>>5974808It's pretty much the only book about drawing that you should read from beginning to end. There were a few enlightening things in it that went completely against the norm--at least what is considered to be the norm on /ic/.
One of the biggest controversial things he said was "don't draw what you see" and I remember some Anons on here telling me that I was wrong despite quoting directly from the book and showing them concrete examples of what he meant.
I am not proficient in drawing and so posting my own work to somehow prove that another artist's idea was right would have only made my point seem worst so I linked quotes to his books and his own drawings. I figured a master draftsman's work with their attached quotes would be sufficient proof but evidently, that's insufficient evidence and if I was unable to post my own drawing then automatically that meant that anything I said or agreed with was wrong despite it not being a quote or idea I created myself.
In the attached image shows how a typical beginner would trace a face if they were allowed to and as you can see it isn't exactly a most aesthetic face. In fact, it's quite ugly despite it being a tracing of a face. This is exactly what beginners try to draw when they are copying a face and they are surprised when they get results similar to this.
This causes beginners to think that they don't have what it takes or that they are rubbish at drawing despite the fact that the advice of "draw from life" isn't even good advice standalone. Most people don't realize this not because they're purposely leaving out information for you to figure out but rather because they truly don't know how to turn an absolute beginner into a proficient artist.
When you look at examples of faces from proficient artists, you realize that they have left out a lot compared to what they're actually looking at and sometimes they even add to it. A beginner couldn't possibly know all of this and drawing what they see won't help.
