The 20-Minute Journey Begins

>>2812714
>trace
It belongs in the trash

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I'd like to drop Step 1 by July, and drop step 2 by December.

I intentionally chose a dark, low-resolution image for the first attempt because it would be very difficult to trace beyond very basic outlines.

>>2812714
Don't forget construction

>>2812714
How about instead of talking, you draw. Like right now. I bet this post took 20 minutes.

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>>2812717

I know. These are going in the trash... They're on loose-leaf printer paper. People dog on tracing, but how the fuck else are you going to build correct muscle memory?

You start skiing on the bunny hill. You look like an ass, and you suck, but that's where beginners start.

"Learn to copy" HA yeah, learn to swim in the deep end. Whatever.

I'm an engineer, not an artist.

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>>2812722
I had the drawings done by the time I wrote the post

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>>2812728

Work first, then play on the internet.

Maybe I'll do something more exciting next time... Porn?

>>2812723
>I'm an engineer, not an artist.

That explains your autistic obsession with an algorithmic and quantized routine and desire to tell the world about it :^)

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Here's the second piece of paper before I drew anything... Just establishing the basic framework

>>2812723
>>2812728
>>2812730
>tfw they all look the same
>no improvement whatsoever between them
What a joke man, take an hour on each.

>>2812732

>YAY. I had been wondering about that.

I've been lurking on other boards for a long time... Never got around to posting.

>>2812723
>but that's where beginners start.

No beginners start in the beginners thread. It's the one below this. You should post there and delete your (shitty) thread.

>>2812714
awesome!
as if we care what you do with your life.

>>2812734

Even I can spot the differences and shortcomings from 1 - 2 - 3...

Why spend extra time polishing a turd?

I set a time limit for a good reason.

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stop announcing your goals for attention, just fucking do them

>>2812732
> to tell the world about it :^)
>>2812740
>as if we care what you do with your life.

yeah, who cares..

>>2812740
>Not caring intensifies

>>2812745
>implying having anon support doesn't boost your ego and make you 100% better
Do you wanna know why you haven't made it?

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>>2812745

...Did first...

...Then posted about it...

>>2812734

>They got worse... As expected.

>>2812741
You're supposed to spend time making sure its not a turd in the first place. Stop and think about your construction, perspective and form, otherwise you're just doodling for the sake of it.

Going fast is worthless, speed is something you develop naturally with practice. Drop the arbitrary time limit and focus on getting meaningful studies instead.

Also, there are way better excercises for muscle memory than just tracing.

>>2812764

>Do tell

seen this thread 1000 times
you're going to last a week

>>2812768
this

i tried something like this before. Its not that i couldn't do it, its that i realized blogging on an imageboard is pointless and cancerous

>>2812766
A good starting point
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgDNDOKnArk

>>2812773

Interesting. I should probably do his basic repetitive geometric shapes, but I don't like his teaching style, and I'm adamant about using only basic office materials.

You don't need special fancy tools to draw. You don't need special ink pens you order online, and you don't need special paper.

All that sh*t is a lame crutch and a poor excuse when you have to pick up a ballpoint, flip over a piece of scrap, and draw something well.

Normal pencil and normal paper is adequate.

>>2812808
Limiting yourself is the biggest crutch there is ever.

>>2812808
ngmi. you have no idea what it takes to get good

>>2812808
>Normal pencil and normal paper is adequate.

This is such a meme. Do you need to spend a lot of money on materials?

Maybe not for drawing, it is for painting. Try doing an oil painting with a ballpoint pen.

Is it nice to use high quality materials for drawings?
Always yes. It feels better. You don't need it, but you will want it.

>>2812768
>>2812769
Why do they never make it? I'm quite interested in this phenomenon. Not just online, but friends in real life who have boasted about their regime end up quitting and being flaky about the subject a week later.

>>2812818

Beginners with fancy materials remind me of the cocksuckers that show up at the track with a brand new $14K liter bike 3 days after their M1 test, and tell the instructor that they want to avoid laying it down.

It makes me a little sad, a little contemptuous, but mostly makes me feel pity.

>>2812723

pretty sure that's why people fill up pages with line and shape exercises isn't it?

tracing is a shit way to go about beginning art.
It really just teaches you how to trace and that's all.

>>2812833

Lack of social support. That is what they are seeking when they announce it.

> It's really easy to keep going to the gym with a roommate... But the people who live alone are gone a few weeks after the new years resolution gets cold.

>>2812714
Hey OP.

Trust me and start Keys to Drawing or Drawing on the Right side of the brain.

Delete your thread and go over to the beginner thread.

Please don't do this again. Be careful with /ic/ we can help you improve thorough brutal critique but just follow the rules ok? Happy hunting.

>>2812836
If you announce your goals to people then you're more likely to follow through with them because everyone knows about it and will call you out on quitting.

But this is an image board. He should keep his threads of self promising away from /ic/ unless the shitposting begins.

>>2812835

You are incorrect. Tracing has a stigma because it's like cheating. It can make a beginner seem far more competent than they actually are.

...Provided they lie about it.

Openly admitting it is fine. It's like citing work vs plagarizing it.

On a related note, my 2 non-traced copies, while they did get markedly worse, benefited from the original trace..

By the time I drew the third picture, with no reference to look at, it was much better than what I can draw completely cold... And it's better than what another beginner can do by making "grid squares" and flipping the paper to "fool the left brain"

>>2812837

This thread is well within the rules.

>>2812843

Naw, planning on simply dropping it daily and seeing what happens. If it's a flood of shitposting, then I gain nothing, and lose nothing.

If I learn something, or stumble across advice that's not a load of shit, then I gain something

People who "teach" art are funny. I understand how I learn...

>>2812833
most people don't stick with things. i've noticed it applies doubly with people who make grand plans like yourself

>>2812858
you're not going to learn shit only doing 1 hour a day, enjoy your no-gains

>>2812869
1 hour a day is enough for life drawing.

It'd be genuinely fascinating if people posted their own timestamped work along with their shitposting...

Or maybe a progress shot...

Or a before/after...

...Or something else that could determine whether or not they were a complete fuckhead.

...If you can't make measurable progress with an hour a day you're doing something very very wrong.

Name 1 other motor skill you can't make measurable progress on in an hour a day.

There aren't any. Art is not unique, it's not a mystery, and it's not difficult.

>>2812871
what did he mean by this?

>>2812874
it's not a motor skill

>>2812854
I know but how in the fuck can anyone post this garbage and think all the shit he's getting is 'good'?

I would be ashamed if I were op.

>>2812881

You must be easy to embarass.

Other people's shitty opinions are just part of life.

>>2812869
If he's a hobbyist he'll be fine.

>>2812836
You won't get good at anything if you don't have the discipline to practice alone

>>2812892

True. It was just an example.

>>2812714
I respect your attitude of using simple tools and following a simple plan. Spending a third of your time tracing does not seem like a good idea. Practicing tracing improves your ability to trace; you aren't making any artistic choices or deepening your understanding of what you're tracing.

> be able to sit down in any place with any tools and draw something from memory/imagination alone in 20 minutes or less
That's a tall order, and there are things (perspective, construction, and gesture to name a few) you'll need to learn that your regimen won't teach you. If you wanted to forsake the methods and books that are recommended here, I think a better plan would be "Draw from life for an hour a day". At least then you'll be doing more than trying to copy 2D shapes and hoping to learn why they look the way they do and how they relate to each other in space.

>>2812808
>Normal pencil and normal paper is adequate.
This is correct, but felt-tipped pens make dark lines very easily with very little pressure, and this is very useful when you're learning how to make confident lines with your whole arm. I see a Wal-Mart receipt there. The ones near me recently started carrying Staedtler Fineliners pretty cheap. Fine Sharpie Pens (not the markers) equate to a 0.3mm drawing pen and are $7 a dozen. If you want to use pencils fine, but using felt-tipped pens helped me, and the end results look much better than pencil drawings.

I also just noticed you didn't buy a clipboard. Get one and draw on a stack of at least 15 pages.

>>2812714
you will drop your "journey" in 2-3 weeks, like every other retard that made new year resolutions.

>>2813028

Ok. Thanks. the pens and clipboard are worth a shot. I'll see what happens.

I travel for a living, and there was a Walmart around the corner from the hotel.

I'm still a little hung up on the tracing thing... I don't get why people hate tracing so much. Drawing is fundamentally a motor skill.

I'll try an example... Say I'm doing circle exercises... Trying to draw confident, continuous circles. I draw 5, trace 5, and draw another 5... The third set is vastly better than the first. In order to replicate the same progress from only freehand circles, I have to do hundreds... I can make the same improvement in 15 circles if I swallow my pride and give my eyes a guide for my hand.

It's just a motor skill. People put it on a big pedestal because they don't understand how it works.

I totally support and understand construction.. I do construction exercises, but I saw a guy bitching that he's done Loomis for a year and can't draw cute faces... 50 bucks says, he traces 5 and he'll be able to construct them.

>>2813038

Brool Story Co.

>>2813054
If you're at a level of art where drawing just a circle is very difficult for you, tracing might help you in that aspect, but not much beyond that. Tracing only teaches you how to draw an exact set of lines. You only replicate what the finalized contour lines of an image look like rather than going through the steps of understanding how an image is built.

>>2812714
>I've got a goal for 2017, and I'll be posting daily.
feel free to do that at fucking tumblr, that's literally what a blog is retard. you are a beginner and thus I'd usually tell you to go to the beginner thread but honestly you'd just shit up that thread.

learn to self critique and hold yourself accountable, you don't need /ic/ to critique every 5 steps you take.

saged.

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>>2813082

It was an example...

>>2813097

Even at the bottom of the barrel, art breeds ridiculous snobs. Haha.. Wait... *Derisive snorting* ... There, fixed the laugh. It's art-appropriate now.

You don't understand what makes 4chan beautiful and unique. This isn't a motherfucking blog. My shit goes away when the thread dies. It goes in the great trash can of the internet, just like my loose leaf tracings get burned in the hotel sink. They exist for a moment, other people can take a glance if they want, and then they're gone.

One day I'll draw something worth keeping.

>>2813054
>I'm still a little hung up on the tracing thing... I don't get why people hate tracing so much. Drawing is fundamentally a motor skill.
It's fundamentally a thinking skill.

Moving a pen along a path that's been made for you is entirely different than figuring out for yourself where that path should be, visualizing the path in your mind, and then drawing it. It's not that people hate tracing, but it doesn't lead to understanding what you're looking at and getting a sense of it as a 3D object in your mind and on the page. We don't perceive the world as a 2D image, and you get a better grasp of the form of a thing when you're not just thinking about it as a group of 2D shapes.

Try drawing something in front of you and compare that to drawing from a photograph. It's a different type of thinking.

I did plenty of coordination exercises from Peter Han's dynamic sketching / drawabox.com and I think there's a real benefit to trying to draw over lines as accurately as possible. I only traced over straight lines, though. The book "Freehand Drawing and Sketching" has a bunch of pen exercises too. I view these kinds of things as exercises before I start drawing in earnest: 5-10 minutes a day max.

>>2813166
>thinking
Yeah nah, it's a motor skill.

>>2813145
Actually it clogs up the board for days to weeks and then sits in the archive forever and everything you ever do in the future will be linked to your shitty art and autistic sense of self-importance that comes through in every post.

You won't kill yourself for the benefit of everyone else because the concept of other people's feelings is beyond you, but it never hurts to try. Kill yourself

>>2812773
>muscle memory
that isn't muscle memory. that is dexterity with the hand, it has nothing to do with memory.

god damn it. this place makes me depressed. I was gonna congratulate the OP on his courage but now why even bother, he seems to want the attention.

good luck to you anyways.

>>2812850
It'll never teach you to see the subject correctly, which is more important than a pretty beginner drawing.