The Importance of Observational Skills

The Importance of Observational Skills

October 27th, 2022

It is highly debatable as to what is the most effective way to learn how to draw, or to get better at art. Without a doubt, consistently practicing your medium and putting work out there is one of them. In my personal opinion, though, the most important thing is to build observational skills. Still life drawings and references are a good example of this.

Image credit: TheVirtualInstructor on Pinterest

When I show you this image, what do you see? At a first glance, it is obviously some books, a couple of oranges here and there, a pot with some flowers, a chalice, and a bottle of wine.

When I look at an image like this, in order to understand what I want to highlight in the drawing, I have to take it a step further. Where is the light source? Where is the ambient occlusion, i.e. the absence of light in the photo? Are all of the objects slightly tinted due to the light source being a warmer color? How can I emulate this and that in my own work?

Once I began to look for these more minute details, I began to notice them in everything that I observed. My observational skills are not particularly advanced, but having even the most basic knowledge of things such as lighting, cast shadows, color, and perspective can alter the way you see the world.

Observation is fortunately something that every artist is implicitly taught, even when they don’t set out to learn it. If you want to be able to draw something, you have to have an idea of what it looks like, whether it’s in your head or from a reference photo. The more you understand the fundamentals of an image, the better you can visualize it in your mind. 

A basic exercise that I do at pretty much any time of the day when I am bored is I look at an object or scene and ask myself these questions:

Image credit: MisterNevets on Pinterest

- Where is the light coming from?

- Is the object/scene above, below, or at the horizon?

- Does this object/scene have a disappearing point? Where?

- What basic shapes does this object have? 

- Is it a cylinder? 

- A rectangular prism? 

- Does it have a spherical surface or shape anywhere?

    

    Finding the answers to these questions will make you a slightly better artist than you were before, with little effort.

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