Why cant i draw?

Question

every time i try to draw something it looks like a spider has dipped his bum in ink and gone for a walk across my paper.

Answer 1

Alright, these people are right on the money when it comes down to it. I've been drawing for 16 years, and all I've done is gotten better. You need to learn your shapes first off, though it sounds stupid, it's really useful when drawing. I'm sure you can draw shapes, but try putting them together, they don't have to be even either. A head for example, is made in several different shapes, the most basic is an egg shaped head. Draw an upside down egg, and just like that your on your way to design a head. I could explain alot to you, but you mainly have to learn on your own, where your comforts lie, as far as where to begin, etc. The best thing to do is, start with simple outlines of random objects, remember to do the lines lightly to avoid erasing, maybe on one piece of paper, sketch, or not, no tracing paper though, lol. When your finished with your outline of what an object looks like, move inward from wherever you feel comfortable, filling in the blanks slowly, but with little detail. As you draw more, you'll learn about how to compensate distances from another object, onto your paper. Now that you've got your rough sketch complete, try adding other details in, say for example, your drawing a sword. Most people do a generic, quick and easy sword, that ends up looking like a katana, or a bastard sword. They are the easiest to perform, and require little detail or shading. But, lets say you decide to want to put a design on the handle, you want to get your out-line design first. Once you have that, you can add-on. Maybe drawing gems inside of the handle, or a dragon down it. Whichever. Start with easy things though, things that you can picture inside your mind with ease, that way it won't be too complicated to you, and you won't be discouraged to finish. As you progress through, you might want to do changes, that is why you draw lightly. So you can either draw over top of it, or, erase, which isn't advised. When you've finished adding the rest of the detail, darken the lines that you've drawn, the ones that you want to keep, and the rest is up to you. Learning to shade drawings takes a while to learn, and there are several ways to do it. You'll just have to look those up, either in a book, or on-line, and learn how to do it. Draw a ball, or a box of somesort, simple objects, and learn to shade using them. One I can suggest that is rather easy, is a flag. If you don't want it to look flat, draw ripples in the flag, where it appears as if it is swaying, then pick a direction light will be shining onto it at. The highest spots towards that direction, will be the lightest, vice versa for the spots furthest away.

Answer 2

I can't draw. Its not that I don't have imagination - I can see beautiful things in my head. Its just that my hands aren't skilled enough to transfer what I can see in my head on to the paper. I don't let it bother me though, there are plenty of other things I can do really well.
If you do want to improve your drawing, the best thing you can do is practice. Why don't go to an arts centre and see if there are any classes that you could try?
Also, alot of people think they aren't very good at drawing, but the actually are. Ask a few non-biased people for an honest opinion. This might give you an idea what you need to work on.
But, remember that drawing should be fun - don't get so bogged down by trying to draw wonderfully and forget the reason you are doing it!

Answer 3

It's not that U can't draw, it's that U haven't really done much to improve. I mean. if the same thing that comes out every time, just try something simple and go on from there. Like - for instance - if U want to draw people, get a picture and try U're best. It might come out professional, but after pic and pic, U'll get the hang of shading, and faces, and eyes, nose placement. Then you be as good as....well De Vinci! That's how I learned (except I draw Japanese anime)

Answer 4

Numero uno, everyone can draw (provided you define drawing as putting a pen to something and moving said pen :-) ). I've always viewed art as a language. When you were a little child you weren't able to say anything at all, but over time you learned. However, once you learned how to say a few things, you then ran up against the problem of not being able to express everything you wanted to. However, through repetition and experience you became more and more proficent at speech, learned how to express yourself, and how to take the thoughts inside of you and express them to other people with greater efficency and vibrance.

Art of any medium is essentially the same way. Whenever someone starts a new art, whether it's dance, creative writing, sculpture, or drawing, they start with limited ability to express themselves in that medium. However, through practice, trial and error, and just sheer repetition in the "language" of the art, you become increasingly able to express yourself with greater and greater levels of success.

Just like in learning to speak, everyone develops these skills at different rates and in different ways, and in different amounts as they progress. The problem is not that you can't draw, it's that you have not practiced "speaking" enough yet to make an image that matchs what you want to express or bring forth on the paper.

The more you work at drawing, the more times you draw, erase, and draw again, the better you become at the language of your art, and if you keep up that repetition and do the disciplines that are required, then the language of your pencil will begin to mesh with the language of your heart and mind, and before long you'll find yourself very much astonished at what you become able to accomplish.

Answer 5

Draw what you see. Figure out that everthing is made of shapes, basic shapes, circles, squares, triangles.

And no offense, but a spider ink drawing with his butt is pretty impressive, so don't insult yourself. The more and more and more you draw, the better it is to teach yourself not only what the material you are using can do, but how you logically figure out what it is your seeing and recreating.

One day it's a stick figure, the next it's a Picasso. Somewhere in the middle Mona Lisa might have happened.

Draw for pleasure, not for results. If you are expecting a result, you can't get past the mental block that you're a spider butt.

Answer 6

First off everyones right you have to practice.

Now here's the big thing. You can sit down and work your butt off but you won't get any better if you don't get your head out of the way. What I mean is everyone thinks they know what things look like until they try to put it on paper. Take a face for example, I'll go out on a limb and guess you have tryed to do one. Let me guess the eyes look like almonds the lips don't look right because your using an outline to do them and they look kinda like a football on roids, the nose looks triangular and the head is kinda too round. I'm not knocking it I've seen it way too many times. (I've been doing this for over thirty years!) Your brain says this is how these things look and that's why you draw them that way. Why, because you brain breaks things down into simple, memorable shapes. One of the biggest problems with drawing is retraining your brain not to draw what it thinks it knows but actually looking at things and teaching yourself how things REALLY look. That's the key.

You can get every book, video, take lessons whatever. But unless you get past this you won't do as well as you want.

The best way to do this is to study everything you see. I'm not saying all the time, I mean really take a look at things, jot down notes if you have to but really look at how things are.

Technics can be taught to anyone. Once you get past this, the rest will come easier.

Good luck

Answer 7

99% of people can draw if they apply themselves. It is hard work, this is why people think they can't, they think you either have talent or you don't. Some of us do have a natural talent, others have to work harder. If you really want to learn, buy the book "Drawing on the right side of the brain" and do the exercises
Drawing is all about practice.

Answer 8

How long would it take you to be able to play the guitar? Probably at least half a year given practice of about half an hour every day.

I suspect that you have not made a sustained effort to learn to draw, because everyone can draw if they practise often enough.

Answer 9

learning to draw requires patience, practice and the ability to focus.

Firstly, if you want to draw a fish, try putting a cartoon (simple) fish picture infront of you, concentrate and examine how the fish is being drawn in the picture, try drawing it out the same way as the pic.

don't be discourage if you feel that your fish looks like an ugly retard, for me, if i look at a pic and draw at the same time, it tends to look a bit unnatural. but after some practice, take the pic away and draw your own fish. usually it will look nicer because somehow your brain tends to "retain" the details on how a fish looks like (in simple form) and how to draw it.

overtime you can add more details to the simple fish and make it real-like etc etc.

you just need your brain to recognise and get used to how something is drawn before moving out to draw your own without other sample pics as a guideline

hope this helps :)

Answer 10

There's a really good book called 'Drawing from the right side of the brain' It will improve your drawing skills overnight. Hope that helps.