Drawing vs Painting: Where You Stand

Drawing vs painting - which is most important?  Where do you stand on this question?

Or are you like me and believe they are inseparable parts of Mother Art?

I asked you about this in a survey last week. And I'll summarize the interesting results in a moment.

I asked these questions, because I wanted to see whether I was presenting material that you wanted to read. Articles that are making your journey into art easier.

Or whether I needed to make a course correction in what I write.

As is always the case, different people had slightly different opinions, but overall 75% of respondents felt I struck the right balance in my writing about both subjects.

When I asked: "Do you want to know about creating good art in drawing and painting?"
100% of people said yes, they wanted to know about both.

But, when I asked "Is only one category of art (drawing vs painting) of most interest to you?"

33% of respondents professed their main interest to be just painting.

- "I tend to concentrate more on the painting aspect, but I have to know first that I can draw the subject."

- "I like both… although I prefer colour and all it entails – values, etc."

- "Drawing, I know, is important..so I do it to get to the painting part."

I've long known that the allure of color is like the siren's call to ancient mariners. It holds the promise of beautiful things, but can be devilishly hard for beginners to figure out and control.

To complicate painting even more, as one wise respondent commented, "Underneath every bad painting that relies on drawing for its inception is a bad drawing."

And to complicate my job as a writer trying to simplify this process, one respondent correctly pointed out:

"Because creating a piece of art is a process and there is no one path to a conclusion, it is a challenge for you to provide support (certainly not possible in one blog) over a series of blogs that might be helpful. As a teacher, actually being there with my students over a period of time, it is a challenge. I applaud you for what you are trying to do and perhaps you need to accept that a blog can't really achieve everything you want it to."

It was that realization a while ago that led me to create this piece of art, along with many others.

They are part of something I'm developing that will go much, much further toward answering your questions about the drawing vs painting aspect of creating good art.

I'll tell you more soon.

Best Wishes,
Gary Gumble
Founder of BeginningArtist.com
Without art the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable. (George Bernard Shaw)

P.S. The "something" I just mentioned is designed to explain many of the things survey respondents said they want to know about drawing vs painting.

- "Inspiration. It is interesting to know the why behind the subject choice, the design, the color scheme etc."

- "How to creatively change a scene to a more pleasing design (like the recent fountain), but also to make it more painterly."

- "I would like more about composition and color."

- "How do we get from a bad photo to a good painting?"

I'm going to show you how and much, much more.

And finally a big thank you to the subscribers who warmed my heart with comments like this in the survey.

- "I love your blog...that's why I look forward to reading it and why I keep many of them in my file so I can go back and read them again and again!"