Why Are Some People Better at Drawing than Others?

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...Ongoing research is revealing the answer to this longstanding question. It seems that realistic drawing ability hinges on three factors: how a person perceives reality, how well he or she remembers visual information from one moment to the next, and which elements of an object he or she selects to actually draw.

http://news.yahoo.com/why-people-better ... 01346.html

Good article. My perception of reality is distorted and I don't have very good visual memory, so these things probably contribute to my struggles with drawing. It's encouraging that they mentioned one can improve with practice, though.

Interesting article. I always viewed drawing abilities like I would math. Some people naturally pick up on math better, but with work, the people without math abilities can too...

Why are some people better at writing than others? (rhetorical question)

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Seems this article is based only on "realistic" drawing and sketching and not cartoonist-type art like I've always done. People say my cartoons show a lot of detail and realism and many cartoonists have their own style and way of drawing things that don't look exactly like they do in real life so does that mean cartoonists can't draw at all???
Also most of my characters are talking animals and fantasy creatures that don't exist in real life, so I must be either very mentally ill or on drugs.

Drawing comes to people naturally I am not a good drawer but a great writer lol

I have always been good with abstract concepts and basic shape-object drawing. Realistic drawing/sketching is usually very difficult for me, but I have never really practiced it or encouraged it in my work. Great article tho.

This isn't really news-- people have intuitively known about this for ages, but it is really interesting that scientists are empirically proving what artists have been saying and teaching for years. And while it may be easier for some people, one of the things that's really exciting about drawing is that there is no critical window for learning to do it-- you can become proficient at drawing at any age if you want it bad enough and you put in the time. (those caveats are important

I'm a big believer in the Betty Edwards Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain approach to learning to see as an entry into learning to draw which works on the same principles described in the article. That book first came out about 40 years ago and It really works! (It's somewhat limited in that it does not cover gestural/scribble drawing or figure drawing, so It's more of a how to see book than a how to draw book, but still amazingly useful to begginers or anyone who needs a quick brush up on seeing.)


One thing I've noticed is that working on drawing can help with some of my AS type deficits-- if I practice drawing facial expressions I get a lot better at seeing them in the real world.

Very cool article...I do wonder why they didn't say what techniques improve the 3 key skills though.

Haha, well if anyone ever discovers a definite 12-steps-to-drawing-things-that-don't-look-like-scribbles program, just let me know.