Take-away: We see concepts (for example, we see a “car”) not a combination of shapes and values in space. To draw well, we first have to learn to see the world objectively.
If you’re new to drawing, you got a huge challenge in front of you. It’s one that you haven’t noticed yet: nothing looks like what you think it looks like!
I drew these two sketches using shapes and forms. If you zoom in, you’ll see that there’s no distinct finger or eye drawn.
When we see a human face, our brain processes it quickly. We pick up the most subtle changes and tell apart the hundreds of people we see in our daily life. While we can tell them apart and recognize them by all their differences, we can’t draw them just like that. Why not? We know them. We remember them. Otherwise we couldn’t tell who’s John and who’s Josh!
The problem has to do with brain processing. In art, beginners draw what they think an eye looks like, instead of the eye they see in front of them. There is so much visual information around us at any given time, that it would be impossible for our brains to process it all. Instead, our brains simplify all that input.
A beginner typically gets stuck on symbol drawing. That’s when you draw what you know instead of drawing the objective shapes and angles that you actually see. You think you recognize a nose by all its little shapes, but your brain just takes it as a whole, labels it “nose” and tells you not to worry about the little details. Heck, your brain doesn’t only do that with little parts like a nose, but with anything!
For example, did you know that you read words, you don’t read letters?
Case in point: the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? (Example by Darius Ilgunas, from Proven Strategies to Succeed at School)
Optical illusions exploit that:
In that classic optical illusion, the black square (A) in the light looks darker than the white square (B) in the shadow. Why? Because we already divided what we see into “dark squares” and “light”. The light square looks light and the dark square looks dark, because our brain decided that.
Seeing the world in context means we don’t see the physical world exactly as it is.
If we could see the world objectively, we wouldn’t fall for optical illusions. But we’d also need a lot of brain power to figure out anything. Imagine suffering in the hot sun at a bus stop. You want to stand in the shade. But since you see everything objectively without context, now you have to observe the pavement you’re standing on right now, calculate the brightness of 200 color specks and then compare that to the average color brightness of a spot of pavement a few feet further, before you decide whether there’s shade over there. Oh, and before doing that, do a quick calculation to determine where your own shadow falls on the pavement, so you don’t mistake that color gradient change for some shade.
Our brain simplifies the world, or it would be too difficult to make decisions and take action.
That’s why we can immediately tell when a face is mangled. Yet to draw a face… For that, we first have to study the proportions of a face – an ear is 1/3 of a face, the eyes are approximately halfway, etc. There’s a gap between subconscious and conscious knowledge that our brain uses for survival. We have to close that gap to become better artists. We don’t see the world as it is. We see symbols and concepts.
Another example where symbol drawing shows up is Foreshortening. Foreshortening is such a challenge. Foreshortening is when the perspective compresses something long into a small space.
Usually we blunder with foreshortened limbs. We know arms are long. We know legs are long. So we draw them long instead of drawing them accurately.
While symbol drawing can reduce the accuracy of your art, it can be used as a helpful trick too: Symbol drawing on youtube
That video gives you a fun party trick, but it doesn’t teach professional drawing skill. What is your personal goal? If you want to draw backgrounds and action scenes, that trick might not be enough. Even if you only want to draw your Dungeons & Dragons party character headshots, it might not be enough.
Knowing your drawing goals can help you decide what tools to add to your toolbox. Learning to see shapes and angles is a good tool for almost any goal. Symbol drawing keeps you limited to the symbols your brain can recall.
When an artwork is in the public domain, anyone can use it for any purpose. Since copyrights expire, eventually all art becomes public domain.
Why Put Your Art in the Public Domain?
I can’t think of a good reason to do that.
Once in the public domain, you don’t own the art anymore. If someone else gets filthy wealthy by selling t-shirts with your art, you don’t get a cut of the profits. Trolls can make obscene derivatives – maybe your furry OC will become the mascot of the next Nazi rally and you’d be out of luck stopping them.
So why did I do it? I use public domain images a lot, so I’m just giving back for good karma? It’s a feel-good reason. The downsides I mentioned are the same reason you might want to contribute – give resources to others and expect nothing back.
How Do You Publish Your Art to the Public Domain?
If you want to be all prim and proper, you get an attorney and sign a deed to release your art to the Public Domain. That’s a bit much. How did I go about it? I just uploaded the art pieces to WikiMedia Commons with a CC0 1.0 license (= release into the public domain). Say I change my mind & decide to sue someone. The defendant can simply show the WikiMedia with the CC0 1.0 to the judge. Or show this blog post…
Am I going to convince the judge that user “IrisHopp” on WikiMedia wasn’t me?
It’s not a signed deed drafted by an attorney and sanctioned by the courts, but it’s functionally the same. Both approaches make sure you lose in court if you try to claim copyright infringement! So why not go for the easy-peasy option?
Here’s a link to all my free-to-use images uploaded to Wikimedia: Iris Hopp uploads on Wikimedia. In this blog post, some images are resized, so you can also check out the WikiMedia page for a larger version.
Here Are The Images I Have In The Public Domain Right Now:
1. First, Two Flowers
This one is so forgettable I don’t even remember why or when I made it.
If I had to guess it was just a quick warm-up study. Ironically, it’s so forgettable and so not special, and so boring yet it’s at number one because out of all the images I’ve uploaded the public domain this might be the only one that is actually useful. I’ll talk more about that at the end of this post.
2. A Hopeful Orca
Orca – Hope In Dark Times
This Orca is special too. If you’ve read my blog posts, you’ll know that I’ve been struggling the past years due to traumatic life experiences. I have even been officially diagnosed with PTSD.
I’m not back on my feet yet but still working towards it.
This Orca was a little bit of Hope in Dark Times because my skills have gotten really rusty over the past years due to not consistently drawing.
I know, I know, “Life happens. Keep drawing.”
Well I didn’t.
One of the hardest parts of getting back into drawing is that constant feeling of defeat. Every minute of drawing is a confrontation. It’s rubbed in your face that you’ve lost a lot of your skill, you’ve fallen behind your peers, and you have to rebuild all that before you can even start again.
It’s pretty crazy when I see someone post their work done for an AAA title and I’m considering to take on $150 DND commissions.
Okay, back on to the Orca. I was on a call on which a drawing mentor of mine and I just doodled this one. It came out exactly what you see here on your screen.
It was nice to see that I can just spontaneously do something that doesn’t look like shit.
Besides the flowers, this might be the second image that actually has some value for people besides me. I could see it work on a t-shirt, a store or I could see someone refine the design to use it as a sticker or logo.
3. Portraits of Horses
The horses are a collection of three studies. The big horse face portrait took an hour and the two small ones took 30 minutes each.
I don’t have the reference images right now, so I cannot credit the original photographers. The paintings have been purposefully changed enough that there is no copyright infringement in sharing this. For example, the horse portrait on the left is an Akhal Teke horse that has no mane visible in the original picture.
The right horse is a screenshot from a video about mustangs, and I changed the general look of the horse. And for the bottom right picture, I adjusted the pose of the horse.
I’ll come across a reference images sometime when I organize my hard drive files and at that time I will add them to this blog post.
4. Lion Post Card
The first picture was my stopping point, but I went back the next day and added some details to make this painting pop!
It turned out pretty good, given that I don’t have experience with traditional painting. At FZD I learned digital painting and for work it’s always digital too.
I wanted to create a cool postcard, wasn’t sure what to paint but I like lions, so this was the end result.
5. Kitsch Flowers Painted While LARPing
This flower painting is only in the list because I didn’t feel like getting my hard drive and looking through thousands and thousands of drawings and paintings I’ve made in the past. The few images uploaded to the public domain are actually limited to what I happened to have on my laptop.
This flower was a fun one to draw during the pandemic lockdown in 2020. I joined LARP online sessions, and in one of the sessions we infiltrated a painters’ guild. In the role-playing scenario, our characters had to do a 5-minute art challenge. I got this picture of some flowers as my art challenge:
Google says it is a painting by Myroslava Voloschuk from Ukraine, but that name doesn’t match the right bottom signature.
I did set up timer for 4 minutes, but I didn’t hear it go off. So I’m not sure if I actually did that in 5 minutes and 30 seconds. Maybe I cheated by accident? Anyway, this was my 5-minute speed paint attempt at recreating the reference image:
The next session we had, I kept painting it little by little while multitasking with the chat and continuing the LARP scenario. Yes, I changed it from Magnolia flowers into some undetermined other floral species. I wanted it to look more decadent…
Here’s the sped up video:
I never finished it. It’s been more than a year now. I wanted to make a super bling bling and kitsch version from the original modest reference image, but that’s not going to happen. Let’s call it done and add it here.
Fun fact, I did find the original reference photograph by SpadeCaller (Matthew Schwartz) for the original painting. Here’s all of the work in a mini slide-show:
6. Artsy Fartsy World Map
I suck at anything “graphic design”, OK? This is my best attempt at creating a pretty map… I can only think of this being useful for folks who who’d put this on their wall to color in the countries they’ve been to.
User /u/asdasasdass321 on Reddit’s /r/MapPorn warned against using it because of all the mistakes I made:
So there you go. Uploading it to WikiMedia is probably the equivalent of bringing trash to Goodwill…
7. Lion Sketch
A lion sketch. That’s all it is.
8-9-10. The Beetle Cab
This is a series of three images that I made back in FZD, for a homework project. It’s still my favorite design out of everything I’ve made.
I enjoy nerding out, so I had a lot of fun figuring out small details like:
“Would a whip still work when they have a hard exoskeleton?”
Answer: At the time I thought no, so I added bells. Nowadays, I think the giant horse-beetles would feel it.
or…
“Would the shape of a beetle’s head change if it was as tall as a horse?”
Answer: Yes, their face would elongate so their eyes can still stick out above the grass while they graze. Gotta spot those predators!
I did a lot of research (biology, historical vehicles, …) and had a lot of fun. Fun shows up in the small details, like when you zoom in on the newspaper excerpt:
I am actually using Beetle-Cab as an example in an blog post about having fun! Coming “soon” (so mid 2025 maybe?).
Frankly, this one hurts to put in the Public Domain because I’m so attached to it. These are stupid, silly feelings! Beetle-Cab is so niche and nerdy that I don’t see anyone using it… ever! The two flowers at number #1 are uninspired, but they have the highest chance of being useful to someone. Boring is often useful. Crazy has fewer real life applications.
As part of the Beetle Cab series, I painted a family in their living room.
Quick update. I’m not doing well and at the same time I’m doing fantastic given the circumstances.
There is an ongoing court case, so I cannot share any details currently. I’m a victim of violence. I rather call myself “that gal who escaped” instead of “crime victim”, but hey, it works for the courts.
My mental and physical health are recovering. Drawing/painting is hard right now. I’m rusty. My brain is mushy and my hands don’t remember how to hold a pencil.
Sketches made today.
The worst is the mental battle. The following emotions are nicking my productivity:
-Stress. It’s hard to focus. -Guilt. Guilt for axing a project because I was in the hospital. Are emotions supposed to make sense? -Shame. My output is low and the quality even lower.
It has become a catch-22.
It’s about gaining momentum. You need to get the shitty drawings out to get to the good ones. And yet… instead of going through 60 design so I can end up with something decent for my client, I don’t even pick up my pen. I don’t want to confront those 60 bad designs.
This is “external perfectionism”.
It gets extreme. I thought about abandoning my dream career, just so I didn’t have to re-learn my old skills. This is not about drawing or painting. It’s the emotional pain of losing my previous skill level. It’s the hurt pride of stepping back from my favorite projects to focus on easier projects.
It’s all a mental battle now. I do not want to accept my regression in skill and productivity, but avoiding the confrontation extends the battle. The exact same shows up in my physical therapy. Going for a 5-mile run against doctor’s orders? I’m up for that. Small exercises that will help me walk pain-free in the future? No thanks.
It’s just ego. I don’t want to suck.
But dreaming about being great doesn’t get you there. You gotta draw.
