More tips on sketching, with caveats

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Michael Roller, an educator and designer, and friend of mine, posted some great and interesting tips about sketching on his blog recently – Always warm up, Always pin up, and Always cheat. Obviously, I’m a huge fan of them (elkse why would I be posting about them), but more the first two than the third.

When I was learning to sketch, I tried not to “cheat”. I tried to force myself to not do underlays, overlay 3d models, or any other shortcuts. While this process was painful, frustrating, and frankly uncomfortable at times, I grew alot from it. So my advice – Don’t cheat. Do it the hard way until you feel that your skills have grown, and you can confidently use them. You’ll thank yourself for doing it the hard way. Exercise is never easy, but the rewards of doing it the hard way are well worth the pain.

So my advice to you is as always – sketch sketch sketch, and sketch the hard way :-)

via – http://www.michaelroller.com/?p=907

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 4:14 pm and is filed under All. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • http://michaelroller.com/ Michael

    Thanks for sharing my work, Spencer. I like both “always cheat” and your idea of “never cheat,” and I have been trying to figure out why they both make sense. Coincidentally, one of my students showed me the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition which made it all make sense. In the the early stages of development, strict adherence to the rules and equal treatment of all components is enforced. This is where your “never cheat” works great. As one becomes proficient, a holistic view and prioritization of details becomes the norm. Here, I think “always cheat” is most applicable.

    So if I had to rewrite the article, I might say that the “best (and easiest)” advice depends on your skill level. Want to collaborate on a new piece?

    • http://www.idsketching.com Spencer Nugent

      Definitely. I think it’d be fun. Email me!

  • http://michaelroller.com/ Michael

    Thanks for sharing my work, Spencer. I like both “always cheat” and your idea of “never cheat,” and I have been trying to figure out why they both make sense. Coincidentally, one of my students showed me the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition which made it all make sense. In the the early stages of development, strict adherence to the rules and equal treatment of all components is enforced. This is where your “never cheat” works great. As one becomes proficient, a holistic view and prioritization of details becomes the norm. Here, I think “always cheat” is most applicable.

    So if I had to rewrite the article, I might say that the “best (and easiest)” advice depends on your skill level. Want to collaborate on a new piece?

    • http://www.idsketching.com Spencer Nugent

      Definitely. I think it’d be fun. Email me!

  • david tjahjadi

    i’m a student at the art center college of design, and i must say that idsketching was one of the key determinants to getting accepted! thank you soo much for sharing techniques, thoughts and articles that continue to fuel my passion to become a better product designer. hope to work as an intern at astro soon!!!

    keep spreading the creativity!

    david tjahjadi

  • david tjahjadi

    i’m a student at the art center college of design, and i must say that idsketching was one of the key determinants to getting accepted! thank you soo much for sharing techniques, thoughts and articles that continue to fuel my passion to become a better product designer. hope to work as an intern at astro soon!!!

    keep spreading the creativity!

    david tjahjadi

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