Probably every beginner artist asks himself this question and diligently and persistently looking for an answer to it. It's not so simple and simple, as the path from a novice artist to a professional or at least to an amateur artist is long and very individual. Here, for example, I. E. Repin, too, was once a novice self-taught artist.
Born in the Ukrainian Chuguev, he without any training and learning the basics in drawing, performed portraits of friends, painted eggs for Easter, portrayed flowers and landscapes as he could, as he understood how it turned out. And then he began to study drawing in the corps of topographers, in the icon-painting workshop - writing images and from the tutor - painting and drawing, to enter the holy place for him - the Imperial Academy of arts. But, for this it was necessary to first enter and undergo basic training in the drawing school at the Academy, even for her entry level was not enough.
For the first time in life at examination young Ilya Repin drew from life plaster casting. It was the leaf of a burdock cast from nature. Very interestingly and funny the master describes this episode in the book "Far Close": as diligently it shaded shadows, rubbed clean dark stains to achieve a form of a leaf and exact reliefs its streak as selflessly tried to shade gray sites … And then the young artist paid attention to accurate academic drawings of other entrants and, hanging on class walls as examples, drawings of teachers of school. In them each stroke was on the place, flat parallel lines the most beautiful grid accumulated at each other and revealed the volume and a form. Terribly young Repin was upset then, but did not give up work on the drawing, finished drawing up to the end, expressed play of light and shadow, volume and a form of a plaster leaf as was able, showed everything in the drawing what it was capable of. What surprise of the beginning artist when he got the first number at examination for the drawing - the best drawing on a stream was and was enlisted in school of drawing! Joyfully, enthusiastically, it was surprising to learn to Ilya about it. Already then explained to him that despite defects of the equipment and the academic diploma, discrepancy to norms of classical theoretical approach, its burdock it turned out the most effective, volume, close to nature (similar), and, above all - plaster.
Yes, yes, it turned out to convey the materiality of the casting itself, the form, and this is much more important than the alluvial aesthetics and compliance with the rules. And it was the first one, let it not unconscious to the end and not the most confident, but a step on the path to a dream of learning to draw, which led to such masterpieces of the master as “Barge haulers on the Volga”, “Zaporozhtsy write a letter to the Turkish Sultan”, “Did not wait” and so on, the first step towards becoming a talented colorist and portrait painter. As wise students of a great artist, we will begin to draw, gradually master the theoretical basis, develop the hardness of the hand, get the knowledge and skills of this artist. Let's start, according to tradition, with a picture. Let us try to create our first, serious, realistic drawing, after the famous artist, applying in practice the BASIC PRINCIPLES OF SEQUENTIAL DRAWING.
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF SEQUENTIAL DRAWING.
1) From general to specific.
A fundamental principle for everything that you depict. At first, the general arrangement of all the elements of the future pattern is attacked with light lines, then they are compared with each other, their location and dimensions relative to each other are specified. Then the frame of each of the elements is drawn and then the details are inserted. For example, when drawing a portrait, first a large volume of the entire head, neck of the shoulders is planned, then large volumes are separated from each other and marking lines are drawn. Then large major parts of the face line up: eyes, nose, lips, ears. Then small volumes and details are specified, in relation to all large forms. The same is true in still life and landscape. This will avoid layout errors and the image will not “crawl” all over the sheet as a result of the edits. It helps with the implementation of a separate sketch in a small format, in accordance with which all parts of a large drawing will be drawn
2) Doing the whole job.
All parts, elements of the composition should be conducted in parallel: if you put the tone on the subject in the light, shade the subject in the shade and put the background tone behind the subject. If you started to draw hands, draw and feet at the same time. “When looking at the nose, look into the ear,” said P. P. Chistyakov, a wonderful teacher and teacher, who trained such brush masters as Serov, Vrubel, Korovin, Repin, Vasnetsov, Surikov, Borisov-Musatov and many others. Worth listening to such a great teacher, right? Such an integrated approach to drawing helps to see mistakes at an early stage and prevent them from quickly, without harming ready-made, carefully drawn pieces, teaches a holistic vision and conduct of all work.
3) Generalization.
The trouble of beginning artists in the abundance of details. Their drawings are overloaded with them, so it’s very difficult to look at such works - it’s not clear what is most important here, what the artist focused on. And our eye works just like that - it examines one thing, the most important one, and with a moving vision sees everything else. Therefore, it is better to combine the branch in the background with the background and it is not necessary to draw all the warts on the chin, just two or three are enough)), the rest is softened, generalized, taken to the background, into the fog from strokes.
4) Details.
They also need to be entered correctly. Usually, only three flowers are well drawn in a bouquet: one is very detailed, the second is not very, the third is conditional. All other flowers are hardly outlined - the task here is to depict a bouquet, not a collective portrait of each flower. So, we select only the most important details and only where they are needed, for example, it is better to draw more detailed eyes in the portrait than the nostrils, and even more so than the buttons on the jacket.
5) General harmonization of the picture.
In the process of drawing, novice artists are often distracted from the main task and forget about some very important things in pursuit of “similarity”, the thoroughness of rendering, and textures. During a lesson in drawing, one should constantly return to the stage of comparing parts, checking the drawing for mistakes. Particular attention should be paid to perspective, constructive construction, overall color (in painting) or tone (in drawing), hatching and modeling in order to avoid the "dancing" horizon, slanting eyes and skewed faces, collage effect in drawing. The picture should not fall apart, all the elements depicted should look harmonious in connection with each other.
6) Breaks.
They help to refresh the perception of their work, timely diagnose mistakes, look at the picture from a new angle. In the process of drawing, especially from nature, the artist’s eyes get tired, there is even such a thing as “the eye is blurred”. At such moments, at least a short 5-10 minute break is necessary. In one hour of drawing, you can take one such break to restore the exact perception of the model and your drawing. And, of course, if the format of the drawing is large and the detail is supposed to be detailed, it is better to divide the work on the drawing into several sessions, each of which should begin with mistakes checking. And they will, you see.
Drawing is a serious, thoughtful process, which from the outside, at first sight, looks very easy and straightforward. But, like in any profession, there are pitfalls that must be taken into account with a serious approach. If you follow the above rules, try hard, constantly learn, wholeheartedly strive for the ideal, take painting courses, listen and hear teachers, absorb like sponge, tips and lessons of the great masters of the past - you will draw beautifully, correctly, talentedly, you will absorb and rethink the whole experience of previous generations in order to create something of your own, big, majestic, worthwhile, as the wonderful Russian artist Ilya Efimovich Repin could do.
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