Do Your Drawings Suffer from This Weakness?

This drawing fault plagues many drawings. However, it is not difficult to overcome once it is identified. See the same reference drawn with and without the problem. this both shows the problem clearly, and helps present the way out.
#howtodraw #drawingvideo #drawingtips #artist #stephentraversart

[@borleyboo5613]

When I saw the first one, I thought it was ok. But then I saw the second one…………stunning and very realistic. I can see how the background enhances rather than detracts from the stump as the first one does. Thank you for all your tips and lessons. 😊

[@stephentraversart]

That’s exactly what I was wanting to happen. Thanks for sharing this with me 😀

[@AbiNomac]

Oh my goodness, Stephen. You have hit the nail on the head. This hit home to keep observation at the forefront of drawing. Thank you!

[@stephentraversart]

Great to hear Abi. Thanks 😀

[@dejanzart]

That detaching of reference and drawing on some kind of autopilot very often happens to me. It is not easy to keep a playful spirit when doing these side elements of the picture, but it is essential and a reminder like this is always welcome!

[@stephentraversart]

Glad to have been helpful. Have fun with your drawing 😀

[@patjonker6576]

The drawings are as different as night from day. Such a very good tutorial. Tks so much

[@stephentraversart]

Thanks Pat. It’s always encouraging to hear that the tutorial was good, as opposed to the artwork. Hope you draw it yourself. 😀

[@auroremuller4539]

I always end up sad with this kind of drawing because I hurry on the background to finish it just like in your first attempt. Thank you so much for this video where I learn a lot.(in all your videos I've learn a lot❤.Tysm.)

[@stephentraversart]

We all have these sad drawings, at least some of them, I suspect. But being forewarned and forearmed etc. All the best with your future drawings 😀

[@sinydedeugd6989]

I enjoyed this fantastic and clear lesson. Interspersed with your dry humor it is a joy to watch. I'm getting closer and closer to the point where I dare to start myself. Thank you Stephen!😁

[@stephentraversart]

Great to hear Siny. Sounds like you’re ready to jump in!😀

[@sinydedeugd6989]

And I did it! I wasn't very brave but I just started anyway, and it was so much fun to make! Much more fun than I thought and the result is better than I expected for a first time! Thanks again Stephen!🤗🤩

[@eugenetswong]

I agree with all that. Thank you for teaching us, Stephen!

[@stephentraversart]

Glad to hear it. My pleasure 😀

[@delphinewood7519]

Love all your tutorials. Thank you for the easy to follow instructions.

[@stephentraversart]

that's kind and encouraging of you to say. thanks Delphine.

[@pintsizestories196]

As always a great lesson. I realize, for myself, that I need to stop when I feel tired and go back to my project when I feel fresher. Otherwise I produce something like drawing number one.

[@stephentraversart]

Sometimes just a cup of coffee or a walk around the block is all we need. 😀

[@jazzmusician46]

Stephen, I’ve watched many of your videos, but don’t always comment. This one was really good and supported my own views about drawing. The support act is just as important as the main show. Thanks Stephen. Another beaut video! ❤️

[@stephentraversart]

Great to hear. Yep. It all counts. Like all the notes in a song. 😀

[@verdedoodleduck]

Very valuable advice. This is such a weakness of mine. I can sometimes force myself through an entire drawing but more often I settle for a cameo with abstract background. It almost always takes more time than the central subject to draw any kind of natural background. :\ Thank you for the encouragement and drawing demonstration - I always catch a few pointers watching how you do your linework.

[@verdedoodleduck]

Looking at your first drawing brings to mind the issue is that you have a mixed drawing styles - realistic and cartoon - not that the abstraction was so bad in itself. Naturally it makes me ask the question - do you do any cartooning?

[@stephentraversart]

Great to hear Scott. No, no cartooning. I was trying to capture the weaknesses in line work and representation of objects I often see. But the ‘don’t do this’ version is always a challenge. And I know I will get comments that people would have been happy to have drawn the ‘don’t do’😩 Always do. But I loved my Superman comics of my youth with their distinctive 1950s retro vibe. 😀

[@DeAzul7902]

Absolutely indispensable information! Thank you.

[@stephentraversart]

Glad it was helpful Dar.

[@oll43]

Well Stephen This was a very timely video. I have just completed a pen and ink drawing of lime kilns on a beach in South Wales UK, and I did exactly what you described. Fired with enthusiasm for the main subject, I spent much time and effort on it only to then rush the remainder and so end up with a very unsatisfying drawing. Back to the drawing board for me with your advice ringing loudly in my ears. Thank you

[@stephentraversart]

Your next one will be amazing!😀

[@aroset]

Happy birthday. Another great lesson!

[@stephentraversart]

Haha. No, my birthday is months away. That was the point!😆

[@larrymarshall9454]

Been there, done that...too many times. Thanks, Stephen.

[@stephentraversart]

We all keep learning Larry. 😀

[@travisnobleart]

This is why I love the Southern Sung style where attention is paid to the parts the artist loves and the rest sort of fades into an atmosphere of watered-down ink.

[@Julia29853]

That is interesting - I’ve never heard of that. Is that a person, or a method?

[@stephentraversart]

Don’t know it, but it could be very effective 😀

[@travisnobleart]

@Beth-307 I mean the Sung Dynasty. But the style is not one to be missed. It is ink brushwork on silk. Like Stephen's method, there is no room for correction. It is like a live performance in art. What I love is the perfect balance between atmosphere and form. It is based on the six principles, of which I can share some of my notes below... Take note of this line which relates to this very video: When ink is used in a broad and simple manner, truth is lost; when ink is used in too delicate and timid a manner, it impairs the right appearance. Han Cho writes: "Hung-ku-tzu (Ching Hao) wrote in his treatise: "Brushwork has four aspects: muscle, bone, skin, and flesh. Strokes which are cut off but whose force/impetus is uninterrupted are called muscle. Strokes that are tied to the bones are called skin. Brushstrokes which are firm and straight and expose the joints are called bones. Strokes that thicken and thin, that are round and plump are called flesh. In particular, one ought to paint the bones and flesh as being interdependnet. Excessive flesh results in fleshiness and weakness; if too soft and seductive, bone is wanting. Excessive bone results in stiffness and woodenness; if there is muscle to excess, flesh in wanting. If strokes are fragmented/ broken off, muscle in wanting. When ink is used in a broad and simple manner, truth is lost; when ink is used in too delicate and timid a manner, it impairs the right appearance. "In painting there are six essentials. The first is called spirit (chi). Spirit means to move the brush in accordance with form and to seize the image without hesitation. The second is called harmony (yun ) Harmony means to conceal the traces of one's efforts in establishing form so that appearance will not be commonplace. The third is called thought (ssu). Thought means to suddenly grasp the essentials and concentrate on the general fitness of things. The fourth is called scenery (ching ) Scenery means to follow laws of seasonal change and to search out the sublime to create the rare. The fifth is called brush (pi) Although the brush is dependent on methods and rules, its movements are flexible. Brushwork is neither substance nor ornament. Its effects are like flight or motion. The sixth is called ink (mo). Ink can distinguish between highness and lowness in objects through dark and light tones. Thus, one can differentiate shallowness and depth. These tones will produce an appearance so natural that it will seem not to be done with a brush. If a painting is endowed with these six laws, it is a marvel of the divine (shen) class. But even if a painting has not fully realized these six laws, if it but excel in just one of them it ought not to be rejected for examination." A different view of the same principles also attributed to Han Cho (interestingly ordered differently than the proceeding): "The aesthetic and critical analysis of a painting, the six principles. The first principle is described as "breath-resonance-life-motion" (chi-yun- sheng-tung).The second, "the bone method in the use of the brush" (ku-fa yung- pi). The third, "responding to things by the representation of form (ying-wa-bilang- bsing). The fourth, "following kind in applying colors" (rui-lei-fi-tsa)The fifth principle, "plotting and planning position and place" (ching-ying-wei-chih). And sixth, "transmitting and transferring in making copies" (chuan-i-mu-hsieh). A painting, Hsieh Ho stated, should be valued not for its technical virtuosity but for its spiritual qualities." Yüan portrait painter Wang I (active ca. 1360) writes: "In drawing the face one starts with the nose, like the root of a mountain, then adds the eyes, eyebrows, and mouth around the nose, and finishes by delineating the facial contour."

[@alicebeshay6124]

Thank you Steven! This is a familiar problem whit my drawings. I always end up being a bit bored at the end, so I make a mess of the surrounding area of my subject. This is a great tutorial

[@stephentraversart]

Thanks Alice. We all face it. There’s always the bits we engage less with but still have to complete to the appropriate standard. 😀

[@lizleiart]

Waving hands 😂 So true about observation and taking care to draw the support acts. However it’s hard not to end up adding so much detail that you can’t see your focus area. And sometimes could ruin the picture. Maybe less is more then come back to it later and add more if necessary?

[@stephentraversart]

If we draw the focus area first, we know how not to draw the rest. Simpler peripheral areas also builds a faster tempo as the drawing progresses, which usually has stylistic advantages. Have fun. 😀

[@susanchatterton207]

I recognize this shortcoming in some of my line drawings. Thank you.

[@stephentraversart]

We all know this to some degree, I’m sure 😀

[@XwithNB]

Wow true 1 i focus on main thing 2 i dont konw how to draw confusing detail

[@stephentraversart]

For 2., here is your answer: kzbin.info/aero/PLwjv2r1KZs1RdXpapYftk9ajpX4uq5BeS

[@XwithNB]

@@stephentraversart o thank u so much

[@PaintingandExercise]

Ha ha ha. That is me to some degree. I am so excited that I have completed the main focus of the drawing and now realize that I have the remaining scene to draw. I thought that I was almost done but that is not the case. I want it to be over quickly but I fight that urge and usually just put the drawing aside until I am ready to put in the same effort on the background that I did on the main object.

[@stephentraversart]

I think we all know this feeling. Thanks for sharing 😀

[@sarahb.6475]

I like the second drawing better but I liked it before you added the "shrubs" in the background. You know, when the drawing was just the old stump, the grasses, the trees on the left side and the stuff in the foreground (leaves + gravel). I think those shrubs make it too busy and they make it harder to see the old stump.

[@stephentraversart]

Yes, it’s think a lighter still touch on the background would have worked better. If I draw it a third time ……!😆

[@gnarthdarkanen7464]

Excellent example of what I mean when I say something looks "rushed". There's a distracting aspect, too, where the almost cartoonish symbology takes hold in the side fringes and background of a DaVincian effort in the centerpiece, even if it's slightly off center in an attempt to distract from that. In a spate of recent children's cartoons, it even goes both ways... You can find animators who CLEARLY rely on outside resources for 90% of their set, with really articulated 3D grass and bushes, and trees around the neighborhood. Even the architecture is celebrated UNTIL you get to the main Character's place, where a plastic stereotypical picket fence surrounds a smallish property and a house that might've been build out of Deco Blocks. They're not even detailed enough to be Lego... In art as in animation, it's OKAY to simplify. Nobody should give you grief if you just prefer anime style, or really old school Comic styles. Lots of great artists made their CAREERS and became legendary with those simplified methods... BUT the STYLE was just consistent... It's your CONSISTENCY that makes you the artist. Style is just the series of questions about what you keep or dispense with to draw what you want to draw and impart upon your audience the emotions that you wish to share. Style is what makes MY drawing of a swamp feel cozy and lively, fun and warm like HOME... AND someone else's (say... if Edgar A. Poe was an artist) swamp like a freakish journey into a death-land, dark and cold and smelly... just the nightmare fueled side of Hell, itself... SO buckle up there, Buttercup... If you're going to spend an hour and a half on a rotted old stump, you better be prepared to spend at LEAST an hour on the tree towering behind it... and an hour or so on the mountain behind that... You COULD "fade out" to the background, but you're still going to need at least SOME of those details to diminish bit by bit so the mountainous shadows in the distance have any business becoming a soften blue-grey smear that just covers up that last third of the page/canvas that you just can't bring yourself to draw out (like a sword from a gaping gash?)... haha... AS for my (currently imperfect) technique... I remind myself that I'm not a "human xerox machine" and that this isn't going to be precise or completely accurate (certainly not "dead on balls" anyways) AND when I start "muddling" or catch myself dubiously symbolizing anything, I STOP... I put the damn thing down (I'm often with trucker-can or clipboard) and I take a break... I can come back and fix stuff later... I can make (and KEEP) the promise that THIS ONE will be finished before I start screwing around with a new idea or guide or reference or whatever... Sometimes, it's just gonna have to take as long as it takes... SPEAKING... of new "prospects"... My new Hero Model 926 fountain pen JUST arrived, and I've thinned and shaken a somewhat aged bottle of Speedball Superblack ink for it... Dry, the extra fine (0.34 mm) nib feels about like silk sliding over the page in my usual manner of "sketch-E-stroke"... BUT it's about time I drizzled that converter full and took her out for our first real test drive!!! Sh*t! I CAN'T WAIT FOR THAT INK ON MY FINGERS FROM A NEW PEN!!! Yeah, laugh at me... "It's the little things in life that make it worth the living!" ;o)

[@stephentraversart]

Thanks again for your thoughts G’narth. Hope the pen lives up to expectations 😀

[@gnarthdarkanen7464]

@@stephentraversart So far it does. Thanks... I'll probably tweak a little and polish the nib for just a little more reliability on the flow, BUT it's not exactly a refined heirloom quality instrument or anything... Kinda comes with being an artist and budgeting such a pen... ;o)

[@pipotherium]

Your videos are incredible

[@stephentraversart]

Thank you. 😀

[@DeAzul7902]

And I love the stump!

[@stephentraversart]

Thanks Dan😀

[@mromag4773]

Excellent draw, did you really use a 0.3 as mentioned ?

[@stephentraversart]

In this video, yes. 😀

[@UtahGmaw99]

Hands waving? lol How many times have I done that. Now I can't stop seeing hands waving. I am slowly getting better thanks to you.

[@stephentraversart]

Encouraging to hear. Thanks. Perhaps you should watch my videos on fast tracking improvement. 😆

[@LovinLnCottage]

In short, think like an oriental artist. They start wholistically first. Context is important in communication. I enjoyed your excellent instruction as always. Thank you. 🙏☮️❤️🖖

[@stephentraversart]

Yes, SueEllen, I think your right about so much of Asian art. It’s like art approached from a different direction to western thought. And can speak so much in a powerful yet restrained way. 😀

[@brucedavidson5400]

Another great video!!!! I just posted my water video on Instagram after a brief exchange a few minutes ago! My KZbin name is different though!

[@ChewyShrimps]

The use of incredibly small fine lines do scare me, you have to work a lot harder to flesh everything out, instead of the thicker/larger pens doing the talking for me! big insecurity of mine but you've made me want to try smaller fine lines! Cheers!!