The one thing Skilled Artists understand about drawing, that Beginners Don't
During my 15 year teaching career, there is one thing that I continue to talk about, ad nauseam and in a variety of ways. It is the most important thing and yet, I don’t think I managed to steer any student in this direction and away from their existing habits. At least, not more than temporarily. I can only hope that, eventually it clicks sometime after I tell them about it. Nevertheless, I insist that this is the essential insight that you must understand about making drawings that “look like something” - a bowl of fruit, a chair, a portrait, whatever.
When trying to make a drawing of something that you’re looking at, the impulse is to describe what you’re seeing piece by piece. Starting here, finishing all the details and then moving over here, finishing and so on. But this is a beginner trap.
If you want to make a convincing portrait, let’s say, then, you cannot start with drawing the features. In other words, do not draw exactly those things that feel like the places that express the very resemblance you’re trying to capture. Why? Why not draw what I need to draw? Because resemblance doesn’t reside in a high level of detail or information. Resemblance comes from the correct assessment of the relationship between components, and not from the faithful representation of those components.
Drawing is about relationships, not details
In the movie Stalker, the titular character has to travel across a wide open field to reach The Shed. This field is full of unexpected, invisible and deadly traps. If you go directly for your destination, you will definitely be killed. So, the Stalker stalks toward the Shed - he follows a roundabout, zigzagging, crawling route guided by superstitions, past experiences and hearsay. And thus he always reaches his true destination.
To make good drawings you have to be a stalker as well. In short, this means that you need to pretend that you are not interested in the result that you actually seek (a realistic drawing of whatever). Instead, spend your time discovering and articulating the relationships between the components parts of your subject. This might mean that you look at a face in terms of the overall shapes, the shape and relationship between the different areas of shadow and light. How much space is there in-between features and the perimeter of the face? Think of building a house where the furniture and the wall paper represent the facial features in their details. You wouldn’t start a house with the furniture, would you? You would probably first build a perimeter, then some rooms and a roof.
I don’t have a good example of what I am talking about but I am recording some demos that explain all this in a visual way. There is a great exercise in Drawing on the Right side of the Brain that entails drawing one or more objects that have gaps in them, like chairs for example. The challenge is to draw only those negative spaces, do not draw the chair. If you pay close attention and draw the correct relationship between all the gaps, then the chair will have appeared by itself, without you even worrying about it! You will have stalked your way to your goal.
There are a million hyperrealistic drawings on the internet, especially of things like close up eyes, or sea waves, or leopards, or portraits. This work sometimes has an awkwardness about it, sometimes it’s fine. But this work is amateur, it is often made by self taught artists or just beginners. Here is why I say this. These drawings look impressive because they make explicit the fact that they contain a great amount of labour in them. But that is all there is: labour and time. In other words: there is no drawing, no art. This type of drawing is impressive only to people who do not understand anything about drawing or art, as they represent a form of mechanical skill that anyone can produce. You may have seen street portrait artists who often show a portfolio of celebrity portraits in the manner I described: very realistic, recognizable, impressive to the naive onlooker. BUT: When you watch them draw their customer from life, the results are just dreadful. Awful! Why is this? I’ll tell you why! The drawings in the portfolio were executed from photographs. The same is true of the big eyes, sea waves, etc. Working from a photograph is conducive to just copying and rendering the image. You can do a grid, you can have a kind of contest with the camera. You don’t have to understand anything about what you’re looking at, the image is already flattened, already 2dimensional. You don’t need to pay attention to relationships. Drawing from 3d reality is a totally different ball game. There are a lot more decisions you have to make, you have to do the flattening. And this is where discipline and method can be powerful.
The amateur spends all their energy trying to demonstrate skill, to make something that explains how much work they put into it. But mastery means to use drawing to understand your subject. Here the skill is assumed and what becomes visible is economy, efficiency and curiosity. Here is a water drawing by da Vinci, the epitome of artistic inquiry.
You can imagine that da Vinci didn’t have a photograph of water to make a drawing from. He stared at water for hours and made many drawings as a way to help him understand and learn about water.
If you can assume the discipline of focusing on relationships, then your drawings will be more convincing AND, you will have to do less work. Instead of labouring equally on every detail of the entire drawing, you will be able to suggest more, while drawing less. And you can draw more expressively, faster. Look at this drawing by Lautrec!
A few seconds, a gesture! And yet, how convincing it is. I understand exactly the structure of the man’s head, and that the artist saw him from behind. The quality of line indicates confidence, looseness and purpose. Did you notice that he moved the ear? He didn’t care about ending up with a beautiful drawing, he cared about being accurate. So this one minute sketch contains more insight, more life, more mastery than a million photo realistic drawings of sea waves.
To a beginner, it may seem that specific knowledge is needed for drawing various subjects. How to draw a nose, how to do hands, how to draw trees, etc. This mindset quickly makes drawing start to feel daunting. But, when you internalize the idea that drawing is about relationships, then you can draw anything, because, from this point of view, drawing a figure or a chair or a forest or a portrait, is all the same thing.
I have a lot to show you about all of this and I hope you will join me in trying these concepts for yourself. Next week, let’s talk about the biggest challenge: how to make those first marks, how to begin!
P.S. I have now started the subscriber only section of Art on The Brain, with a demo that exemplifies this approach. Have a look here:
First principles: A good drawing is built on big shapes
Try this process for yourself with a subject that has some complexity and a good level of detail/information. You need some vine charcoal, kneadable eraser and some newsprint or manila paper. You can do this with any medium but this is the easiest way to get the hang of it. The important part is squinting and working in a generalized, overall mode. But …
I am a practicing artist and have an MEd in arts education. The way children draw is so creative and amazing because they are examining their worlds with scientific curiosity and representing the relationships between what they observe. One exercise I sometimes do with adults is ask them to draw something from their mind—a mushroom, a leaf. Then we draw the same subject from a photo. Lastly, each person draws the thing from life (mushrooms are very inexpensive in bulk and also so enjoyable to examine!) Comparing the three results leads to amazing discussions
Thank you, Bogdan. I always appreciate your insight and find myself looking forward to your blogs on art. This post, in particular, brought back memories of a critique from a class I took with you. I remember your feedback on a piece I had done for a fabric assignment, it was a realistic rendering of a small section from a much larger arrangement of fabrics displayed on stage.
As you describe in your post, I suppose that piece could be considered a “copy” in the way you define it. I’ve always been drawn to detail. The act of sitting closely with a canvas, getting lost in the precision of lines and subtle shifts in colour and light, it’s deeply meditative for me. When I work this way, I enter a kind of trance state where even breathing becomes secondary during moments of focus.
But here’s the thing:l, for me, realistic art isn’t just about copying what I see, whether from a photo or a still life. It’s about problem solving, like working through a math equation. I’m constantly asking myself, How do I recreate the texture, the light, the form? How do I translate what I see onto canvas? This process gives me a sense of control and peace in a world that often feels chaotic and unpredictable, even within myself.
Yes, realism is technical, and yes, some might argue it can be taught. But to develop this level of skill takes an extraordinary amount of patience, not just with the hand, but with the whole body. It’s an immersive experience and I don’t think everyone is built for it.
I do agree with your point about the importance of stepping back to assess the whole composition. For me, this often leads to altering the work significantly from the original reference. The result may look realistic, but it’s no longer just a copy, it has become something personal.
This style may not appeal to everyone, but I believe it is both valid and creative. Creativity doesn’t always have to be loud or abstract. Sometimes it’s found in the quiet and meticulous act of translating what we see. For me, the value of art lies in what the process gives me, not in what others might take from it. If it were only about pleasing others, I’d just take commissions or make art for profit. I can’t tell you how many people just recently have asked me to create art for them that’s messy and loose, abstract. You’re right, they don’t care about the labour, they don’t understand it therefore can’t appreciate the process aspect of art. Doesn’t matter what style, realistic and meticulous or abstract, often they just want something quick and cheap other wise the comment I get often, is how hard is it to just slap some paint on the canvas? As long as the colours match the rest of my home decor. I can even do that.
In the end, my practice is about bringing a sense of order and calm to the chaos within. The journey—through every obstacle, every challenge, every deliberate stroke—is where the meaning lies. Whether the lines I draw are loose and expressive or tight and precise, every one of them is a step toward that peace I’m searching for.
I miss your class tremendously, Bogdan. I learned so much from you, as you truly pushed me to apply exactly what you write about in this post. That experience expanded my skills in ways I’m still grateful for. Although I had to step away from my studies at OCAD, I’ve continued to take on new challenges for myself with each piece. Your influence still reflects in the way I approach my work.