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Design Software Weakens Classic Drawing Skills
mosel-saar-ruwer writes "A recent conference, hosted by UC-Berkeley's College of Environmental Design, sought to 'examin[e] the need and role for drawing today in the design professions and fine arts'. In this Reuters summary, via C-NET, the participants seem to agree that the emergence of sophisticated graphics software has coincided with a startling decline in the basic drawing skills of university students. Apparently teenaged boys don't need to practice drawing their nudes when they can just download them off the web."
Typing reduces handwriting skills, instant messaging reducing conversation skills, etc.
I'd like to see the study itself. As a fine art + design student, I have some personal interested invested in this. I would guess that its the current "new media" style of teaching destroying drawing capability, not the existence of graphics computers. There are very few ( and the number is decreasing ) schools that require adequate drawing education, the current style is ignoring drawing and teaching students to be funky. Luckily, I've had training in drawing/painting/sculpture/printmaking etc etc before I was allowed to use a computer for my work. Hell, design is easier by hand with cutouts and all sorts of stuff. anyway, I'd blame the current teaching philosophy and not the programs.
While I can see where this article is coming from, and I do think drawing skills are important, I can't help but feeling a slightly reactionary undercurrent to this. A lot of young people now are more comfortable using computers than drawing on paper... so what? You still have to put in a lot of work to create something good, regardless of the medium. Besides, I don't think you have to be good at drawing to be good at creating art on a computer, just as you don't need to be a great painter to produce an excellent sculpture. It's just a new medium that offers possibilities that paper drawing can't, as well as limitations that paper drawing doesn't have.
Right from the beginning of TFA, I got the sense that it was a bunch of old stodges saying "those newfangled machineries!, no sense to it!". I am not an artist, I can barely handle stick figures, but I think that computer aided artistry is going to end up like computer aided drafting, a vital step in the evolution of the species. Art has always existed for one purpose, to evoke an emotional response in the viewer, good or bad, that is art. If Artists today are using computers to progress faster, to push boundaries, to express themselves in ways not possible before, how can this be a bad thing?
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I come at this story from a different angle. I'm a tech who's starting to
be infatuated with drawing.
It works like this: I spend 90% of my time at work sitting in front of a PC
(a Mac, but that distinction is mighty blurred these days..). I troubleshoot
IT problems and design software. Historicaly, my free time at home was spent
doing thing like playing games and watching movies. It's all virtual,
abstract, and intangable.
Last year, I was in laid up for a bit and found myself with some time and
crayons on my hands -- and I realized that I have no drawing skills. So I
took a semester long "drawing for n00bs" class at a local school. I'm almost
done with it, and it's really changed me.
1) It's a great fun to be able to get down and dirty with real materials.
charcoal, pencils, ink, etc.
2) Even n00bs can make pretty things with a little help
3) I started to notice how much shitty computer-made art there is on the
web (for values of art == design).
Related to the article directly, there's something in this debate that reminds
me of the assembler vs. compiler arguments in tech circles. Is it better
if you know what's going on and how to do it yourself? Is there value in
doing it the hard way?
-- Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations?
... the invention of the new high-tech material called "canvas" has led to a dramatic decline in traditional cave-painting skills among incoming art students at Bedrock University.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
While things like this might erode such skills, I'm pretty certain that there isn't much call for the lost art of wagon wheel making thanks to Mr Ford, or lye soap making etc... its the natural way of things. Film developing has kind of gone out of style these days too... uhhh so what?
Drawing skills are seldom needed these days, and for where they are, that just makes artistic folk more appreciated...
Its not software that erodes or diminishes drawing skills, it happens when people have no incentive or reason to use said skills. No news here...
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This is UC Berkeley's Architecture school. Older architects, who learned how to do everything by hand, have been bitching and moaning about the reduced skillsets of students since computers were introduced in architecture schools.
Yes it's true. But computers in architecture are here to stay. Drafting by hand is extremely inefficient and not done by the vast majority of architecture firms. Hand drawing skills are still to be desired however. Spending the extra time drawing by hand forces you to think more about the importance of every line you draw. When you draw in CAD, its very easy to zoom in and out and lose the sense of what should or should not be visible in a particular drawing, depending on the scale it will be displayed at. When working by hand however, you are very concious that you don't need to draw that toilette paper holder in the bathroom stall because its barely a dot or smudge on the paper.
If you can draw and draft compelling works by hand, your skills can be translated to CAD. The reverse is not true.
The remedy to this is not to take computers out of architecture schools, the remedy is to require more hand-drawing classes. If you want the students to have art skills, make them take art classes.
But, like I said, this is not a new debate... the exact same things were being said when I was in architecture school 9 years ago. And people older than me say the same things were said when they were in school. Old-timers like to bitch and moan about "the good old days". The irony is that these same old-timers were criticised by their respective predicessors for the exact same thing: newer drafting tools meant that students were getting worse at freehand drawing; newer modeling tools and materials (i.e. plastics and precut small hardwoods) meant that students were getting worse at woodworking; newer art materials (cheap watercolors, latex paints) meant that students were getting worse at guache and oil painting.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
As a former design student, a design professional and instructor I found the post, the article and the first two comments a bit distressing. I'll try to keep my comments concise.
1. Blaming the tools is the first sign of a bad instructor
2. Drawing skills are still extremely valuable and *ARE* taught with digital tools today (Wacom tablets are wonderful)
3. Finding someone to agree (or disagree) that a piece of art is good isn't very hard; it's a matter taste to most, even the 'educated'
4. Drawing on the computer is just as challenging and frustrating as drawing in any other fashion; more so because of the myriad of tools and effects that can be used in a single drawing
5. Most professors that degrade the computer as a design tool are usually computer illiterate or barely literate and can be equated to math instructors that think that we should all go back to slide rules and ditch calculators (although for some types of calculations they may be correct)
My point is, the tool is not to blame. And, because the skills aren't necessarily directly transferrable from one medium to another (from graphite and paper to stylus and tablet, or mouse and screen) doesn't mean the artist is lacking in ability. All artists find a medium that they are comfortable with and will (in a lot of cases) stick to that medium for the duration of their careers. Just because I'm BETTER at drawing on the computer than drawing on a piece of paper doesn't make me a bad artist, creative thinker, or whatever. It means I've found a medium that allows ME to express my creativity.
Many comics have moved to digital production. Almost all, even if they start as sketches, are early in their life scanned and almost all coloring and refining done digitally. In the same way more and more story boards are moving to the computer realm. There was an article here recently of LucasArts working with its game division on story boards that are interactive, or at least dynamic. In both computers are being used more and more as the digital form can be quickly manipulated and more importantly copying and transporting is trivial.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
God never intended man to travel at "breakneck speeds of 35 miles per hour".
The mxs reading on my bike computer for today is 35.5 mph.
I'm going to hell.
Anyway, since I'm going to hell I might as well play the Devil's Advocate a bit and point out that the tractor meant the development of hand planting ceased for nearly a century; and it turns out that no plow hand planting is a superior technology for small farms; and small farms owned by many create more economic and social stablility than large farms in the hands of only a few. All your eggs in one basket, as it were.
Sometimes the old ways, if not outright best are at least best in certain cases, just as Newtonian physics is still applicable and easier to work with if v is small compared to c.
A few years ago I began to divest myself of my drafting tools. "Didn't need 'em anymore," and they took up space, especially the drafting table, and created unwanted clutter.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeh! Wrong answer Sparky.
In only a few years I've noticed a lifetime's worth of mechanical drawing skills degrading; and I've noticed it because I've noticed that in many cases it's still preferable to draw.
Dooooooon't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got, 'till it's gone?
And if anyone should know better it's me, Mr. "Maintains his Neolithic technology skills because he finds they actually come in useful."
There's no such thing as a skill not worth having (well, ok, I know a guy who can play the William Tell Overture by cracking his knuckles. For every rule there's an exception), the chief problem being:
"The lyfe so short; the craft so long to lerne." - Chaucer
And just to rub it in, if the craft is not maintained, it goes away. All by its frickin' self.
What's wit dat?
KFG
This is garbage. As a 3d character animator i've seeked out to improve my classical figure drawing skills in recent years.
Why?
Because if you cant draw it, you cant truely see it. Seeing things is having an understanding of form. Yes you can have references, but you will never understand that form in your mind three dimensionally until you can express it quickly on paper.
Yes we can all make a sphere easily in 3D. We see a sphere in our mind, so we click the Create Sphere button in 3D.
BUT Lets talk about the shoulder, or thigh... the complex forms it takes as muscles work underneith the skin and fat. First we need to understand where those muscles are, what they look like and how they attach to the structure of the skeleton. We also need to know how they work, that way we can easily see in our minds the forms they create. Muscles cause our body to form interesting shapes that are very dynamic looking from all angles.
Unless we have a good understanding of this, and can quickly express it on paper through drawing, we really cant sculpt it in 3d from all angles.
I've been drawing my entire life, and I was always good at drawing arms, and chest muscles... but i noticed that i could only do them from certain angles. I had problems with foreshortening/perspective and form. I also was quite bad at legs and hands. Now its hard to draw an expressive character without understanding the forms of the hand.
When i got into animation... i noticed all of the great animators could see things in their heads as i could, but they could express them... and i could not because i could not draw like they could. I may have had the pose, or the action in my mind but i could not translate that shiluoette to paper... until i took classical figure drawing.
Now i can draw whats in my head. That is very important because 3d work is very involved. If you can not draw your idea out in a quick sketch and then refine it... work it on paper... Why would you sit down and put a ton of work into 3D modelling when chances are... its not coming from a clear vision.
Sure you can look at an empty lot, and see a giant building, and you know you can get people to build it, and you can use a hammer...
But you need to really see your vision, a blueprint before you embark on the task.
Learning classical figure drawing is essential for animators, fashion designers etc because its not only about form, its about expression.
Drawing isnt technical, its about taking that spark of thought in your brain and using your hand to express, or guesture your emotion onto a physical canvas. The thought in our mind is but a moment, but once we can capture it on paper, its easier to edit, refine and view.
Drawing is essential and its so rewarding because it really does help you to express your ideas, find poses for animation, and it has been true for a long time in animation that... those who can draw anything, are usually classically trained figure pencil artists.
The best cartoonists understand form first, then widdle down to simple toony characters because they understand the body language and how to push it to abstract levels.
Being able to draw, is to have a clear vision and a way to express it to others. A thought is but a moment in your head. Sitting down and working for weeks on a 3D designed character could proof a complete waste of time because you never had a clear vision.
Or the invention of pencilin drastically reduced the skills of the average person at digging a 6 foot deep hole.
I'm horrible at drawing things by hand, definitely not what you'd term an "artistic" person in the traditional sense. When I discovered computers and graphic programs it was awesome because I was able to use technical skill express my artistic side that would otherwise never have seen the light of day.