Dissing tracing as a beginner practice. (quick rant, night)

[God-the-almighty]

nightshade259

God-the-almighty

Mom was a stay at home mom until we were all in school, she spent a lot of time with us in our younger years. That's likely the reason I did stuff like that more than anything. Probably all kids have potential.

Yeah all kids have the potential. Just doing a lot of one on one with 20 kids is kinda hard.

I know, I was really lucky. I can't have kids now but I always thought if I had them, I'd do what she did.

[ROBOGASM]

Tracing does not help you learn, sorry. I can maybe understand forgiving someone for tracing on a case by case basis, but that by no means makes it right or something that should be encouraged. It's the equivalent of copying someone elses answers on a test. You aren't learning anything. If you think that copying something from life and tracing are the same I am seriously skeptical of your artistic prowess, and I haven't even seen your artwork.

I went to Michaels a couple of weeks ago for some supplies and saw a pad of "Manga paper" and it included in the back a whole section of tracing paper. It made me want to punch babies. The only artwork you should be tracing is your own, or maybe if you were altering a photograph or something.

[Chasind]

Tracing doesn't teach you anything though.

[Kaxen]

ROBOGASM

I went to Michaels a couple of weeks ago for some supplies and saw a pad of "Manga paper" and it included in the back a whole section of tracing paper.

._. SERIOUSLY?!

Guh, and I thought the "manga" supplies which were just normal supplies with a terribly drawn manga character added to the package were bad...

[N u c l e a r Deathbat]

I agree with you for the most part about tracing. I never liked tracing. I think of it as cheating.

But when you say drawing 'from life' is like tracing, I disagree. Drawing a still life or a person or something actually helps someone become a better artist, because they're practicing from real life, not pictures.