"Draw What You See--Not What You Know"

This simple phrase is the frequently repeated motto I've heard from my teacher since I first started. "If you see a strange line, draw it. If you see an indistinguishable blob, draw it," she says.

Often times, we don't give our brain's imagination the credit due. When we see a tree, for instance, we think without a thought, "Trunk, branches, cover the branches with leaves," and just that. One long trunk, a few thread-thin branches, and a big mass of one shade of green blotching the entire tree that isn't trunk. However, if you look closely--and we'll take the above picture for example--there are many sections--big sections even--through which the leaves allow the sky to show. There are also bits of branches or even whole branches that show. This particular trunk looks more like many trunks that begin branching out, low to the ground. The leaves are not just a blob of green, but specks of lime green, lush green, dull green, deep green, sprinkled with dark green and white, emerald in some cases. In the little part I highlighted below, notice that the leaves in fact seem to be a whiter color. Why is that? Why is it there? That's random. Who knows, but it probably didn't strike you as odd until I pointed it out.

Take a person's eye. If someone were to ask you to draw one, it might end up looking something like a football with twigs coming out the top and a circle-inside-a-circle in the center. But have you ever really looked at an eye? It is not composed of two opposing curves intersecting, but rather a series of many curves at different angles. The eyelashes are not all going in one direction and are not all one length, many times not even the same color. The colored part of the eye is never just one color, no matter what our brains tell us upon first glance. And there is no eye exactly like another. Just because you drew someone's left eye one way does not mean that the right eye will be a flipped copy. 

The way I was taught to draw is, I believe, a very effective way to learn how to draw what you see and not what you know. In some restaurants, the kiddie menu will have an activity that is a grid with half a picture on one side. Your job is to, using the grid, mirror that half to create the other half and complete the picture. Similarly, drawing a grid on your picture and a grid on your paper will help you to find out exactly where points meet, the curve of the lines, the angles of the lines. Looking at the picture in grid form helps you to see it in terms of shapes, curves, and lines, versus objects you think you know well. 

So there's a random line or blob on the picture. Why draw it? If your drawing is a copy of a picture or still life, then odds are that, although it now looks random to you for having noticed it, it didn't look random before and it will probably look wrong without it. Maybe the blob is a shadow you weren't expecting, but believe me, the shadow is there for some reason and will be missed if omitted. If you are trying to make your picture look realistic, copy real things--not your imagination. Draw with your eyes and not your head. Draw what you see--not what you know.