If the thread referred to was the one about book recommendations for drawing:
http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/fo...html#post66235 , I don’t recall it appearing here on the regular thread column, so maybe it only appears for a certain time period – a bit like posts in the ‘Technical issues’ forum?
The thing about drawing is that it’s difficult to explain things without copious examples. With photography, you can cover many areas through explaining things in a more technical manner.
Yes drawing is a good way of improving observation skills, and can be thought of as a kind of visual note-taking. It doesn’t have to be a full blown detailed drawing to be of use, a few scribbles in the margin of your notebook is all that maybe needed to capture an interesting event, or at least to remind you of it, and can be done far more quickly than a long-winded explanation by writing it.
“They wont keep still” is a remark you often hear, but there are many types of drawing/sketching for different circumstances. In general, a moving animal is either sketched without looking at the paper (sometimes referred to as contour or gesture drawing), which takes practice, or you have to time the movements as certain postures are returned to. You can even have several sketches on the go at the same time, and you skip from one to the other as the animal returns too a particular posture.
It’s worth pointing out that the aim of sketching moving animals is not to capture a likeness immediately, but to build-up a reference for more detailed drawings or paintings. It may take many years to build up enough reference on a particular species through sketching alone before this can be done. You may have a page consisting of heads or leg positions for a certain animal for example, so you’re continually adding not only to your collection, but also to your knowledge through observation.
Of course you can use photography for reference for future artworks, but you have to bear in mind how photography can distort the subject depending on what lens you’re using. In my experience it’s best used for details or ideas, and shouldn’t really be blatantly copied from, otherwise you might as well just stick to photography and not bother creating what can only be termed as a painted photograph.
Nothing wrong with computer drawing, it’s still drawing, and I regularly make use of a Graphics Tablet and Photoshop – it certainly saves on paper, but must admit there’s nothing like ‘proper’ paper and pencil.
As far as learning goes, the difficulty comes when someone is too scared to make mistakes, or rather more to the point, mistakes that others may see (try it in a crowded hide!) - something we didn’t have as children, but gain increasingly as teenagers. Some of us pass through this period and still draw, others don’t.
“A great master teacher once said, ‘in order to learn how to draw you have to make two thousand mistakes. Get busy and start making them.’ I’ve always thought that was a good principle”.
Robert Bateman – The Art of Robert Bateman.
Try this site for some tips and tutorials, as well as superb drawings (though it’s mainly pet based):
Graphite Pencil Drawings - Dog Art Prints and Pictures - Drawing Tutorials
Of course all this only scratches the surface, but hope it helps in some way.
Alan
ps: maybe this thread can be moved to the ‘Arts…’ forum, and possibly made more visible?