Why can some people draw, paint and sculpt?

It worries me that the painters in the Lascaux caves could paint such exciting scenes of hunters and running animals. This was 20,000 years ago. Perhaps they had absolutely nothing else to do after eating dinner, and so they could really focus, but still, the better ones drew and the ones with no talent surely looked on from the sidelines. Why is this?

Yes, I can draw a man and a bird, but nothing like Michelangelo or John Audubon. It isn't genes: my older sister could draw well at age 12. I never could.

Can you draw well, and why?

 

I think it's a matter of understanding light and shadow and perceiving perspective. I never drew anything until I knew a sketch artist who gave me some tips. I started doing some pretty good sketches but didn't keep it up. Like everything else, it seems to be a combination of what one is born with combined with practice, practice, practice, etc. etc, etc.

 

I can draw ok. There are some amazing artists in my family, so I think it might be hereditary. (Real art, not fish tanks full of ping pong balls and **** like that)

 

Hand eye coordination is part of it. A big part of it is practice. I used to be able to do it fairly easily after about a year's regular practice but I have done abstract doodling my entire life. The two things I always struggled with were hands and faces, so I avoided those. Haven't tried in a few years.

 

Right, but some kids can draw noticeably better than others in kindergarten. It may be relevant or not, but have you seen any of these drawings by autistic kids? Scary! One kid was cured of his autism and then he couldn't draw anymore.

Hands are tough. It was one of the things that kept Hitler out of art school. It really worries me that Michelangelo could carve hands, with perfect nails, cuticles, and veins , better than I can draw them. Out of a chunk of marble. How was that possible?

 

I think they studied a lot of dead bodies and he illustrated their version of gay porn so practice makes perfect

 

I believe in genetic talent. Obviously, "practice makes perfect" and anyone can learn the techniques behind an art, but very few will be able to produce beauty.

My maternal great-grandfather was an awesome painter and played several instruments, my grandfather has that musical talent too and my mother draws really well. I, however, cannot draw for s*it. I can barely even hold a pencil properly (no joke, in elementary school I had to use these these "specialised pencils" because my coordination was awful).

 

I studied art, yes their is some talent you are born with, but it's only a seed. And that seed can only grow with tons of work. The biggest gift for an artist is still passion because you will need to work hundred, if not thousand of hours to shape that tiny potential seed to the huge tree of ability and talent.

I started to draw regulary at the age of three or four. At the age of ten or twelves, if you draw just 3 hours per week, it's roughly already (3 X 54 X 8 ) more than 1000 hours of drawing of difference with someone who never drew.

 

Anyone can paint or draw but it is also driven by the desire and persistence. Many of the great painters didn't start out painting great paintings.

 

Because you are genetically inferior. One must be born with the talent.

That is why I could not write music at age 5 or teach myself to play the violin like Mozart.

Likely the few best artists did most of the paintings in Lascaux caves. They wouldn't have let someone with no talent deface their abode. It silly to imagine that even back then "everyone" could draw and paint well.

 

Genetics in that case is the excuse of the lazy or of the easiness. The biggest gift for an artist is passion, but everybody but the blind can learn to draw. It require hundred to thousands of hours to learn that.

Mozart was born in a family of musician, was gifted, but he grew in music and his parents learned him very soon music. Furthermore, it's not totally impossible Mozart got asperger syndrom or any neurological disorder who helped him to developp his musical intelligence at the disadvantage of other parts.

 

Your views are politically correct and very pleasing by most people to hear---but that does not make them true.

Genetics are 80% of what one can achieve, with Environment doing the rest. Intelligence always follows the same "Bell Curve" distribution pattern seen everywhere in nature. If the environment was the primary factor intelligence or other abilities, then there would be a square wave pattern. With that theory, one could take two absolutely random groups of children, place them in two separate schools for a few years (one with great teachers and one without), then after that time, all the students in the better classes would have equally higher IQ's than those in the bad classrooms.

It's all about innate potential. Mozart, Newton, Edison had it, most everyone else did not. Genius cannot be taught anymore than Down's Syndrome can be taught.

The human mind has the very same limitations that our physical bodies do. A small, thin person may be a jockey, but he can never be an NFL linebacker.

 

I agree with you on a big part.

Not everybody can be a genius drawer, not everybody can be a genius composer, however almost everybody can learn some drawing or play an instrument. However, to know if you are a genius or not, you can't do anything but give a try. Their is some people who started to draw very late : Van Gogh for instance started his career of a painter at 30. Most people think it's too late to learn to draw at 15.

It's always very frustrating to hear people say "yeah but you're gifted" when you have good drawing abilities, because what people often call gift is mostly the result of thousands of hours of work. To be gifted and to be one of those many forgotten, it doesn't belong to you. Some painter like Vermeer wasn't considered as a major artist when he lived, 2 centuries thereafter, he was considered as one of the most important painter ever.

You can't know if you will be a genius or one of those ephemeral stars totally forgotten 6 month after.

 

I think it's in a persons genes. Of coarse you can be taught to draw but I don't think you can teach some of the amazing talent behind it.
Of coarse artists love drawing so they practice at it.. and they get better and better.

 

When all is said and done, you just have to do it.. Pick out your medium and do it. You may never be a great artist, however you will have accomplished one thing, the art of attemping to do what you want.

 

It's possible for a lot of people to reach an excellent level of ability through practice. We could compare that to sport :
Almost everybody can run a marathon, not everybody can run it in less than 3 hours.

 

I tend to think it is a form of intelligence. I can't draw and never could. Some people have athletic ability, some have musical talent, and some are good at other things. I think I can pick up on peoples emotions. I am certainly not an artist.

 

Well, with "artist," we enter a whole separate problem. Artists create. There are draftsmen who draw better than any artist, guitarists who play faster and more flawlessly than Stevie Ray, and singers who can sing 4 octaves in perfect pitch. But none are artists (necessarily) because they can't create anything original. The Beatles were all artists, because they created something utterly new, though none were the most proficient on their respective instruments.

I acknowledge, as the Beatles would and did, that their artistic forebears laid a lot of groundwork. But I defy anyone to explain how songs like Come Together and so many more were not utterly new.

To my frustration, some are both artists and superb technicians. The Beach Boys (Brian Wilson particularly), Hendrix, and Eddie Van Halen come to mind.

 

You're on to something there. There was a guy I encountered in China, probably mentally ill, who played a trumpet, all alone, on a public street, as loud as he could. It wasn't very good, but it wasn't bad. And it was different. And the way he just stood up unafraid and told the world to go to hell with that braying trumpet was art. I'll never forget it.

 

The biggest edge of kids is they dare to try. They don't care to be bad at something. Someone who like to draw as a child may have already at 18 2000 hours of practice.

You can learn to draw, it's totally possible if you're not handless or blind. I met some people who started to learn to draw at 40YO + and got rather decent skills.

 

Tbf, even handless people can draw, would not surprise me if somewhere there is a blind and handless person who draws amazingly with their feet.

Anyways, practice sure makes perfect, but I am a strong believer in natural talent; some people are born with it and therefore learn faster and become better than everyone else. In sports this is extremely clear; any kid who puts down enough effott can become a professional athlete, but only the kid born with talent will become one of the best in their field.

 

I can draw, but not paint nor sculpt.

Visual perception is the key to drawing, with shading.

The mind's eye needs to visualize the object and render it on 2 dimensions as if it were 3.

 

It's funny, but my now grown elder daughter, at age 3, quickly scribbled a sketch of a guest we had in the house years ago. It was crude, of course, but hilariously accurate.

 

Since art is personal and anyone can create.I guess all these opinions have truth to them. Kids should always be encouraged to try all things... adults too for that matter. Putting people in little prejudged "boxes" has always irked me.
I do still think we are all born with certain gifts/abilities.

 

The ability to super concentrate, I think, may be one of the keys. It explains why some of these autistic kids can draw so phenomenally.
I wonder if people with ADD are at a disadvantage. Anyone know an artist with ADD?