Learning to draw. How is a drawing different from a photograph?

So, you have learned to more or less realistically depict nature. However, you may have a perfectly reasonable question: “Why so much effort if the camera does the same thing much more believably?” I can explain long and verbose what is the difference between drawing and photography. But in order for you to feel this difference yourself, let’s first do the following exercise. Choose the first and last name of some abstract character. For example, Peter Vasiliev. Take a pen and write your first and last name as usual, with your right hand (or left hand if you are left-handed). Then write the same with the other hand. Then again with the usual hand, but from the end: first write the last letter, then the penultimate one, and so on until the beginning. Finally, do the same with the other hand. So, you have four times written “Pyotr Vasiliev.” Now look at the first Peter and tell about him. What is this person? Is he an introvert or an extrovert? High or low? How does he dress? What does he do? Does he have many friends? Can he be trusted with a secret? Borrow money? Ask for help in difficult times? Then answer the same questions about the next three Peter Vasilyevs. Please do the exercise before reading any further, otherwise what follows will be just empty talk for you. Answered? Great. Now, I suspect you’ve got four different characters. And now the most important questions: 1. Why are the characters different? After all, the name is one and the same: Pyotr Vasiliev. For the left hemisphere, it makes no difference what handwriting this name is written in, and whether it is written at all or typed on a computer. 2. Where did you get the answers to the questions about Peter? Do not be satisfied with the answer: “From the lines.” He doesn’t explain anything. How did the character of the lines tell you the character of a person? How are they related? Think about these questions – and then move on to the next exercise. Take another sheet of paper and divide it into four parts. Label them Anger, Joy, Peace, and Femininity. Now sit quietly for a while, watching your breath. Pay attention to everything that you have associated with the concept and feeling of anger. Let your subconscious mind recall a situation in which you actually felt angry. It doesn’t matter when it happened – your subconscious mind itself knows which situation to choose. When this situation appears before your inner eye, direct your attention to the anger that you experienced and feel exactly where in your body this anger is located. When you find it, look at its shape, color, size, whether it sounds (or how it could sound), what texture it is – solid, soft, liquid, slippery, gaseous, sharp, dull, prickly, hot, cold, moving or motionless, monolithic or crumbling… After examining your anger, mentally remove this situation and concentrate only on anger. Now take a pencil and imagine that your hand with a pencil is a hollow pipe through which your anger will now pour out onto paper. Do not draw any recognizable figures – angry faces, clenched fists. Let your own anger guide your hand. The task of the hand is simply to be a guide. Draw until you feel that inside (where your anger was) there is nothing left: everything has flowed onto paper. Now remember the situation when you experienced joy, and do with it the same as with anger. What is your joy? Ebullient, soft, sparkling, light, transparent, bright? Study it as best you can – and let it flow through your hand onto paper. No need to strive for it to look like something – let the hand move as it pleases, bypassing the internal censor. Do the same with serenity and femininity. Look at your drawings and think again for a moment: how is the language of feelings translated into the language of lines? (Hint: if this question boggles your left brain, “I know it just because I know it” is fine.) Now we can return to the question, what is the difference between drawing and photography. In the drawing, the artist depicts not just an object – but its reflection in his own inner world! This is why Rubens apples and Cezanne apples are completely different apples. This is why artistic styles are endlessly varied. Look at the drawings of geniuses: Leonardo da Vinci, Matisse, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Picasso, Modigliani, Degas. Pay attention to the nature of the lines in their drawings and try to feel: what feelings do they express? Perhaps now it will be easier for you to understand abstract art. Take a look at Kandinsky’s work, for example, and ask yourself the same question: what feelings do his lines and geometric shapes convey? … So, to summarize: the artist simultaneously depicts his inner world, giving it a visible form, and the outer world, reflected in his soul. Art is born at the meeting place of these worlds.