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What Beatrix Potter can teach you about drawing and how t...
2 years ago
Do you feel inadequate drawing plants? Insects? I did, and it took me a while to understand the reason why. I have interviewed Beatrix Potter in order to help us understand why she is so good at drawing plants.
Beatrix Potter didn’t draw plants, insects, animals the way “normies” did. She did it in a way that a scientist would. She would own a rabbit, study the way it moves and teach it tricks. Then when it died she would boil its bones and taxidermy the rabbit. The whole time doing this, she would be sketching the bunny doing a variety of actions, from grooming its ear from an itch. To protest and stomp its feet when it gets mad. She would develop a strong emotional bond that rises from birth to death. She would know the rabbit inside and out, having a strong emotional attachment to the rabbit.
But compared to me, I’d find a stock photo and sketch it. I would get bored and disenfranchised. The reason why? I have no love for rabbits, I have no know or felt the strong emotions associated with rabbits nor have I even processed the death of my beloved pet. And you can see that in my works. What a profound comparison, and you can see it in how our works compare.
So how do we who want to draw better do with this information? Well I believe that we always strive to improve technique. Aeso with his line weight, Flygon with the pallet we from sega games. But what about improving and cultivating a deep love and attachment towards the subject matter that we are trying to depict. Consuming media, reading fanfiction, doing roleplays, sharing, gifting to friends and going to conventions and lectures.
Going further, my fave artists seem to go the extra mile, knowing details such as what paper they would use, what is behind the scenes, who were they inspired and why? What worldview did they have and what were the times?
In the name of Beatrix Potter I realised It was not enough to just copy stock footage or understand just what a bunny looks like. To understand the bunny means a deep love and cultivation of bunny and I hope that gives a spirit for you to follow.
I am curious what your thoughts are and if you have ever experienced something like this before?
Beatrix Potter didn’t draw plants, insects, animals the way “normies” did. She did it in a way that a scientist would. She would own a rabbit, study the way it moves and teach it tricks. Then when it died she would boil its bones and taxidermy the rabbit. The whole time doing this, she would be sketching the bunny doing a variety of actions, from grooming its ear from an itch. To protest and stomp its feet when it gets mad. She would develop a strong emotional bond that rises from birth to death. She would know the rabbit inside and out, having a strong emotional attachment to the rabbit.
But compared to me, I’d find a stock photo and sketch it. I would get bored and disenfranchised. The reason why? I have no love for rabbits, I have no know or felt the strong emotions associated with rabbits nor have I even processed the death of my beloved pet. And you can see that in my works. What a profound comparison, and you can see it in how our works compare.
So how do we who want to draw better do with this information? Well I believe that we always strive to improve technique. Aeso with his line weight, Flygon with the pallet we from sega games. But what about improving and cultivating a deep love and attachment towards the subject matter that we are trying to depict. Consuming media, reading fanfiction, doing roleplays, sharing, gifting to friends and going to conventions and lectures.
Going further, my fave artists seem to go the extra mile, knowing details such as what paper they would use, what is behind the scenes, who were they inspired and why? What worldview did they have and what were the times?
In the name of Beatrix Potter I realised It was not enough to just copy stock footage or understand just what a bunny looks like. To understand the bunny means a deep love and cultivation of bunny and I hope that gives a spirit for you to follow.
I am curious what your thoughts are and if you have ever experienced something like this before?
There's quite an immense process of heavy revisions upon revisions inside the pictures. And some elements of art being lost in the modern realm - for example, classical methods of on-paper illustration taught in the 70s and 80s.
I have an immense amount to learn. And it turns out a lot of the secret really is more in the physical realm of the 80s than it was in the digital realm of the 90s.
Of course, not every pixel artist of the early 90s worked this way. But it turns out it was the ones that most inspired me as a child did.
I wish I was in the sort of frame of mind and non-exhaustion to learn actual illustration from actual illustrators in school when it was the 90s and 00s. I'm too much of a night owl (which helps me be not exhausted - yay circadian rhythm) to be able to attend day classes.