Spicer - Draw People in 15 Minutes

Drawing is for everybody. Anyone can learn to draw, and anybody who can draw can always learn to draw better. In a world of secondary images the process of drawing gives us precious moments to look at another person and create a response to them with marks on a tactile surface. Although some people have a natural aptitude for drawing, the ability to draw isnt a talent that you are born with; its a skill that can be learned like playing a musical instrument or learning another language.

Drawing People

We draw subjects that engage us, and we find other people fascinating. The urge to draw ourselves and one another predates writing: from the walls of caves and the pyramids, to the sketchbooks of great thinkers and the canvases of great painters, the human figure is the most enduring artistic subject. This book is a practical guide to drawing people, focusing on the fundamental skills needed to make a quick sketch from life or a longer study from a reference or model. The aim isnt to give you templates for different figures and poses, but to provide the instruction you need to start really looking at other people and to simplify the complexity of the human form into clear, concise marks. Learning to draw is a skill for life and once you can draw the human figure any other subject is comparatively simple!

Why Draw?

You might draw as a hobby, to please yourself, or as a way to impress friends with a neat skill; you might draw to communicate ideas at work in anything from carpentry to web design. Whatever your reason for drawing youll find that the more you draw and the better you get, the more you realize its not just about making a picture on a piece of paper, but learning to see the world in a different way. The draftsmans eye sees wonder in the mundane; to be able to see something and translate that observation into a drawing is a skill with more facets to it than simply art or illusion.

The Language of Drawing

Drawing is a kind of visual language; a way of describing the observed world using a vocabulary of line and tone. Like a spoken language it has a certain grammar and structure that can be learned, developed, and adapted to suit the figures you want to sketch. This book serves as a guidebook, giving you some simple visual phrases for communicating fundamental elements of a figure; through practice and regular drawing you can develop a broader range and personal style. In time your marks can become poetic, eloquent, and you will become more fluid in your articulation, your visual description of what you see.

Beginning

As kids we all draw and paint, but as teenagers we can become so self-conscious about drawing that by adulthood we have talked ourselves out of it altogether. We can all reclaim the skill of drawing. When you first learn to draw you may feel clumsy, your pencil stumbling over lines as your tongue might stumble through a foreign phrase. There arent some people who find drawing effortless and others who find it difficult: everybody struggles at first. The frustration that can accompany drawing is part of the discovery process; it encourages you to seek, be curious and to look harder at your subject. Without a certain amount of struggle no learning would take place, so be gentle with yourself and stick with it.

Before launching into the drawing chapters its worth reading the next few pages. They serve as an introduction to drawing and a key to using the book. Enjoy.