I don't get it. Key to Drawing by Bert Dodson says that

>>2739916
If you are total beginner tier you need to rely on your eyes because your "knowledge" is incomplete and probably the bits in your head are actually wrong. You build up a proper foundation of knowledge by copying what you see, and after you are able to do that you can start to train yourself in other ways to be able to construct forms and draw from your imagination, but that stage is built upon the foundation of copying reference accurately.

>>2739916
Are you reading it in pdf?
I can't find it.

>>2739988
>I can't find it.
breh. Literally google "Keys to Drawing by Bert Dodson" and the fifth result is a pdf.

>>2739995
Oh shit. You're right.
God I'm retarded.

>relying on eyes
top fucking kek

they are misleading more than anything. A lot of the time you see something bigger/smaller than it really is, if you rely on eyes only, your drawings are always going to be crooked garbage.

>>2740014
>A lot of the time you see something bigger/smaller than it really is, if you rely on eyes only, your drawings are always going to be crooked garbage
Your eyes always see things the same, it's your brain that is distorting things by messed up perceptions. Trusting your eyes is how you fix misproportioned garbage.

>>2739916
Key to Drawing and books like it only serve to cure symbol drawing and improve your observational drawing skills.

You won't learn much about drawing from imagination but curing symbol drawing is a necessary step before you can draw well from imagination and observational drawing is a great way to cure symbol drawing.

>>2739916
I think when he says that he doesn't mean artistic knowledge, he means the knowledge you have of the physical world. Example:
Begginers dawing from knowledge
>Hair and eyelashes are made from lots of strands so I will draw lots of lines!!!
Beginner drawing from what you see
>Oh, that hair is mostly too dark to see any details, but it has a sharp wavey highlight at the top

File: d23ee741ae2c9390f496046de35115ce.jpg (36KB, 400x560px) Image search: [Google]

36KB, 400x560px

>>2739916

>imagination

Ok, this was explained on /ic/ a couple of times, but maybe not very clearly. See this article for the beginning:

https://design.tutsplus.com/articles/why-is-it-so-hard-to-draw-from-imagination-heres-how-to-do-it--cms-22967

Normally anons would explain to you what is in this article and that you need to build your visual library by drawing a lot from reference and that you are a stupid nigger and get back to drawing and reading Dodson.

I will dig deeper though, because by "drawing from imagination" you probably don't think about "I want to draw horses without looking at reference", but "I want to draw such awesome out-of-this-world imaginative worlds and characters like Moebius, Beksiński or all those other people".

This actually builds up on the stuff you see in "Keys to Drawing". In order to be imaginative and creative you need to understand shapes and lines, so you will know how to modify them to your liking.

>I want to know anyway!

Ok, so supply Dodson with other stuff. Get "How to Draw" and "How to Render" by Robertson. He goes in-depth about construction that builds up on your drawings as well about light in his "How to Render". You want to know more? Get some Vilppu or "Anatomy for Artists", supply your teachings with Proko videos and other stuff there's a ton of it on /ic/.

>Hey, hey, there's too much! Don't you have one book/course?

As an artist you will always have to do research and know a lot of stuff. It's a given that you will have to keep learning.

There's a problem though seen on /ic/ - too much theory, too little drawing. You'd ask people here and probably only a handful did all exercises in Dodson - and they are ESSENTIAL. You need those and will always need. Beginners when they suck they do because of not knowing the stuff that is in that book and NOT DRAWING. Not having a sense of proportion.

So shut up and do all exercises from "Keys to Drawing" and read it from left to right. And after that - pic rel.

>>2740014
>>2739916
Do you guys even draw?? The book's meant to reach observation drawing and trusting your eyes, and not what you "think" you know about the subject.

Now obviously when you improve and you study the subject more you're only going to rely on your knowledge, but that's only because you /actually/ know what's there. It's a symbol drawing cure, and gives you a solid base to work from. The book's the best for a beginner, if you're seriously stressing out about it, just give up. Also stop making new threads for this shit. :^)

>>2739916
Keys to drawing teaches observational drawing. For drawing from imagination, you need to learn construction.
The whole point of that book is to get you 100% rid of symbol drawing.

>>2740174
This is good advice.

Do you need to learn observational drawing before attempting to learn drawing from imagination?