The biggest problem that artists must overcome is not one of technique or of inspiration. The biggest problem is the lack of seeing. When people go through their lives every day, they do not see. They look. There is a very simple reason for this; no-one could possibly notice every detail in the world around us. So the brain filters out the details for us. When you are walking down the street, you see the street, the sidewalk, the other people, and the buildings. You do not notice the cracks in the sidewalk or the weeds growing in those cracks; the quality of the pavement or the type of cars on the street; the expressions of the faces of the people around you; the texture of the bricks on the buildings you pass. All of these things will have an impact on you, but mainly on a subconscious level.
The part of the brain responsible for this filtering is the left side of the brain (all those who have read "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, please skip to the first exercise). It replaces the bricks in the building with the word "wall", the vintage Model T with the word "car". But when you actually start to notice and observe what is around you, you can force another part of your brain into action; the right side.
The right side of the brain is what controls your unconscious, your instincts. Talking is a right brain function; when you talk you do not think in terms of article-subject-preposition-adjective-adverb-descriptive verb. However, when most people draw, this is exactly how they think. To draw a person, you draw a head, a body, two arms and two legs, the hands, the feet, the hair, and the clothes. But, you are not actually drawing legs, arms, heads, etc. You are simply drawing "symbols" that you have learnt for these things. A leg is two long straight lines, sometimes bent a bit. A head is an elongated circle. In short, you are drawing what you think these things are, not what they are.
I will for now omit the further explanations of how and why this happens, but all serious art students should read about how the brain works in the marvelous book, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain". For now we will concentrate on the exercises that will remove drawing from the left side of the brain and shift it to the right.
If you are following along, do the above drawing exercise - Contour Drawing
Okay, the torture's over. Relax your hands, and note the interesting blue colour underneath the fingernails. After you have massaged them back to a more normal colour, you may now look at your drawing. Ahhhhh! It looks awful! Well, don't worry, that's normal. You see, the point of this exercise is not to make a beautiful work of art (although that is rare but pleasant side effect). The point is to stop using those symbols I was rambling on about a few paragraphs ago. If you can't see what you're drawing, it's a lot harder to draw an ellipse. And by forcing yourself to draw slowly, you will start to observe details you never saw before. The indentations in the skin of the knuckle. The irregular folds of flesh of the hand. The webbing between the thumb and palm.
Just before we go on, I'd like to point out that this exercise has no directly link to animation. In animation, you will NEVER spend half an hour on a hand. But, the contours themselves that you are drawing will become very important:
On the left is a fluid, fast drawing by Glen Keane (probably). On the left is a slow, careful contour study! Not quite as detailed, perhaps, as the one of your hand, but certainly a lot prettier (! If that's the word). In time, we will study making cleanups like this one; for the moment, please bear with me.
Footnote: I have made it sound like the only correct way to draw is through the right brain. This is not strictly true; the left brain can and does have an important part in the drawing and animating process. We will get to that later.
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