Do degree art schools teach you how to accurately draw the illusion of a form in space? And do we care?
It seems to me that degree art schools don’t teach you how to draw the illusion of a form in space. Drawing classes focus more on expression than the training to produce an accurate illusion of a given object in space.
The profs I’ve encountered primarily teach how to see and how to think. And how to talk about what you're thinking about. Which I’m not saying are bad things. On the contrary in fact.
But that knowledge isn’t enough if you want to draw a ball with a bulge. Or a box with well defined planes. My profs invited me to question why I would want to do that, but not how to do it.
There are basics when it comes to knowing how to light and shade a form. This knowledge gives artists control over the illusion of planes that turn toward and away from light. My experience is that degree art schools don’t teach the discipline. But it doesn't matter, there are plenty of resources to learn it. The thing is you won't get the basics just by setting up a still life and drawing what you see. As Nicolaides writes in "The Natural Way to Draw", "You cannot truthfully portray vision without a knowledge of the facts which underlie it."
But I do wonder why it continues to be left off degree art school drawing curriculums. In my own work I want to know more about how to round an object. And I'm seeing many of my fellow artists wanting to create the illusion of space – which requires that same knowledge.
Drawn or painted objects lit by a room full of fluorescent bulbs – with light falling on them from every which way – appear flat. Perhaps this reality of art school painting studios is dictating the aesthetic? With light coming from all directions at once, shading of a form is irrelevant if not impossible. Light everywhere translates as lit planes everywhere.
So I set out to find resources. Logical first place is the library right? Remember the Dover books? They seemed a great first choice once. Today not so much. Almost everything’s explained in words with few illustrations and this being the 21st century I’m adapted to having technical ideas communicated by visuals, preferably moving ones.
Onto the web. A little digging around and I find a video course on Foundations of Light and Shadow for drawing.
And I’m wondering, “Is this is the kind of training animators get when they go to animation schools and not to degree art programs?”
The course is broken down into eleven parts. They’re all free. Sycra also includes companion resources on his website - a tone/value reference guide that’s very useful, Photoshop brushes, etc.
The lessons are thorough, logical, well explained, not too long, not too brief... In other words, they get the point across.
If you didn’t get shading fundamentals when you went to art school and you want to draw the illusion of a form in space, check out these videos. (This is not a paid announcement, I never met the guy.)
