Drawing is often perceived to be a form of training. Although its importance of foundation building is recognized by many, it’s often “abandoned” once the artist moves on to other forms of expression using different media. For someone who has been drawing for more than six decades, a drawing is a painting without color. It’s an art form in itself.
The core of drawing is about exploring and rendering the essence of life – seeing beyond colors, revealing an intrinsic artistic form.
Since there is no color in a drawing, it avails the artist the opportunity of “translating” what he sees in color into colorless lines, value and strokes. This is the most pure and intrinsic art form.
Although color is missing from a drawing, the art of drawing covers all other elements such as proportion, volume, perspective, space, and texture, etc. and therefore provides a foundation for all forms of painting. If these basic skills are not well developed, the image in a painting will crumble like a building upon a poor foundation.
Drawing is a process, the process of building a subject on paper, the process of observing, exploring, critical thinking, depicting, over and over again. It gives one endless challenges to overcome, but in the end, success will bring infinite joy. When one dives deep into the world of drawing, one will gain confidence from reflection and self-improvement. It’s a very rewarding experience.
Drawing is a means of engaging in a dialogue with life. When we acquire a deep understanding of the characteristics of life, and depict and seek out the shape and features of this life, the vitality of the object appears vividly on the paper. Although a drawing portrays its object using only lines and layers of black and white, its ultimate objective is to create a vivid and credible artistic rendering.
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Thanks for saying drawing is an art form in itself because I haven’t moved on to other mediums except to playing with pastel a bit. I love to drawing.
Drawing is not only an art form in itself. Drawing can also strengthen painting skills in other media 🙂