#Kimon Nicolaides

[arhippaseal]

Practice with Kimon Nicolaïdes' "Natural Way To Draw". Photo source: https://www.tumblr.com/tvcheesecrocs/700114694490537984/midsize-and-plus-sized-men-appreciation?source=share

[incorrectlooneytunesquotes]

The sooner you make your first five thousand mistakes the sooner you will be able to correct them.

Wile E. Coyote 

[blancogrisaceorojizo]

Kimon Nicolaides

[starkickfall]

An Analysis of Gesture: Concept/Theory, Exercises, Goals/Summary

An Analysis of Gesture: Concept/Theory, Exercises, Goals/Summary

This post will be an analysis using the Gesture chapter/concept from Kimon Nicolades’ book “The Natural Way to Draw” as a springboard to talk about Gesture in art and in general, how it possibly applies to art and how you can possibly improve from knowing about it.I say possibly because with every art theory I put out (or anyone puts out for that matter) there’s definitely going to be someone…

[oldquotes]

'The sooner you make your first five thousand mistakes the sooner you will be able to correct them.' -Kimon Nicolaides | Click here for more inspirational quotes.

[kraftcheese]

really did my dad's dog dirty w these sketches... unintentionally made the poor girl look like a dead rat :(

[thatfunkyopossum]

drawing advice nonnie here! i guess,,,specifically the faces? your clones are so lovely and expressive and mine end up looking like eldritch monsters ajksdjfkl

Well, there’s no quick thing to being able to draw well, all you can do is study and practice! Without seeing your work there’s nothing specific I can help you with (and I’m not sure I have the time or energy these days to give specific critique) but where most people struggle with faces (including myself) is Anatomy and Volume.

So here’s what I recommend for learning those.

First, your supplementary online resources are going to be https://line-of-action.com/ which you can use in lieu of an in person drawing class (i recommend class mode settings) and the youtube channel Proko. I recommend studying with the use of a large pad of cheap paper, preferably newsprint, and willow charcoal if you don’t mind the texture.

The materials are not important, but I recommend large paper for studies like this because you can really let your body get into it. It’s completely fine not to have an easel to work on, in which case you can either prop up a large pad of paper on something with the use of a board, or you can have a smaller pad of paper. Anything works better than nothing, but if you can get large cheap paper, you absolutely should.

1. Look at Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards, [PDF here]

     -I recommend checking this one out first. It teaches you the bare bones of drawing from observation and is absolutely invaluable to learning to see the way an artist does. The science in it is bunk, but its methods are sound.

2. Check out The Natural Way to Draw by Kimon Nicolaides [PDF here]

     - Read the section on gesture drawing and practice it using Line-of-action, which you can set to do an endless stream of 30 second poses. I found it very helpful to do these studies in ball point pen (forces you to commit) or willow charcoal (difficult to erase and very soft), which was very freeing to me.

     -The Gesture exercises can ABSOLUTELY be applied to just faces if thats what you want to draw. Faces are complicated and if that’s what you want to study, go for it.      -I can’t vouch for most of the book as, tbh, i havent read it because i feel bad not committing to what the author asks of you. These specific beginning passages though on gesture and contour are very good!

3. Also get your hands on Drawing The Head and Hands by Andrew Loomis [PDF here]

I’m not going to lie to you. Andrew loomis might be one of the most boring authors in existence. I was reading his book aloud in a car once and it put my friend (who cannot sleep in vehicles!!!) to bed. His prose is boring as fuck. That said... he was an incredible artist! And may artists for decades have found his instructional books supremely helpful. I am very happy to have them on hand.

    -For each section of the book, draw along with the examples. Copy Loomis’s art. Use line of action from the beginning, either for anatomy traces or from observation studies. Even in the planes of the face section, you can trace the planes over the photos either on paper held up to your computer, or directly onto the photo through use of a digital drawing program.

   -Use Proko to supplement your learning with Loomis. It can be extremely helpful to get input from multiple sources, especially because IMO Loomis is honestly not the best teacher in his books, even if his methods work very well. The Anatomy and Structure videos in the Proko Facial Features playlist should be most helpful.

Please note, the sources on anatomy that I’ve provided here will only teach you how to draw the “ideal”, white face. They’re the sources that I learned from, which is why I’m recommending them to you. Which is why I want to outline right now what you SHOULD be trying to learn from these sources.

1. Underlying anatomy

Luckily, human beings from every race and national origin have the same exact bones and cartilage and fat and muscle, just in different places and attached at different points. What you are doing when you are learning anatomy, especially from biased sources, is not how the anatomy should be shaped, but rather what it is. If you get a deep understanding of anatomy, you should be able to problem solve and figure out by drawing from observation exactly what the underlying structures look like on anyone. The nose of a white person will, most likely, be pretty different from the nose of an east asian person, or a māori person, or a black person. That said, the cartilage and muscle attachments and bones are still all the same. What changes is the shapes.

2. Drawing from Observation

Honestly, learning to draw from observation is one of the most important things that an aspiring artist can learn. If you can’t draw from observation, learning will be an uphill struggle. If you can’t put aside your notions of what things should look like according to what you know, and instead start drawing them as they are, your growth as an individual artist will only ever come in switching out the symbols you use to represent different things.

As a last parting word related to that last thing: Imo, artists should not use symbols to represent reality, the way flash puppet animation does. What you should be doing, is you should be striving to understand the real, actual world, and then simplifying and streamlining and nudging it about into art. Symbol based art is, of course, still art, but its limited, and until we can break from these limits then our art can never reach its full potential. Draw as often as you can, draw with your shoulder and not your wrist or fingers if you can help it, do art warmups, and happy drawing :)

[erzsebet-bathory]

socorro oleastro

Black Tips. Thief. Former First Army Cartographer.

( Drawing is rather like playing chess: your mind races ahead of the moves that you eventually make. - David Hockney )

( Learning to draw is really a matter of learning to see - to see correctly - and that means a good deal more than merely looking with the eye. - Kimon Nicolaides )

A Black Tips thief equipped with an eidetic and photographic memory, Socorro deserted the First Army partly out of boredom and partly because she thought she was wasting her life. She was restless, easily bored. Being able to travel was nice but she wasn’t sure she believed in the Ravkan cause. She didn’t want to be confined to rules and regulations until she was discharged or killed.

So she bartered passage on a ship, worked odd jobs, and found herself in Ketterdam a few years back. It took time but Socorro found herself joining the Black Tips and putting her skills to good use to help with... acquiring goods for the more established members. Socorro has a collection of maps she’s made herself of important places with pretty valuables. She can be typically found wearing an oversized coat, a parting gift from one of her former employers.

Just watch out for the knives and guns she keeps.

[worldbuildguild]

how does someone loosen up with art? i've been trying to do art, but wheer i do it, i get caught up on guidelines or if this anatomically correct and ive just become depressed because i just keep tying myself into knots

I feel like this is something every artist has gone through or is currently going through, so don’t worry you are not alone!

What really helped me start to loosen up with art is Gesture drawing! Theres nothing looser than gesture! 

 heres an example from Proko!

(his lesson on gesture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74HR59yFZ7Y)

do gesture practice with 15 or 30 second time limit with people or even house hold objects like a lamp or a couch

your drawings DO NOT have to be clean like Proko or many of the examples you see of gesture drawing on the internet when you first start. Gesture practice is for learning not displaying on your wall (you can throw them out immediately if you want)

I actually encourage you to be messy and scribbly with these drawings make them a mess and ugly but find the rhythm and gesture in the poses or object your drawing and FOLLOW THE TIME LIMIT!

An exercise like this will help you draw loose and the time constraint will help stop you from getting lost in the details or ‘rightness’ of what your drawing

have fun and remember its not about he end result of the drawing its about the experience! 

here are some examples from The Natural Way To Draw by Kimon Nicolaides (PDF FREE) Its a great art book! maybe a little dated in the language and suggested mediums but the exercises are great for building those art brain muscles!

“You should draw not what the thing looks like, not even what it is, but what it is doing” (Nicolaides,31)

These things also just get better with time, practice and patience! so keep drawing and you’ll be just fine! 

More Resources: 

Good video explaining more on this exercise from sycra on youtube: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmiwGm32dXU

Aaron Blaise talking about the importance of drawing loose in animation: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCAFStbNjCU

hope this helps! -Mod Todd (ko-fi)

[iamoutofideas]

for drawing Is reccomend searching "the natural way to draw pdf" it's by kimon nicolaides & it's what a lot of art 101 courses are based on. it goes on abt using live models but I just get an old notebook & apply what it says to random shit in my house like fruit and knick knacks. later on u can search figure drawing websites too that have a lot of reference pics but irl stuff is way better to start w to train yr eye.

thanks so much man I’ll look that up now

[pwlanier]

Sketchbook of Kimon Nicolaïdes 1892-1938. Mamie Harmon papers relating to Kimon Nicolaides, 1935-1985. Archives of American Art.

[himanisivaramankiclass]

"Learning to draw is really a matter of learning to see - to see correctly - and that means a good deal more than merely looking with the eye." Kimon Nicolaides

[mydrawingexpedition-blog]

It’s never too late to learn something, right? Right! I always wanted to learn how to draw. I loved it in my childhood but as life progressed I started to neglect it because I thought I wasn’t good at it. Probably like many others. Now I’m 28 and haven’t really drawn for almost two decades but the urge to draw, to create and my love and my passion for art came back, impossible to suppress. I am determined to teach myself to draw and I will document my progress here.

So, where do I start my expedition? Well, after some some research I stumbled upon “The Natural Way To Draw” by Kimon Nicolaides and decided to give it a shot. I will probably add some basic exercises and work on the fundamentals of drawing. Lines, basic shapes & forms, shading, perspective and so on. Feel free to join me on my journey!

[motivational]

The sooner you make your first five thousand mistakes the sooner you will be able to correct them. -Kimon Nicolaides

The sooner you make your first five thousand mistakes the sooner you will be able to correct them. -Kimon Nicolaides

[starkickfall]

An Analysis of Contour/Lineart: Concept/Theory, Exercises, Goals/Summary

An Analysis of Contour/Lineart: Concept/Theory, Exercises, Goals/Summary

This post will be an analysis using the Contour chapter/concept from Kimon Nicolades’ book “The Natural Way to Draw” as a springboard to talk about ‘Contour’/lineart in art and in general, how it possibly applies to art and how you can possibly improve from knowing about it.I say possibly because with every art theory I put out (or anyone puts out for that matter) there’s definitely going to be…

[oldquotes]

'The sooner you make your first five thousand mistakes the sooner you will be able to correct them.' -Kimon Nicolaides | See more daily motivational quotes at Jar of Quotes.