Every time you look at your drawing you must remember your subject.
To do so you need a developed
visual memory.
You look at your subject.
And then . . .
You must remember it when
looking at your artwork.
It gets even more complicated when your model can't hold a pose during a portrait sitting. Or as the lighting changes when you're landscape painting en plein air.
Both situations happen all the time!
Therefore, it only makes sense
to train your visual memory.
And now you don't have to go it alone.
You can even get started for free
with the FREE E-MAIL SERIES:
3 Days of Memory Drawing
Want more in-depth instruction?
How about . . .
an online course?
a full-length book?
The two hinderances to memory drawing on your own are consistency and finding suitable subjects. I can help you with both through Atelier Rousar | online and the Memory Drawing course.
All drawing from observation is drawing from memory. It only makes sense to train it. Learn how through the only modern book of its kind: Memory Drawing: Perceptual Training and Recall.
The latest memory drawing prompt.
Memory Drawing Prompt 46
This week’s Memory Drawing Prompt image is a still life by the nineteenth-century French painter, Henri Fantin-Latour. As a student of Père Lecoq, he was therefore thoroughly schooled in memory drawing. The painting is titled, Three Peaches on a Plate, from 1868.
The latest memory drawing articles.
Stop! And Take a Better Look
On the front page of this site I make the following statement: “Every time you look at your drawing you must remember your subject.” It’s not a new revelation, but one that representational artists have understood for centuries. To be of good use the memories must be accurate, all the more when the view is brief. So stop, and take a better look.
Fail Forward
Humans reflexively resist failure every time it presents itself. But when it comes to training your visual memory, you should embrace it wholeheartedly. Why? Because that’s how your visual memory learns, through failure after failure. It’s how you fail forward.
Draw What You Have Seen
Did you know that every time you draw something you are actually drawing from your visual memory? This is true no matter what your source is: from life, a photograph, even out of your head through a formula. The reason for this is that you cannot look at your subject and draw it at the same time. At some point you must take your eyes (or mind) off of your subject and focus on your drawing. And when you do, you draw what you have seen.
