Life Drawing and Figure Art

When its OK to Copy

Comment Written by Figure Drawing on June 12, 2009 – 10:52 am

For many centuries artists-in-training spent a great deal of time copying the work of previous artists. This method of learning can be useful to any person learning how to draw. Copying can help you to learn how the original artist made their own marks. Reproducing those marks exactly helps train your hand and eye to make marks of your own, and helps you to understand why a drawing looks so beautiful while others lack a certain quality. Some artist’s we know make a point of copying there favorite artist’s once a month so that they continue to learn new ways to approach there own work.
You don’t have to show anybody your drawings but if you to do not claim it to be original. To claim authorship of someone else’s drawing is plagiarism: you should put a note on each copy indicating the original artist’s name as well as your own.

Try to use the same tools as the artist you are copying. If they use charcoal then use charcoal and not a pencil. Try to make the strokes match. Proportions should be correct. If the artist is severely stylized copy the stylization and figure out why they make the decisions that they make. Buy your supplies in advance so that you can get drawing right away if a certain piece inspires you.

I recommend Dick Blick or Mister Art for your figure drawing supplies because you can find anything you need online.

Your goal is too learn the following:

1. Mark Making – How did the artist make there marks?
2. Composition – Why did the artist set up the drawing the way they did?
3. Reason – Why did the artist do the drawing? Sometimes its a finished piece and sometimes its a study.

If you can. Use the same format (size of paper) as the original artist. Even better is try to use the same paper (this will be very hard for older drawings). If you are not getting the quality of stroke that you like it’s good to have some various types of paper around so that you can try them out until the stroke look similar.

You will never be able to copy another artist’s work exactly, so do not consider it a failure if you do not. Try to make a mental note of what you are learning as you spend time on their work.

Below and to the right are some images to help inspire you:

Raphael Ink

Raphael

Leonardo

Frank Frazetta

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