Drawing as a programmer

Professional cartoonist here.<p>If you want to move on to the next step of drawing whatever the hell you want to out of your head, in any angle, I strongly recommend you go to <a href="http://johnkcurriculum.blogspot.com/2009/12/preston-blair-lessons-fundamentals-of.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;johnkcurriculum.blogspot.com&#x2F;2009&#x2F;12&#x2F;preston-blair-le...</a>, get the Preston Blair book, and start doing these exercises. You will get a lot better, a lot faster.<p>You can build on the simple cartoon characters in these lessons and do super realistic stuff, or you can keep on being a cartoonist. Whatever works for you.

I do believe that anyone can draw with enough time. In 2009 I took 8 days holiday, one per week and dedicated it to drawing. I could see the improvement vastly:<p><a href="http://eightweeksproject.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/projectone-weekeight/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;eightweeksproject.wordpress.com&#x2F;2008&#x2F;03&#x2F;25&#x2F;projectone...</a><p>Then in 2010 my new years resolution was to do a sketch a day. Hard going but very enjoyable:<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFWNlK2H29U" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=NFWNlK2H29U</a><p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYtXlhVLYYE" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=lYtXlhVLYYE</a><p><a href="http://martinadams.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/l_640_480_937cc10c-5982-4acf-94eb-8837ce87083c.jpeg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;martinadams.files.wordpress.com&#x2F;2010&#x2F;04&#x2F;l_640_480_937...</a><p><a href="http://martinadams.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/p_640_412_cb00f9bd-d6b1-4839-86be-1b23f91880bd.jpeg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;martinadams.files.wordpress.com&#x2F;2010&#x2F;04&#x2F;p_640_412_cb0...</a><p>I didn&#x27;t dedicate enough time to each sketch so only got a handful of good drawings. I&#x27;ve fallen out of it again so would have to get right back to basics, but it shouldn&#x27;t take too long before you start to feel fluid again.<p>Being able to draw is like a muscle.

I really don&#x27;t like how much that book (and other books of the same author) is promoted. I am into drawing for quite a long time already (and I also think it helps me as a programmer etc.) and I&#x27;ve heard about that book like thousand times, so I&#x27;ve finally read it. I understand why it&#x27;s impressive: because author delivers the material like &quot;so, there are some techniques to use your right side of the brain instead of the left one and woah… you see, you draw much better now! It&#x27;s magic! By the way, I have million students who couldn&#x27;t draw, but they took my courses and now they are master-artists and own their own design saloons.&quot; And you probably actually will draw better than you expect (especially when you don&#x27;t expect you can draw) after some simple guidance and a few tries.<p>What I&#x27;m saying it&#x27;s very populistic, but explains many thing the wrong way, which may cause some problems if you&#x27;ll want to improve your techniques later. If you are learning to draw I&#x27;d better recommend you start with Andrew Loomis: &quot;Fun with a Pencil&quot; or even Vilppu Studio tutorials if you have serious mindset.

One can&#x27;t fault a simple pencil and pad of paper, but I think if technologists become interested in drawing (which seems both likely and desirable), over time there will be more ways to do this with a tablet and stencil, with all the advantages. For me personally, notorious for moving lines around in my drawings, that would be very nice -- one would be able to delete lines that didn&#x27;t work out.<p>I&#x27;ve always envied people who are actually gifted draftspeople -- people who lay down the exact right line on the first try, and whose drawings are paragons of minimalism. R. Crumb, for example -- there&#x27;s a video showing him drawing with a pen and never laying down a bad line. Whenever I watch that video, I have an envy meltdown.<p>My point? With a tablet and stencil, by being able to delete things, I could pretend to have actual drawing talent. :)<p>One of my old drawings: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/hRQY84G.jpg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;hRQY84G.jpg</a>

I&#x27;d love to become good at drawing because I believe it can help presenting your ideas in a very visual and straightforward way. Moreover it is an activity that stimulates the creative and imaginative part of the brain. My main issue, aside dedication, is that I &quot;suffer&quot; from a natural tremor in my hands which I have been unable to shake off, even after seeing a doctors years ago and undergoing a battery of tests which showed nothing conclusive nor serious (I also took some pills which showed no results).<p>So my main questions would be: - Can I still be good at drawing despite my trembling? - How do I cure my trembling?

Long time lurker here. I am also a programmer who started to learn how to draw. I even put a blog documenting the process. <a href="http://louislearnstodraw.blogspot.ch/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;louislearnstodraw.blogspot.ch&#x2F;</a> So here is my 2 cent. Drawing is definitely more than being able to reproduce a 3d object on a 2d surface, it&#x27;s about understanding how things are constructed and work. For example if you want to draw a steam locomotive, you have to understand what are the parts of a steam engine, how power is generated and transferred to the wheels, how it is built, why the parts have this shape, ... . If you don&#x27;t have this understanding, there is no way you can draw a steam locomotive from imagination. Of course you can do a nice copy with beautiful rendering that will look nice, but drawing something that is realistic will be very difficult. Since I started learning to draw, I learned a lot of things on a variety of subjects: entomology, anatomy, marine biology, history, technology,... When I visit a new city the first thing I look up are the museums, where I then go to draw. I could elaborate more on that subject but I have to run. Let me know if there is any interest.

Want to make your 10-minute drawing breaks more fun? Try Drawception: <a href="http://drawception.com/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;drawception.com&#x2F;</a>

From what I can tell, Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain teaches you to draw things you already see, which is nice, and can help you impress your mom if you practise a bit, but as far as drawing ability goes, being a human copy machine is an extremely basic skill.<p>Don&#x27;t get me wrong, basic skills are valuable, but reading the book and practising for a couple of months will not make you a skilled artist any more than learning to touch-type and adding an existing Javascript menu to a web page will make you an expert programmer. It can be a first step, but if you want to be really good at drawing, you probably want to to spend years practising composition, perspective, anatomy, the emotional effects of lines and shapes, color theory, storytelling, creating variation&#x2F;contrast&#x2F;depth&#x2F;movement, etc. There&#x27;s much, much more to drawing than just being able to copy what you see in front of you.<p>(I&#x27;m not writing this to discourage anyone, I just want to put the book into perspective.)

Aside from the mental stimulation or distraction drawing provides, it&#x27;s an incredible tool for solving or communicating problems... Especially to non-programmers.<p>What other tool or method allows you to explain a development challenge or solution (at a basic level) to a non-developer, in a matter of minutes? Being able to stand up in a meeting, walk to the whiteboard, and sketch out basic concepts for everyone in the room to understand makes you a goddamn hero. You&#x27;ll go from being just a developer to the developer who can communicate with the biz guys, the sales guys, the designer guys, etc. That&#x27;s valuable.<p>There&#x27;s a good book on this topic, which I highly recommend: <a href="http://www.danroam.com/the-back-of-the-napkin/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.danroam.com&#x2F;the-back-of-the-napkin&#x2F;</a><p>(I have no affiliation with the author or the book.)

To me, the important question in this article, is whether drawing (or music, dancing, acting, yoga, sports), actually helps you solving problems? Not sure, what helps solving problems is talking about them, discussing them, etc. and this can be done with social networks (or writing, tweeting, etc.) too.

I recommend Fast Sketching Techniques by David Rankin. Of course, nothing beats practice and the book will help you focus your practice in a very rewarding way. I have been drawing my whole life, and still always keep an open notebook and pencil right next to my keyboard when I program.

I also heartily recommend the book that the author of this piece recommends. I&#x27;m currently about half-way through it, and the reaction to my drawings from my family has been: &quot;Wow! I had no idea you could draw so well.&quot;

I tie flies, for fly fishing when I&#x27;m working from home and it has the same effect. It&#x27;s a different way of using my brain that helps me refocus. It&#x27;s also really nice to physically produce something. Plus then I have a better selection for fishing. Doesn&#x27;t work so well when in an office setting though.<p>This article does make me want to draw again, I used be an amateur comics book artist&#x2F;cartoonist but I haven&#x27;t drawn seriously in years.

Which hacker news article did the post refer to?

Fantastic article. As an ex-avid comic book reader and programmer, it certainly turns on some old hopes to draw better.

I bought this book and did find it amazing, the first exercises are very good in showing how you Can draw, specially the inverted picture exercise. However, I struggled to find the material with which to do some of the later exercises and ended up putting it aside.

I used to keep paper taped on my desk under the keyboard. whenever I was working something out mentally or just taking a break I&#x27;d push the keyboard to the side and add to an ever growing elaborate abstract drawing.

I didn&#x27;t get the bit about the video (the kings speech). I&#x27;ve never seen the movie. Seemed like a random throw in. Wish there would have been at least one sentence to tie it in.

if you like drawing living things (and you care about proportion, realistic renditions) studying the underlying musculoskeletal structure helps.<p>i just try to capture something fleeting. i identify the most salient element and try to communicate that in my drawing. the most useful exercise in that book imo was the technique of trying to draw something once, then turning it upside down and trying again. (&quot;disorienting&quot; the object trains your mind to better identify spatial relationships.)

Programming is &quot;computer art&quot;. We have simple succeeded in making this discipline a science. All by deciding to call the discipline &quot;computer science&quot;.

we have a tiny blog with a friend (programmer too) where we put up our drawings, both learning to draw from various books and sources on the internet. I started 4 years ago at 28, don&#x27;t know about my friend. I&#x27;m all for messy and sketchy, he likes the clean things :)<p><a href="http://hackingart.tumblr.com/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;hackingart.tumblr.com&#x2F;</a><p>I haven&#x27;t posted much lately, been in a kind of slump and not producing much.

I could never draw that stick figure. It has a certain flair I could never replicate. That led me to be instantly disheartened when reading this.

Interesting. I used to draw a lot as a kid, and was pretty good at it, but I now realize that the more I programmed, the less I drew.

As a programmer, I think (y)our hobbies should be non-visual. E.g. music, learning spoken languages, etc...

Wouldn&#x27;t other left-brain activity, such as playing a musical instrument, have the same effect?

I&#x27;m a beginner programmer who is attracted to aesthetic aspects of creativity (&#x27;art&#x27; is a dirty word for me because of people associated with it). I tried to learn playing a recorder, because I like the way it sounds, and I adore music in general. I couldn&#x27;t stand it, and I learned something about myself in the process. I&#x27;m dreadfully bored by repetitive tasks. For me it leads to routine, and routine leads to terrible errors. I intend to try this book and drawing in general.<p>Drawing has the potential to suck me in just like playing an instrument failed. I think drawing is to playing an instrument like solving nonograms to solving sudoku. Sudoku is inherently repetitive to solve, you need to check for all numbers in a square, one by one, then all numbers in a line, line by line... In contrast, nonograms usually have non-linear solutions - there is no single way to get to the final result. This makes the process of solving a nonogram vastly more enjoyable for me.<p>I have no illusion that learning to draw won&#x27;t require days, months, years of practice. But you can - should - try new things, and you improve in the process. No endless repetition of one piece until you can play it perfectly.<p>Sounds a lot like Starcraft, doesn&#x27;t it ? :&gt; I think Starcraft players who like to invoke comparisons to Chess have an inferiority complex and can&#x27;t enjoy Starcraft for what it is. And it is a lot more like playing guitar than Chess. It&#x27;s just that Chess much more accumulated prestige.<p>One of things putting me off Starcraft is that learning to play it violates the DRY (Don&#x27;t Repeat Yourself) principle. A few years from now you may be vastly better at Starcraft, and I&#x27;ll be able to draw many &#x2F;different&#x2F; things.<p>I think it&#x27;s a wider problem with most games. I know very few that really reward creative thinking rather than memorization of strategies and their counters, and practicing to execute them perfectly. Board games have it easier, in absence of computers they can afford to be less strict about rules, and the focus in boardgame industry is still on developing interesting mechanics rather than building on a few established genres.