Reddit reviews The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
We found 66 Reddit comments about The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
I had really good luck learning to draw at age 25 after no real effort, interest, or talent beforehand by reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I try to plug the book on every thread like this in the hope that someone will stumble across it just like I did years ago.
Here is my before and after (having read the book) drawings:
tl;dr: I drew like this, stumbled across this book on slashdot one day, now I draw like this and you can too.
The most important thing that 99% percent of the photographers don't seem to know: if you want to make good photos consistently, learn the fundamentals.
Because a photo can be made in an instant, a lot of photographers work intuitively, without making any informed decisions about their pictures whatsoever. This is why a lot of photos taken without any training aren't appealing.
If you learn about composition, color, light, etc. like an illustrator or a painter does, you will be able to make repeatable successful photos. In the beginning, you shouldn't be overly concerned with sharpness, depth of field or your equipment. No, you should be concerned with how your photo looks at the most basic, fundamental level.
Since I started taking drawing lessons and reading books on color and composition this year, I feel way more confident about my photography. I make informed decisions that I know will work. I am able to analyze pictures that work for me, and I know why they work now. Thanks to drawing lessons, I can see a lot better, which is also a great help for retouching. I can think in terms of lines, shapes, forms, spaces, light, shadow. But the most important thing of all: I feel like I can reach the level of photography that I only could dream about last year, the high-end commercial automotive photography.
Some books that helped me a lot:
Believe me, you want fundamental knowledge to rely on, not a list of incoherent 'protips'. :-)
The ability to become skilled at something is mostly a question of hard work, I think.
Is there a school near you where you could take a drawing course? I took one, and this book that went along with the course helped a lot too.
Check out /r/learnart and /r/drawing. I just discovered them myself & have begun starting to try drawing. I also bought this book. It's supposed to arrive tomorrow, so I can't give a personal review of it just yet - but it's been recommended by several people on the learnart sub, so I figure it's a good place to start. Good luck!
Thing is, not every potential comic artist out there wants to draw actual sequential images. There are many, many artists that get far more enjoyment out of drawing pinups/covers than they do comics. Nothing wrong with that.
Also, suggesting the OP focus more on the art of drawing a sequential page than learning how to improve their drawing skills is the wrong way to go about things. A person could lay out the most wonderful sequence of panels ever seen, however if they are unable to fill said panels with good art then it is completely pointless.
Drawing comes first.
--------------------
To the OP:
-------------
As the top voted comment has stated: never, ever give up. The first thing that I should drill into your head is that you shouldn't expect to become a talented artist overnight; drawing well takes years of toil and practice. There are times when you'll feel like giving up, but don't (in fact, any artist worth their mettle will never feel like they've truly mastered their craft, no matter how talented they are).
Anyways, if you are serious about learning to draw well, you need to start focusing on the basics first (basic underlying shapes, volume, how light affects basic objects, perspective, etc.). If you do not learn the basics, you will not become a good artist. Full stop.
It is only once you have a good grasp of the basics that you can hope to achieve more complex stuff. For example (and please don't take this the wrong way), your drawing is solid enough but there is a complete lack of any kind of underlying shape or perspective to the character; as a result, the whole image just feels completely flat. Whenever you draw a figure, you must keep its underlying shapes and its perspective in mind.
For example, when I draw a figure, I start off with a basic 'mannequin' (egg shape for head, a roundish box for the chest, spheres for the joints, cylinders for the limbs, etc.) and then start gradually adding more and more detail on top. Drawing in this manner allows the artist to get a good idea in their head of how their character will look in 3D space. Even the most basic of cartoon characters tend to be created this way.
If there is no underlying shape to your character then there is no hope of convincing those viewing your work that your character is a living, breathing being.
Also, your pencil lines are very, very scratchy right now. Obviously, this is because you're not entirely confident in your skills as of yet (don't worry about this, it's only natural). When drawing, try to draw with your arm rather than drawing with your wrist. This takes a lot of practice to pull off but you will find that it will allow you to create smooth, flowing lines. As you get better at your art, you will find that you will start using less and less lines in order to build up your creations.
One thing I would highly recommend you do is to start keeping a 'daily draw journal.' Just draw every day. Doesn't have to be anything fancy, even if you only do a few scratchy doodles, it still counts! The important thing is that you're drawing. You would be utterly amazed how much you will gradually improve over time (I often look back at some of my older work and cringe!).
If you have the money, I'd recommend picking up a 'Moleskine' sketchbook as they are compact, solid and very high quality.
Anyways, sorry about the huge block of text! I hope that this may have been of some use to you. The best of luck to you and your drawing!
----------------
PS:
---------------
Some books I would highly, highly recommend you check out:
Get this book.
It's THE classic on learning to draw when you think you can't.
Read "Drawing on the right side of the brain." http://www.amazon.com/New-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0874774241
At the age of 23, with the drawing skill of the average five year old, I decided that I wanted to start learning to draw. A friend / roommate of mine had a book titled Drawing on the right side of the brain, which he swore up and down is the best text for beginners. Basically, if you go through the excersizes, you will learn to be able to draw.
I made it through the book, and I can now draw decently. I highly reccommend it.
Try Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, and, well, practice makes perfect.
http://www.amazon.com/New-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0874774241
You obviously have the drive. Go here next:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0874774241
(but remember: that's just a step, too).
There are drawing courses that try exactly to overcome that. After a lifetime of failure it took me a week to learn to draw relatively ok by following a course that took great care to disrupt schemas.
I know this is anecdotal but it's not a top level comment.
This is the book based on the course I followed.
I just picked up drawing on the right side of the brain and it's workbook and it seems like a good one...I've been busy looking for a job so I haven't gotten to do a ton of the exercises yet..but I like the angle it's going for.
Protip: if you google the book title and add 'pdf'...you might get it for free
If you're using comics as a reference, try flipping the image upside down and drawing from that. You might be surprised.
Try this book for more exercises.
People tend to think artistic talent like drawing or music are inate abilities, but they can actually be learned if you put in the effort and time. If you're interested in draw I suggest picking up this book Drawing on the right side of the brain and a sketch pad and start learning. It turned me into a rather decent drawer (sorry no examples online), and now I'm thinking of learning the piano or cello, all it takes is time patience and work to learn.
Check Drawing with the Right Side of the Brain out if you haven't already. I was already what most people would call good at drawing when I picked it up and it made a big difference for me.
I've been drawing for years, and the best book I've ever read on drawing is called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Basically, it's a book on how to draw for people who aren't predisposed to drawing. It's full of good exercises and information to help you learn.
Otherwise, I'd say the best way to get better at drawing is to draw. Every day. Everything you see, any time you have a moment. Also, keep a sketchbook specifically for drawing your own hand over and over and over - and never throw any of them away. When the book is full, you can look back to the beginning and you will see improvement. Don't get discouraged if they're ugly or you mess up - those drawings are just to get better at drawing, you never have to show them to anybody. Good luck!
Solid advice. This was one of my favorite books that was recommended by my Drawing Fundamentals teacher when I started college.
>My hands are fine and I can't draw at all. I'm fairly certain nearly all of one's ability to draw comes from the heart and the mind
Nah, the heart is a blood pump. Drawing is all on the right side of the brain. The reason most people find they can't draw is that the left side of the brain is constantly saying "I know how to draw! let me do it!" and then you end up with two circles for eyes and a line for a mouth because the left side of the brain is all about substituting simplified symbology for complex real world concepts.
Now, if you can just get your left brain to shut the fuck up and let the right side work, you can actually get reasonable replication of reality. Let it really work and it can come up with some really wacky shit. The reason when you ask an artist how they draw so well they are nearly always at a complete loss to explain is because the right side does the art, and the left side handles verbalization. Left side has no clue how the drawing is happening, so you end up with something nebulous like "I dunno, I just kinda draw what I see". Most skilled artists didn't have to train themselves to let their right brain draw, so they have no experience of not being able to draw. They still had to practice drawing to get good, of course.
Anyone interested in a really good book for left-brainers who want to learn to access right-brain drawing skills more easily, check out Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Note that there's apparently a revised new edition. I have the old one so I can't compare, but apparently a few people familiar with both editions think the new version over-complicates the process somewhat.
I don't know that much. On this subreddit every "beginner" is told to get "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. I personally don't have this book, but I have this one "Keys to Drawing" by Bert Dodson, which basicly teaches the same stuff as Betty Edwards. Both these books will help you get started and teach you to draw what you see. I prefer "Keys to Drawing and is in my opinion better because I prefer the language he uses.
Also check out ctrl+paint. The "traditional drawing" section and the "Drawing 2" is quite helpful.
I don't know how much you practice, but you should draw everyday, even if it's just a five minute scribble. I personally try to draw one hour a day (which is really little). Maybe start with 30 min a day and then go upwards from there. It's quite hard to do this, but if you manage to do it everyday for about 2 weeks it will become automatic in a way...
Too true, so many tutorials and guides seem to focus too heavily on the technical skills and not enough on the proper artistic mindset. As someone to whom art did not come naturally, this book and its early chapters focusing on getting in the proper mindset of an artist has been more valuable than most anything else I've seen. I'd love to see more of that, not just here but in tutorials in general.
Anyone can learn to draw.
Read this book. It helps. http://www.amazon.com/New-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0874774241
Actually, I am bringing along some books which help teach drawing and animation, and I was just looking for some games to play in-between parts of the books.
Many say this book helps a lot.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0874774241/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1345619296&sr=8-4&keywords=drawing+from+the+right+side+of+the+brain
I've been drawin' since I was a wee child. Up til' recently I was really arse at any sort of drawing. [](/rarityannoyed "Confound these ponies, they drive me to draw.")
Read guides, read art books, etc.
I quite like this book.
[](/fluttershh "You could probably get a pdf of it if you look hard enough")
Lots of free books on art online.
Practice.
If you have lots of time, (and if you want to) go look at people draw on Livestreams. It's great to see how others work. Lots of amazing artists on there, despite lack of ponies most times.
Well, practice, obviously. But also: this book. It's aimed at people with no starting drawing abiliity, but I found it was great for learning to draw more realistically.
You might want to read this book. It's for learning how to SEE and draw from there. I've heard people say it's one of the best books to learn how to draw, though, it definitely differs depending on your medium.
I actually have the book, if you want to see a photograph of a page or two, I'll go out of my way a little bit for ya'.
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
I've found it a good resource for going back to the basics of representational drawing. If you've had some drawing training or experience most concepts won't be new, but they're explained well and accompanied by straightforward exercises (most of which would fit in your hour/night plan easily).
BAM
http://www.amazon.ca/The-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0874774241
I would recommend you take a look at the book The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.
Until a few months ago I really thought I couldn't draw and had pretty much given up on being able to draw anything. This frustrated me quite a lot, but I'd pretty much come to terms with it. I then picked up this book and have gone through about 1/3rd of the book so far. It was an amazing feeling to find out that I really could draw!
The only problem is that I'm filled with the regret that I didn't realize sooner that I could draw. I wonder if I would've been followed a different career path if I had.
I'm in the exact same position as you. After some searching around, I picked up the highly recommended Drawing With the Right Side of the Brain, and I've made a ton of progress in the span of about a week. It seems like a pretty great starting point.
Drawing with the right side of your Brain by Betty Edwards is a great book. She took the time to do studies and research to figure out how the drawing process works and it will help beginners get into the mode of the drawing that you need. After that you can branch off to drawing techniques like lines, perspective, shadows and light logic, texturing, then color.
I know you say free but I started using a copy from my local library. If you do not like that resource or are lazy... then look to the right under the "subscribe" button and there are 3 links with resources there.
Note: You do not need a lot of materials that she asks you to get! I am not sure if she recommends a grid but I personally hate grids so I never use them... But I do recommend in getting a GOOD ERASER! A white one and a knead eraser! Especially the knead... I love mine to the fullest! After you have a good eraser then look towards getting 2-4 good pencils where the range is quite large. So a nice 2H pencil, maybe a 2B, 4B, and 8B or something. Doesn't matter when you start out.
And a tip! DARK LINES! Do not scared to make things nice and dark.
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
Arguably the best drawing instruction book available.
This is a pretty phenomenal book to start learning how to draw: http://amzn.com/0874774241
Thank you. Yeah, it was a quick sketch so not as accurate as some other portraits but it was one I had on hand. Some level of drawing is obviously innate; I was about 15 when I drew that and I could draw portraits when I was 10. But a big part of drawing is not your ability to do, and more of your ability to see. How you perceive shapes is a huge factor. A lot of people can learn to draw if they can learn how their brain interprets what they're looking at. When a lot of people try to draw faces they start out ok but when they notice that it doesn't look the same right away, their brain freaks out and starts to make up for it by making lines where there shouldn't be lines and filling in things that shouldn't be filled in. This results in the amateur looking portraits of heavily outlines eyes, noses, and mouths which don't exist in the real world. When you draw upside down, your brain isnt as used to seeing these shapes so you focus more on recreating what the object actually looks like versus what you think it should look like.
This book is a great resource and I highly recommend it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0874774241
I just noticed that its a newer edition but it seems to be getting good reviews. The 1989 version is a classic and is excellent if you can get a used copy. Cheers.
Start Here - There are also videos available.
Glad you liked it!
As for the "artistic ability", I wouldn't ever say I have it, but if you are really serious about it, I would strongly suggest this book (you can find PDFs for it with Google if you can't purchase it for some reason). That book alone got me from shitty stick figures to shitty non-stick figures. Really amazing book.
thank you. This might be an interesting read: Drawing on the right side of the brain.
I'm far from naturally talented at drawing, but lately I've picked up a whole bunch of instructional art materials and my skill is noticeably increasing. One of the ones I'm using right now is Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. So far the instruction has noticeably increased my skills; I'm only a few exercises into it, and I'm already pretty happy with what I'm producing. Note though that the book itself is full of pseudo-scientific crap about the author's theory about brain hemispheres and their relationship to drawing; that makes it difficult to read, but just try not to take it too seriously and focus on the exercises.
Here you go.
There is no internet outside of Reddit. What is this blue text you posted!?
tl;dr I <3 xkcd, just wish I could draw better.
I did want to point out that at one time I asked an art instructor at my college what I could do to get better at drawing and she recommended this book. I bought it, did two lessons and was able to draw what it wanted me to draw but I never finished the book. I really enjoyed it, but life got in the way.
Edit: fixed my lack of spelling.
What about New Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain, will that do?
If you can learn to write, you can learn to draw. Writing is just drawing letters. Like anything else, it boils down to learning a few basics and then practice, practice, practice.
If you are serious about this, Betty Edwards' book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is an excellent introduction to drawing, especially geared for people who want to learn to draw but think they can't.
Get the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain http://www.amazon.com/The-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0874774241
You'll be amazed at yourself.
Because your tongue haven't been trained to produce the sounds that you'd like.
Same goes with drawing. When you draw, your brain lets you draw the lines that you've been drawing since you were a child. Try to draw a chair. What it would look like? It'll look like the same chair that you've drawn when you were a child. Same with drawing a car or basically anything. And if you tried to draw a chair 15 years later, it will look the same one you drawn.
Your brain is trained to efficiently and quickly finish those tasks. The brain can't be bothered to learn new ways (like how to draw, how to change your accent) unless you force your brain to learn it by training it.
Why isn't your brain learning new ways? Well, the brain doesn't want too much information about things it perceives; just enough to recognize and to categorize.
All in all, when you either draw or imitate an accent, your brain is trying to quickly finish that task by using the old information that you've been using all your life and trusting it 100%.
The only way to improve in imitating an accent or drawing, is to practice.
Source: http://www.amazon.com/The-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0874774241 The first couple of chapters explains how the right and left hemispheres interact with each other.
Despite my extensive history of art classes and my fancy degree in art, I can say that you are struggling with what all artists struggle with. First, I would drop the whole "gap in your education" mentality. You don't need any real formal education to produce something beautiful. All of my professors were the hands-off types...and I struggled the entire time (I spent one year as a terrible 'uncanny valley' portrait artist and it wasn't intentional), but that's the state of art. No one is going to tell you what to do because there's no right or wrong anymore, there's only what's been done before.
I haven't had a real critique since I graduated from college. And I can totally relate to what you are saying, but there are plenty of venues to showcase your art in this digital age. It may not be the real thing, but art should be shared, and people will react. And if they don't react, then gauge your audience, and maybe bait them with something they might respond to that will open them up to your other work.
Off the top of my head: this book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain has a lot of really good drawing exercises, but I don't know how accurate the "psychology" is.
Also, I found that restricting the use of pencils and only drawing in pen and ink, while frustrating, was the best thing I could have done for myself. Allow yourself to make mistakes, or better yet, find a mode of artistic output where there are no mistakes, define your own set of rules. Loosen up a bit and then return to the more realistic observational drawings. Experiment with new mediums too. Oil pastels are really nice if you don't have time to paint and want to experiment with color.
Just keep drawing, and keep writing. Don't worry about growth because you can only grow by doing.
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.
Best drawing book ever written.
This book: http://www.amazon.com/New-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0874774241
Drawing is a skill just like any other, and as long as you push yourself, you can get very good at it. Pick up some books and maybe sign up for a beginner drawing course.
In a large studio, there are many art departments: design/concept, modeling, rigging, animation, surfacing, lighting, visual effects, etc. Not all of them require drawing skills, although many will demand artistic knowledge (shape, form, color, etc).
If you plan to work in smaller studios, then fewer people will be assigned to more tasks, and so it will be important for you to have a broader understanding of the art process, which may require more "artistic skill."
Either way, if art is what you want to go into, an Art and Design degree is very useful.
If art is not what you want to go into -- and you'd rather learn programming -- then you are in the wrong place. But before you leave your school and start fantasizing about how fun programming is, maybe you should try developing some games with C++ and get into the habit of punching out code for 8+ hours every day.
Of course, programming and art are not the only ways to get into game development. There's sound design, music, voice acting, production manager (i.e. coordinating the team, no technical/artistic skills needed), marketing, script writing, etc. If you haven't yet decided what you want to do, you should think about that before applying for another school...
If you want to learn how to accurately, I would highly recommend 'drawing from the right side of the brain' by Betty Edwards. I used to teach drawing to architecture students and I used many of these exercises. You don't need to read a word of the book, just do the exercises. They'll teach you to stop seeing 'objects' and start seeing spatial relationships, which is the key to drawing accurately.
https://www.amazon.com/New-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0874774241/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1492836156&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=drawing+from+the+right+side+of+the+brain
I would get good (not great) with drawing out your ideas out from scratch before seeking out too many tutorials or references on a real life project. If you don't know how to draw, pick up something simple like Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and do all of the somewhat annoying assignments in there. They actually work.
If you do know how to draw, get a real good idea on how you would like a project to look like before heading out into the wilderness of tutorials for each process, as each one is different, with a different goal in mind for a finished product. If you don't know exactly what you want per project, you'll just be staring a wall of tricks and tips that may or may not be used towards your desired end product. It can be a frustrating process watching a 2 hour tutorial and not get the answer you were looking for in the end.
If you lean towards a particular illustrative designers style, then hunt them down and ask how they did that. You may get a lot of questions answered you wouldn't have otherwise.
As an illustrator that is just starting out, the pay sites I have found useful were:
Skillshare has a lot of great cross application tutorials on the subject
Lynda.comhas some, but you really have to dig for answers sometimes as all of the tuts are long winded. I would check out von glitschka on there.
I am definitely checking out ctrlpaint.com myself after seeing the top post.
If you don't have a tablet of some sort, they really come in handy for this kind of thing.
Good luck!
Get this book The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Read it, do the exercises, practice. I went from stick figures to really nice portraits. Faces are now my favorite things too draw.
I know I'm 6 days late, but don't listen to that guy.
My advice is this: You seem to be in the stage of drawing development where you still draw everything as a symbol of what you see, rather than what you actually see (hence the (. .) nose comment).
Start really paying attention to what you see in front of you. What you'll begin to notice is that you're not drawing a "nose", or an "eye", or a "face", but rather a collection of shadows and tones that flesh out the object.
Also, I recommend Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. It's one of my favorite books on drawing, and it has a lot of good exercises to help get you out of the mode of "symbolic" drawing, and into the mode of drawing what you really see.
Also, keep drawing. Draw every day. I know everyone always says that, but it really is the only thing that will make you better.
Drawing is typically seen as something that people are either innately good at or innately bad at. That's crap. Get a good book like this one (which you can probably find from your local library if you want to give it a try without committing any cash; I borrowed it from my library then decided that I needed to own it and found it used for $10), and practise.
This is the best suggestion here. Cheap, you can do it anywhere, rewarding when you make progress, and everyone loves pictures.
Look in your local library for a book titled: "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards.
You don't have to read the whole thing at first, just try doing some of the first few exercises. If you feel like you can work that way, it's a good way to go.
You don't need the workbook and materials kit. just the book and your own pencil and paper. The older editions are just as good to start with as the newer ones.
https://www.amazon.com/New-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0874774241/
Try this: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
Yeah, I've taken art classes all through school, I've been a chronic doodler since I was a baby. But that's just me. A lot of the people in art classes can't draw for shit when they first get there, though. That's what the classes are for! Some places you might want to check out are drawspace.com and psdtuts.
An excellent book to get you started is Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and while googling that I came across this, which looks like it has some stuff you can learn. I would also highly recommend just signing up for a basic art class at the local community college. It's cheap, there's always night classes somewhere, and it'll get you the basics like perspective and lighting from an actual instructor.
Buy it now, thank me later.
You have potential, if you're interested in drawing you should consider reading through this book
It's what I recommend to anyone just starting out.
Edit:: Also, you've got football eye syndrome, you have to start seeing eyes as forms instead of eye-shaped symbols or the eyes on all your drawings will look identical.
Can you draw well? If you can't, give a shot to this book
You definitely want to do different things; all kinds of different things. Read, draw, exercise, write; try to pick up new skills; buy a book of different sorts of puzzles (spatial, math, crosswords, whatever) and do a couple puzzles as part of your morning routine; work on things you're not good at and things you are good at.
A few days ago (or thereabouts) a Redditor recommended this book to me because I mentioned that I was having difficulty getting back into drawing - I used to be an art student (high school), and a few bad experiences at school shot my motivation. It's set up to help with things like boosting creativity and problem solving through drawing. Drawing is often seen as something innate, or a rare skill, but the book takes the approach that everyone is able to draw well, it's just a matter of learning how to see things properly. This "new seeing" is really just a different way of understanding the spatial relationships things have with each other via artistic qualities (line, value, colour, etc). Such a process can definitely help with becoming a better thinker because it allows you to understand problems in different ways.
(I spent a little extra time on the book, both because I'm really enjoying it so far, and also because drawing is something that I've found most people disregard because they "can't do it" - I call shenanigans.)
I almost exclusively sketch cars. But quite a few redditors recommend this book if you wanna learn to sketch.
I'm not saying it was Arts, but it was Arts.
The secret is that drawing is just like learning any other skill. Amazing progress can be made from practicing or learning a little each day. I'm trying to find it, but there's a thread online where, over a few years, this guy goes from barely drawing cubes to lovely oil paintings.
If you want something more concrete, I highly recommend Betty Edward's fantastic book. She will take you from stick figures to professional-looking portraits.
Or-
http://www.amazon.com/New-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/0874774241
It's very effective in my experience. Most people can't naturally pick up drawing from scratch. In fact, I'd say 99 percent cant o that. That's why there are so few artists.