When people say they can't draw, and you ask them to draw something - e.g. a face - the drawing will pretty much represent the age at which they gave up drawing. So if you gave up drawing at 12, the 12 yr old "you" will draw that face. And usually, the shortfalls in your drawing will be related to your inability to observe things accurately, which is 90% of the skill of drawing. As youngsters, before we learn to observe things in detail, we learn to draw by way of "symbols." So when asked to draw a nose, an ear or a hand, we draw our symbols for those things instead of how they actually look in reality. If you never developed your drawing skills past the level of childhood then you retain those symbols and draw them even when you're working from a photo. Instead of drawing the intricacies of the hand - the folds, the creases, the light and shadows, the way the fingernail sits on the finger - you ignore those things because they look "too hard" and instead revert back to your safe childhood symbols.
 
Learning to draw is all about discarding those symbols and learning to see. How does that line compare to this line? At what angle do they intersect? Where does this knuckle sit compared to that one? What shape does that shadow form and how much of the finger does it cover? To this end, I have learned that you should spend more time looking at the subject than looking at the paper. You can develop the skill of tracing around a shape with your eye and have your drawing hand move in tandem with it. Another thing I have learned is that there is nothing wrong with constantly rotating the paper to get better curves, because the wrist works some ways a lot better than others. 
 
If anyone is interested in developing their drawing skills then I would heartily recommend this book, it's an absolute classic and does exactly what it says on the tin:
 
http://www.amazon.com/Keys-Drawing-Bert-Dodson/dp/0891343377
 

Hi,
 
We're on about 2 different things.
 
You are studying this analytically, and trying to use this and that as your proof.
 
I'm telling you there is more to "doodling" than you think and I can show you the pictorial representation of an artist I worked with here in Vancouver.
 
You can create something ... out of what appears to be "nothing", and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the past, present or future.
 
ALL I did, same as in theater and film acting exercises, is work slowly and try to "define" details, until such a time as the person can "see" inwardly enough to be able to describe something. IN GENERAL, simply doodling abstractly, is but the first step into attempting to define something you have and know, but can not describe. However, differently you "doodle" is all the same thing ... and sometimes, it clicks, but mostly it DOESN'T, because all you call it is "doodling" and by association it is not important and valuable.
 
So, let me ask you ... when was the last time you actually doodled with your instrument ... and I don't mean "practice"?
 
There is a difference.
 
I can show you how this is done with an artist, and it will blow your mind ... but if you are stuck on an idea already, nothing I can say will ever get through, because you have already shut off the intuitive side and what it can (possibly) bring you ... sometimes, you have no idea what it is ... and when you LIMIT it to a hand, or a face, or a body, you are NOT HELPING the person find out what their "DOODLING" is all about!
 
And this is the biggest crying shame when trying to teach youngsters music ... guess what you take out? It's called ... "The City of Lost Children" ...

Hi,
I have done, in this area, some very interesting work, but musicians are a different breed.
 
I did several psychic shows in Seattle with my friend the artist, and we did not sell well, I would suggest we were too new to the whole thing and had never thought of what we did as "commercial" as the new age stuff was, but we always thought we were way too artsy for the new age giddyness and plasticene/cardboard pictures.
 
Her work, fit in the area of "esoteric", because it was a "pictorial" representation of something that most folks did not see, but many could relate to the color sombinations and even the design itself ... to the point of some folks saying ... I've seen that several times over the years, and always wondered what it was! I will state ... it was a part of you! PERIOD! WHAT it is, is not as important!
 
So, on Friday morning at 11AM we were bored, and Vina had doodled up a picture, and she was just kind doing it while folks walked by, which always got folks to stop and just watch ... and in the background on the other side of the Hall, was a friend of ours Herb Ernst.
 
To me the picture was "done", and I looked at it and all I could see was music ... music and I ... lovers forever!!! ... and I stopped her and asked if I could borrow the picture for a minute and walked over to Herb. I showed him the picture, and told him that these swaches were the staff and these dots were the music ... start playing.
 
He did.
 
We have a recording of it, and to my ears, is one of the prettiest pieces he ever did, and even his wife was totally surprised as were a handfull of folks that stopped by to listen, and it was the largest group of folks he had all day!
 
This was not "reverie" on my part. But it was an example, of how intuition can work, and how you can take it to different places, but you have to be willing to try it, and play with it ... and conceptual matters, are the worst examples, since they tend to "filter" the information into a translation that is not "organic" and while incomplete, in time, that translation begins to make sense ... but if all you want is a hand ... forget it ... the exercise is over!
 
I have also tried this with another artist ... my sister in Paris ... Manuela de Sena ... and she does't care for Vina's style, which starts too fast, and slows as time goes onto the details. Hers is like a thinking process that gestates for a week or more ... very "conventional" for most pop art and pop music styles, but in my book, they are not quite good exercises to help define, and interpret an intuition exercise, which yours is, but you are trying to take it out of the intuition side of it. And my sister has a CV that goes from here to Chile and back of international shows and awards ... she knows what she is doing ... but when she spent 5 months with me ... I think she got to see first hand, what true free form was ... she even started playing with it, and left me a couple of original sketches of what I call ... "nothing". They were abstract view of our back yard! But they were nice.
 
http://www.pedrosena.com/manuela.htm

By the way, that's a picture of my TV antenna on top of the house with the sun in the background. 
(In case it wasn't obvious.)
 

Moshkito you appear to be overthinking this and going off on a tangent. Personally I'm shocked!

Here, read this:

http://www.amazon.com/The...ferently/dp/1591847036

craigb

Shame that you quit and did not continue doing it ... you might have found a few nice things for your character to do, but you let your mind tell you that it was just a scratch on a piece of paper!
 
You know the secret. You just can't translate it!

sharke
Moshkito you appear to be overthinking this and going off on a tangent. Personally I'm shocked!

Here, read this:

http://www.amazon.com/The...ferently/dp/1591847036

There is NOT an ounce of thinking in what I wrote. It's all experiential and has been done. Musicians are the only ones that are afraid to try different processes of rehearsing and doing things, and experimenting.  Groups like King Crimson, use procedures from Gurdgieff for their rehearsal techniques and designs. So does Return to Forever, though they might not call it that at all.
 
Again, you guys don't believe anyone can help ... is the only problem! And there is, out there, some serious magic, that many do not believe in, because Harry Potter is safe and your covers are SAFER!
 
Why is it that your respect meter will say that something at Amazon is good, and what I wrote is not? You didn't even grok it enough to discuss it, which suggests you did not even read it!
 
Have you looked at the material and discussion in depth, enough, to actually see if there is something or not? You really think I would be writing all this and it is all fantasy, and that I did not live through it? There's more that I have forgotten, than I can tell you at all!
 
AND I HAVE OVER 200 PICTURES TO PROVE IT! Sadly, the family does not like the "work" and I can not reproduce it ... but I can show it to folks ... if they are interested. But with gents like you not interested, it's really hard to not say something rude, because I do not like to be rude for the sake of being rude. You or anyone else here do not deserve that! But I am automatically wrong, and the Amazon link is more important, because you do not understand know the difference, when it is being explained right there to you ... and you can not visualize it!
 
Sorry ...
 
And it ALL starts with a scratch that looks stupid! But your "values" automatically condemn it!

 

 

craigb

 

 

Reminds me of a cartoon on the Italian film "Allegro Non Troppo" where the cartoon catches on fire and the little character in it, is trying to get out of the fire and can't. Beautiful cartoon, though sad.
 
ALLEGRO NON TROPPO, by the way, is fabulous and a bit more "adult" than Disney's version, but it is funny, and has a great version of the Bolero (Ravel). I've been trying to get the DVD since my Video of it, is finally busted up!
 
"I never thought any of that music was stupid! And sometimes, that's the difference!"
Carl Stalling