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Comment by ljp_206 | Hacker News Reader

This is the thought behind Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain[0], which I've always meant to get more in to after purchasing the book in college. One simpler way of saying what you said is that when asked to draw a person, many draw a stick figure, and yet, that is not what people /look/ like, or rather, are /seen like/. The five components listed on [0] reinforce what you've suggested ("imagery data") are required for true sight-to-paper 'drawing.'

0: https://www.drawright.com/theory

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Really liked this book, and agree that you must draw what you see, not what you know - e.g for an eye, areas of light and dark and their relative positions, not an ellipse with a circle in it. That said, it is worth understanding some basic anatomical rules - e.g. that a persons eyes are halfway up their head, not near the top.

This is why drawing people is such a good test. If you draw a house or a tree, you can get proportions wrong and it can still look credible. But the same types of error stand out glaringly in a picture of a person.

Came here to mention that book. It's fantastic, and was a total game-changer for me when I went through it.

Interestingly, I went through it while taking a drawing class by someone who was not a fantastic teacher, and occasionally taught things directly contrary to how DotRSotB taught them. And wow, did the other students fail trying to follow what he said! It was amazing.

So yeah, go through the book, BUT make sure you ACTIVELY work through it, doing everything she says to do at each step... in fact, I think she recommends that you don't read ahead. It's worth doing it in conjunction with a class.

This book has rather mixed reputation among the art professionals. It's attractive to beginners because it allows you to fairly quickly become a human camera/xerox machine - you will be able to exactly copy what you see. However, it does nothing for your drawing from imagination skills, incl. making even minor modifications in the copied image. So, it's a great book if you want to just copy. However, if you want to create, you need much richer skills.

Indeed - something I appreciate about the book is that it suggests that learning to draw is impossible to unlearn once you learn it, like riding a bike. It definitely tracks with the idea that there's more to learn after you get up and figure out the basics.

A drawing teacher put it like this: "Draw what's there, not set-pieces". (meaning the reusable furniture components in theaters)

Thanks for the recommendation. That's great information.

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