The Secret of Drawing from Imagination

[Level: Beginner]

This article will be a lot deeper than those you can find online, but if you want to understand why sometimes we can’t achieve what we want, it will explains you the two stepping stones that you will need to leap over in order to create whatever art that you desire, successfully. No matter it’s a painting, drawing, sculpture, you name it.

Let’s give a quick glance at the diagram, this is a general process of making an art. It mostly starts from any idea or concept generated from our brain which then manifest itself to the final result through execution, painting, drawing or any form of art. For example, when you want to draw a pink elephant, you visualize it and then draw it on paper.

The red parts in the diagram are the two things that preventing you from making the exact result that you want. Namely:

1.  Armature -The base that holds your vague visual to be more tangible
   You can also call this the skeleton of you work, like animals, their skeletons are the main frame that holds the structure together; In portrait, the grid is its armature or skeleton; In environment drawing, the perspective lines are its armature; In another words, it’s the knowledge or template that simplify the complex image in your mind, so that you can easily transfer and translate that thought onto paper or your choice of media.

   Our memory doesn’t allow us to take so much information in one visual. This is our workaround to this problem, simplify it so you can reconstruct it. How to simplify it? With the right armature of course.

2. Tool Mastery – Skills that you need to control your tool the way that you want
   This is self explanatory, the only thing that I want you to understand is, there is a difference between what shape you want, versus how to make the shape you want. The previous being the armature, and the later being the tool mastery. So long you understand the difference between then it’s fine, you may skip the example below.

   For some concrete example to make it more clearer, using color pencil and crayon gives you two different feel and look, however if you can make the gradient or the color that you want, it makes no difference what medium you choose. This is your tool mastery, using the tool you want to the way you want. I used to hear people saying, become one with the tool, I hope you now understand what it really means.

To make the art that you have in mind, or from imagination, you must first conquer these two obstacles. For more information on how to identify your missing armature, stay tune for the next updates or you’ll see the related post below when I’ve written and posted it.

Merry Christmas everyone, God bless and prosper!

* This tutorial is specially dedicated to TazAndMe!