You're a fantasy artist, or a comic and cartoons artist, you draw nothing "real", you don't copy the real world, so you don't need to draw from life... Right?

I often read people commenting that they were forced into drawing from life in art lessons, that they do not see the point of it, or that they prefer to make stylised art, so there is no need to draw from life...

For some reason, art teachers seem incapable of explaining why it's so valuable and individuals are left to discover that by themselves. Unfortunately, if you don't enjoy it particularly, you never find out because you don't do it enough. Art on the Internet has developed some strange ideas and ignorance towards "real" art practise. I'm going to try and tackle those memes and explain my understanding of art practise, as someone who dabbles in a variation of art, and I'm going to start with the dreaded drawing from life.

Learning to draw is the same as learning to do anything, it's about repetition. And as you'll all know, being competent in drawing Sonic the Hedgehog does not magically enable you to draw everything under the sun with the same competence. What is probably does do, however, is distort (distort is used here in a not necessarily negative way) the way you'll attempt to draw other things. Without sounding nasty here, there are many fan artists who have broken off from fan art and their original art now bares more than an "inspired" resemblance to whatever they created fan art of, despite no intention for it to do so.

Everything man-made (so all art) is based on real physical things. If you learn to draw from other people's art, you're learning from someone else's poo, essentially. It's already been through at least one person's interpretation. That's not to say that sometimes this isn't okay, or even valuable. It's important to see how other individuals interpret the world as it can influence you in positive ways. But it should not be the base of your drawing practise. It's not your own, even if you make it your own by changing it, it will always have elements of someone else's interpretation. And it's always obvious when the only source of inspiration is somone else's poo.

Drawing from life forces you to look at the subject and you notice things about it, subconsciously most of the time, that you wouldn't from just casually looking at it. Drawing from observation develops better hand-eye coordination and teaches you to judge, without using your eyes, space and form in a far more informed sense.

Drawing from life will, without a doubt, improve every aspect of you as an artist. It will even improve your fan work. Your line quality will improve. Your ability to incorporate an understanding of tone, colour, texture, movement, etc, from a real physical world.

Drawing from life doesn't have to mean copying flowers in a photo realistic way, unless you enjoy doing that. Drawing from observation is a process. It's not about the finished drawing, it's about what you learn about form, tone, line quality, etc, whilst you draw so you can apply it to other things. It also will teach you draw out the essence of things and use that in the way you draw. How do you draw something that is heavy, or fast, or textured? These things become apparent and second nature. It is the only way you can free up your drawing and get out of habits. By responding to a RANGE of visual (and other, nothing to stop you responding to sound or touch!) things, you develop a free "style" that is moldable into every subject, instead of a style that is restrained one or a few similar subjects.

If you're reading this and thinking "I never draw from life, barely have ever done it in my life, and I'm a better drawer than you or most other people for that matter" you need to stop and wonder how amazing you'd be if you listened to my advice. So get out there, and observe the real world. You'll feel inspired and not regret it!

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