“Don’t trace” originally started as a warning against tracing as art theft (as in, tracing someone else’s art without permission or credit is art theft) and then over the intervening years turned into “you can’t use references because it’s cheating” and I think that’s one of the worst cases of the telephone game I’ve ever personally experienced
you are allowed to trace as practice
you are allowed to trace your own work (for example photographs you took yourself or to keep architectural consistency)
you are allowed to trace things the original artist is encouraging you to trace
you SHOULD use references
you SHOULD be allowed to pick up other artists’ artistic tics you like (…as long as they’re not offensive, like blackfacing, but that’s a different kettle of fish)
you SHOULDN’T go around moralizing at other people about how they learn best because you can and will lose friends that way and you can and will hurt other artists’ development that way.
Also other than art theft there IS no such thing as cheating in art okay use sparkle pens and fan brushes to your heart’s content why is that even a thing I have to say (…and yes I’ve had conversations in the analog world about fan brushes as “cheating” I’m so tired of snotty artists who think you shouldn’t be allowed to use tools that make things easier because they can do it the hard way)
But honestly, this need to be said louder, as an artist you end up feeling like you aint getting better, trying to draw in perspective without having a guide line . And when others shame artist for using references its like they are expecting the artist to know by memory how everything works on every perspective.
To Consider that fan brushes, or custom brushes are cheating and expecting the artist to do everything in the “original” way is like wanting the cashier to charge you without using a calculator to do the sum. Tools are invented to be used.
“tools are invented to be used” well put
Not allowing using references is same as telling to a chef they can’t use recipes but they have to pull any dish in the world out of their asses just like that.
The first thing, the very first thing my photography teacher told us was “When photographing was invented, ARTISTS took pictures of cities and traced them on their paintings because hey – easier work! Why bother to work hard when you can make it easy for yourself and save your time and energy?”
I’ve been drawing for years, and I still trace. It helps me learn relationships between shapes, and to understand perspectives that are difficult. Other days, I eyeball it until it looks right. 90% of what I have on my computer is reference images.
Thing is, use what makes you learn best. Don’t steal, but don’t suffer because someone says references aren’t getting.
Lots of this.
I work in animation. My boss encourages the whole team, every day, to learn how to draw the characters by tracing them over and over, before trying to draw them freehand. It helps commit their shapes and proportions to muscle memory and actual memory.
Tracing is an invaluable method of learning. As long as you aren’t tracing somebody else’s work and calling it your own, you’re in the clear. TRACE YOUR LITTLE HEART OUT.
This bitch really gonna dump her kids on me and vamoose
I’m not ready to be a single mom
I know shit about reptiles
I had to put a stick next to the nest because she decided the MIDDLE of our yard was the primo spot to give birth
Mowing is gonna be interesting this summer
Meet the mother leaving her wildlife progeny under my city girl care
I’m googling turtles right now. I sent photos to my southern stepmom for help. Apparently she’s a box turtle?
70 DAYS UNTIL THEY HATCH??
You a mom now
Text from stepmom “watch out for foxes, cranes, raccoons, and snakes. They’ll eat the eggs so chase them off”
I’m gonna fistfight nature
@mrswinterbarnes you’re not wrong. When I came back from closing the barn doors she was gone. Nowhere in sight. I thought turtles were supposed to be slow
I was gone maybe ten minutes so first off, not even a goodbye??
I don’t think Box turtles return to their nest either, so until they hatch and dig out
YOU GONNA BE A MOMMA
DAMN IT SHARRON
First that bird makes its nursery in my bike basket on our porch and now this
Why am I becoming a wildlife nanny??
UPDATE
SHES BACK
NEVERMIND
ITS A DIFFERENT TURTLE
That’s two deadbeat turtle moms dropping their spawn on me
Call this one Susan
You’re like a really ticked-off nature witch who never signed up for this animal empath shit
Also how can Arthur Conan Doyle write a character like Irene Adler 1891 and have her 1. Outsmart Sherlock Holmes and get away with it and 2. Be in no way a damsel or love interest to Sherlock.. But every modern retelling not only has her be a sexual /love interest character but she is posed as being very very smart… But never smart enough to just outwit him, get away with it and move on? Women can be smart, sure, but no one is allowed to be smarter than Sherlock.
It’s been over 120 years and Irene is, at her best, never as decently treated as the original.
Arthur Conan Doyle: Here’s a story about male insecurity where the police underestimate her for being a woman and feel the need to get her because she’s a woman and Sherlock is ultimately beaten by a woman and in a bit of character development accepts it and acknowledges her intellect.
Sherlock fans: Uh no way Sherlock is smart Sherlock is so so smart she must have used her feminine wiles or her sexy things or her love to undermine him but he gets her in the end i feel a strange catharsis at changing this ending but I’m sure Doyle always meant to be this way, it just feels right.
Half of the reason that Adler was able to out-wit Holmes was because Holmes was too narrow-minded. Holmes is smart and has knowledge of many subjects, but he also strongly relies on social order and norms to solve crimes. He’s even says in A Scandal in Bohemia that:
“When a woman thinks that her house is on fire, her instinct is at once to rush to thing which she values most. It is a
perfectly overpowering impulse, and I have more than once taken advantage of it
… A married woman grabs at her baby; an unmarried one reaches for her jewel-box.”
Holmes uses this social norm and order to stage an attack and find out where Adler hid the photo in her house. He drops his guard and is so proud of himself because he knew that this would work, he knew that if he created disorder, “natural” order would attempt to counteract that disorder.
Adler defies those social orders and norms: she is an untitled American woman who earned her own money through a career as an opera star, instead of relying on a husband or family to have financial security; she outwitted Holmes because she cross-dressed and indicated that she frequently did so, allowing her to have a lot more freedom roaming around London on her own terms, and her stage career aided that so that she could act like a man easily; and she didn’t care one bit about her reputation or being a “pure” woman, had several boyfriends, and was known for being an “adventuress”. More importantly, she had the ability to defy those social norms while simultaneously being able to present herself as the ideal respectable and under-estimable Victorian-era woman.
Adler literally defeats Holmes by dressing in drag then happily goes off with her new husband whom she loves very much. And Holmes respects that and is thoroughly impressed. Not only does he respect that, he realizes that he was on the wrong side of things, that he shouldn’t have agreed to take on the case for the King of Bohemia. This is the exchange that follows after Holmes, Watson and the King read Adler’s letter.
“Would she not have made an admirable queen?
Is it not a pity that she was not on my level?”
“From what I have seen of the
lady she seems indeed to be on a very different level to your Majesty,” said
Holmes coldly
Holmes takes Adler’s side and realizes that the photograph is her protection from the King, not something she intended to use as a weapon against him. Adler never exploited the King to get what she wanted, only kept it as a safeguard of her own happiness. She made sure she had a way of ensuring that she alone guided her future.
Irene Adler is “the woman” to Sherlock Holmes, not because she was sexy or he was in love with her. She was a reminder that real life doesn’t always follow what social norms and order are to be expected, that people shouldn’t be taken on face value or respected just because of their title or apparent respectability and ability to follow social order and norms, and that there are two sides to every story.
Take a lesson from Sherlock Holmes, people. Doyle knew what he was doing. If we’re going to keep making him roll over in his grave from creating Sherlock Holmes media, please, at least respect him and Irene Adler.
Irene Adler is the most well known example, but there are actually a couple of stories where Holmes is out-witted by women.
I can’t remember the title, but the one I’m thinking of specifically is the one where the woman has a legitimate racially mixed child that she hasn’t told her husband-to-be about and Holmes thinks she’s up to something else entirely.
The University of Minnesota’s Minnesota Daily ran an article claiming that fanfiction has revolutionized literature. “Fan fiction is a perfectly competitive industry into which anyone, regardless of age, sex, or economic status, can enter and in which anyone can prosper…Ours, then, will be the first generation in history to have a durable literature written by the common individual. Until extremely recently, authors were predominantly rich, educated males with leisure time to write and enough money to be published…Fan fiction, for better or worse, will one day be studied alongside Homer and Dickens…Historians will be able to look back on our time and see the interests of everyone, not just a select minority.”
“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
-Orwell, 1984
Normally, I feel like people are way too liberal in calling things “Orwellian”, because I’ve seen people claim everything from speed limits to environmental laws to privately owned security cameras in stores as being “Orwellian”, but Trump, in this instance, is utterly Orwellian.
Artisan Scribbles 