Question for the autistic artists on here - struggling with observing details, I see too many

Oh no you didn't offend me, I value your input. I just suddenly thought I may have phrased my question wrong and people may have thought I was struggling to learn rather than having gained an anxiety and unsure how to rediscover myself. (Having doubts about expressing my thoughts is also a current issue). I also tend to write my rambling thoughts and with added dyslexia they don't always read right. 

The drawing on the right hand side of the brain book looks at observation skills and depiction skills rather than a learning to draw book. Given your second suggestion I shall definately carry on with it

Oddly enough creases in cloth I can seem to do - I was doing a contour shape exercise with a pointe shoe (we had to pick a shoe) and I got carried away and put all the fabric creases in. Was on of the pieces I have done recently I have been happy with.

Must stop rambling my dear husband has just rented the Loving Vincent film for me :D might get some inspiration

LMS

LimaMikeSquared said:

I have got a copy of drawing on the right hand side of the brain that a family member bought me. I have only really read the introduction and done a couple of the exercises. Have you used this book? How did you find it if you have?

No I haven't heard of it, but it sounds interesting.

I think with art it's first a matter of finding inspiration. You have to look around (including inside your mind) and find something you want to draw. That's the first step.

The second step is to see differently. SInce I started drawing, I have started seeing things in terms of shading and light levels, whereas before, I always had a 3D perception of objects I saw. Now I can more easily figure out how to represent 3D shapes as 2D drawings. I know I still have a long way to go.

I didn't mean to offend by suggesting you couldn't draw certain things. That's just how I approached the process, because there were certain things that I absolutely did not know how to draw (practically everything, actually), and I would sit there just drawing those things over and over until I could do them. I did a page of disembodied eyes, lips and noses using the techniques from tutorials, and now I can draw pretty good faces without a tutorial.

For example, rIght now I'm still struggling with drawing creases in clothing. They are there and we see them all the time, and drawings just look wrong without them, but they are actually not very easy to get looking realistic, at least for me. But I'll keep trying and eventually get them right, and that's most of the fun of it. For me, the process is more rewarding than the final result.

Endymion said:

I've found that trying to copy or incorporate too much of other people's ideas of 'How It Should Be Done' is a recipe for disaster.

I agree with this up to a point. However, it is the nature of human existence that each generation builds on the knowledge and skills of the generation before.

If I don't know how to do something, sometimes I figure it out on my own, based on what I already know (which I probably learned from someone else at some point). Other times, if I am stuck, I find out from someone else how they do it, then I start there and build on it. After that, I make the technique my own, and I'd never advise someone to just do something exactly how someone else does it and never vary the procedure.I hope that's not how my post was taken.

The human practice of learning from someone else is why we have schools and other learning institutions, after all. If nobody learned from anyone else, wouldn't we still be living in caves?

Even the best artists often learned from copying works by previous masters.

I'm not an artist, but in anything I've taught myself over the years I've found that trying to copy or incorporate too much of other people's ideas of 'How It Should Be Done' is a recipe for disaster. Especially as the people who say that line are generally not experts themselves! 

THIS is how you are supposed to bring up / discipline children.

THAT is how you should decorate your home.

HERE is how you need to dress / think / talk / act. 

If you had your way of drawing, and that worked for you, then regardless of any 'legend in their own lunchtime' expert view, you're probably better off sticking to what you know works for you. Nearly all advice is like window shopping, it's worth taking a look but you don't want to buy too much of it.  

Thanks for your reply.

I'm not overly keen on the grid method even though I have only split the page into 9 or so squares so much larger than the often recommended 1" grid square. I have found it useful for roughing out proportions when copying a specific person that I want it to look like, but decided I could achieve the same result with carbon paper with a lot less stress - but was led to feel like this was cheating.

I shall have a look at the gesture drawing and I shall try and bring my head round to thinking of the outline shape as a detail in its own right. I used to think more like this and focus in on the line directions and relations, but then I was told I should be able to see in basic simplified shapes (2D squares, circles and triangles) and start drawings from those rather than a line, and made to feel I was doing it wrong if I didn't do it this way. Ever since then I have had more anxiety around drawing, not realising that I don't perceive the world in the same way as NTs. Even though I know art is your own thing and you can do it anyway you like.

I have got a copy of drawing on the right hand side of the brain that a family member bought me. I have only really read the introduction and done a couple of the exercises. Have you used this book? How did you find it if you have?

I have been thinking it over and not sure if my issues are with being able to physically draw. I have done some nice work that I am pleased with so it is in there somewhere, especially if I have been following a tutorial as a prompt to remind me. Maybe it is a process of remembering how I used to like drawing and integrating that with the basics rather than trying to force myself to draw in the "standard" taught methods?

I was told when I was young that I was no good at drawing (including by an art teacher I had first thing in the day and I was often late for school), so I stopped drawing altogether, but I have recently taken it up again. I am in the process of writing a novel, and I find it extremely helpful to draw my characters and scenes in order to bring them to life. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but from a single drawing I have made, I can come up with 5000 words easily, maybe even 10000.

I'll say right now that I have no formal art training, except from the afforementioned art teacher, but my grandmother did go to art school relatively late in life and earned a degree, and produced several stunning works of art, so perhaps I have inherited some of her talent.

Anyway, I find I get bogged down in detail sometimes, and my solution is to see the overall shape or line as a detail and sketch it in pencil first. I keep doing that and erasing it and doing it over until I get the "feel" of it right, and then I start the rest of the drawing. I think that art-types call it "gesture". The most basic technique is to just draw the lines, and by lines, I don't mean straight lines (unless you are drawing a building or something), but curves, the way the shapes interact with the other shapes. Sometimes a figure (the human body, for example) can be represented by a single C or S shape, and sometimes two, but usually no more than that.

If you use a grid, that might be preventing you from seeing the big picture, as that technique, by definition, forces you to focus on minute detail, which we as people on the spectrum don't have any trouble with in the first place. I always really hated the grid method in art class. It just seemed soulless and impersonal to me, and what is the point of doing that if a computer or a photocopier can be used to make pictures bigger or smaller anyway?

I think you need to start from the basics: silhouettes, for example, then there aren't any details to focus on, only the shape. Once you have that, then you can draw subjects in normal light, but only draw the shape (which is really a combination of spheres, cylinders, blocks, etc.) and most prominent features, and leave out the details. You will find that you will look at your drawing and see that, even without the details, you can see the original subject in what you have drawn. Only after you have the basic shape how you want it, with the main features in the right place, should you fill in the details.

There are absolutely TONS of websites showing you how to draw faces, animals, landscapes, everything, and also techniques such as shading, drawing animal whiskers, etc. I learned by starting with those examples (some are better than others, of course), and maybe that will help you too. One of my early finds was a website about "how to draw gesture". I think that might help you too.

I'm not saying that I am some sort of master artist - far from it (I have completely obliterated one eraser in the short time I have been at it and I'm well into my second one), but I do find drawing relaxing. I have found that my drawings almost always end up looking like the thing I'm drawing, and I get better at it with every drawing I do. I hope you find the same kind of enjoyment and personal satisfaction in your own drawing.

Thank you for the reply. I do try to step back, however I don't know if it is because I am really sensitive to things at the moment but this point is usually before I even have anything on the page :( I have found this technique useful when doing animals. All the fur detail drives me slowly insane!

I do get very frustrated. Especially when trying to do a landscape or background - it all looks very busy and overworked at the end.

I haven't been to a course in a while, I had been going to an art club but after moving quite some distance away and having a string of chest infections I have found it a bit too much whilst working full time at the moment. I often find lately I go and half way through when people are making good headway I have a blank page or shaded yet another sphere for the unmpteenth time, it does make me feel quite self conscious - especially as people often get up to view others work.

I might try some mini sketching tasks as suggested :) I found I still got hung up on the grids - maybe my grid squares were too large.

Thanks for replying. I'm not going for photorealism but not really into creating extremely abstract pieces. Some of the pieces in the gallery look interesting!

LimaMikeSquared said:

I realise being able to see the detail is a good thing, but is there any methods anyone has worked out to get around it when it is too much. Harness it in a positive way as it were?

Step Off.

Then come back to it when it is no longer "too much".

Hi Starbuck

thank you for a much more sensible and practical reply than mine! :) hope all good with you x

Hi Lima,

I have this problem and it can hold me back.  The anxiety can become a perpetuating cycle if not dealt with as I discovered.  I find using grids can help or setting myself mini drawing tasks as this can help me get over the fixation on tackling all the detail.  So an example would be set yourself aside 20 minutes a day, where you spend 10 minutes just practicing pencil strokes, tones, shading etc. then select one object to spend only 10 minutes drawing.  It sounds daunting, but it trains your mind to prioritise what is important so that you can create something similar to what is in front of you, rather than a very small detailed part or nothing at all.

I also attend public art workshops when they are held in my local area.  Although attending them can be daunting, it pushes out of my comfort zone and forces me to focus on the task in hand and stop obsessing over just detail.  I also find I can get frustrated if I cannot capture the detail in my drawings that I feel it needs - not sure if you suffer from this as well?

Hi Lima

not an artist myself, but autist...how much is realistic representation important to you? Your eye for detail is interesting... how about a representation of a tiny detail or the mass of shifting shapes that don’t want to be captured.

below is a link to the Aspie art collection at the Saatchi gallery 

https://www.saatchiart.com/paintings/aspergers/feature