Why I stopped drawing photo

Read carefully haha. I am not saying I stopped drawing. I stopped drawing photos.

I think I mentioned my teachers hate people drawing photos, or drawings that look like photos. I can finally understand why.

You can never develop yourself into an artist if all you want is to make drawings that look like photos. Ever.

There are masters who can draw based on photos too, I know. But like I said, they are masters, and masters already have the personality that can shine through their work. So they can work on the images skillfully without losing themselves. For beginners, it's a nightmare to do so. Let me tell you why.

Type "realistic drawing" on Google and search for images.

Right. These are all drawings. Amazing?

Can you tell whether they are photos or drawings? No. Can you tell they were all made by different artists? No. Do you find anything special about these drawings? No. So what's the point of making them? No, not at all.

You can totally understand art differently. But to me art is something that communicates directly to my heart, not my brain. Just like listening to a great piece of classical music you let it guide your emotions until it hits a certain note, so perfectly, you cry. That's the tear of joy. This is something one cannot explain. But at that brief moment, you understand the composer, you know his feelings, so distinctively that it can't be mistaken to be someone else's. 

To learn art, you learn to express yourself through your lines. Consciously or unconsciously you're giving a piece of yourself in whatever thing you produce. Drawings that look like photos in other words hide all the uniqueness of the artist. Yes it impresses the general public but the work is empty. And the emptiness kills art.   

So what makes a great drawing? It can never be wrong to go back to the Italian masters. 

Leonardo Da Vinci

Michelangelo 

Raphael

These are all very simple sketches. But they are more than enough to show you the sophistication of Leonardo, the power of Michelangelo, and the sensibility of Raphael.

I also happened to find a great resource from the British Museum, showing 60 years of drawings by Michelangelo. Enjoy! :) [ Click here ] 

I hope I can buy the catalog of this exhibition but it seems it's all sold out :-<