Ognjen Sporin

My Biggest Mistake When Studying Anatomy

Added 2021-01-18 17:59:31 +0000 UTC

Here are some more doggy studies, and I want to use this post to talk about how wrongly I went about studying anatomy when I was first learning it as just a wee lad, and warn against going about it in this way.

I had the wrong conception that I could somehow learn the anatomical theory enough to be prepared to start working on actual figure drawings, which couldn't be further from the truth. I thought that I should know exactly what I'm drawing when I'm drawing a figure, which crippled me in actually getting better at figure drawing. Figure drawing (like animal drawing) isn't just about knowing exactly what muscle or bone you're looking at, and it isn't even mostly about that - it's mostly about using simple concepts of structure and gesture to convey an organic form in action.

So now, when I'm getting into animals, I consciously try not to focus too much on having to know everything all the time, but rather more on general drawing principles like structure and gesture, and also filling up my visual library.

The good way is more of a synergetic approach, rather than focusing on getting all the parts just right, and it consist of many, many tiny realizations over a lifetime. It's about doing drawings that create problems for you and make you realize where you lack and which parts you don't understand, and then studying the theory and grinding to solve those problems. If you start with just the theory, you're 'solving' problems which you haven't even experienced, and the solutions can't stick in your mind.