "incompleteness" of picture in your mind is something everybody notices as he starts drawing anyway, but the thing that book "taught" you as you say is the wrong one.
You see, there is some maxima repeatedly imposed by that book, like "draw what you see" or something like that — you could formulate it by yourself just fine as you've read it I guess. That is an important thing that you should hear once, that's right, because relying too much on technical methods (like perspective) is often impractical and you must learn to draw not relying on it too much. The problem is, that it's just one thing you need to hear after you'll learn perspective and other basic techniques just once, but not a lesson itself.
Because, you see, there are infinite forms in the universe and our imaginary worlds as well, and drawing an elephant isn't about memorizing it, it's about understanding. If you want to understand what I'm talking about, I'd recommend you to read Gottfried Bammes "The Artist's Guide to Animal Anatomy".
Actually, if you'll go to the art school or similar place you'll be strongly discouraged from that "line tracing" thing (however, as I said, remembering that you can draw like that as well is important), which can seem surprising at first (because, really, it's so easy and so natural to just trace it!), but you'll understand why really soon.
By the way, if you are interested, maybe you should check some sketches for famous pictures of famous artists (like Dali) who were professionally drawing for years. That actually impressed me when I first saw that, that really, really good artists who I might have thought would just draw anything from the top of their heads actually do sketches with all these support lines and stuff. Then you understand that drawing isn't just line tracing after all.
So in the end of the day drawing tons of cubes and spheres is way more useful and important than line-tracing your face. Really.
Comments
Funny though that comment of yours is precisely one of these things I don't like about this book. That "incompleteness" of picture in your mind is something everybody notices as he starts drawing anyway, but the thing that book "taught" you as you say is the wrong one.
You see, there is some maxima repeatedly imposed by that book, like "draw what you see" or something like that — you could formulate it by yourself just fine as you've read it I guess. That is an important thing that you should hear once, that's right, because relying too much on technical methods (like perspective) is often impractical and you must learn to draw not relying on it too much. The problem is, that it's just one thing you need to hear after you'll learn perspective and other basic techniques just once, but not a lesson itself.
Because, you see, there are infinite forms in the universe and our imaginary worlds as well, and drawing an elephant isn't about memorizing it, it's about understanding. If you want to understand what I'm talking about, I'd recommend you to read Gottfried Bammes "The Artist's Guide to Animal Anatomy".
Actually, if you'll go to the art school or similar place you'll be strongly discouraged from that "line tracing" thing (however, as I said, remembering that you can draw like that as well is important), which can seem surprising at first (because, really, it's so easy and so natural to just trace it!), but you'll understand why really soon.
By the way, if you are interested, maybe you should check some sketches for famous pictures of famous artists (like Dali) who were professionally drawing for years. That actually impressed me when I first saw that, that really, really good artists who I might have thought would just draw anything from the top of their heads actually do sketches with all these support lines and stuff. Then you understand that drawing isn't just line tracing after all.
So in the end of the day drawing tons of cubes and spheres is way more useful and important than line-tracing your face. Really.