How BB King Can Help You Learn To Draw
Every good guitar player started by learning to play someone else’s music. I’ve not encountered any who started creating music without first learning the instrument and being influenced by other musicians that came before them. Typically that includes learning someone else’s songs.
For guitarists playing blues and rock music, this pattern is repeated time and time again. A young person discovers the instrument, locks himself in his room as a teen and listens to his favorite musicians, eventually learning to play their songs note for note. Joe Bonamassa listened to Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Billy Gibbons, Stevie Ray Vaughan listened to Albert King and Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton listened to Robert Johnson and BB King, BB King listened to Frank Sinatra and T Bone Walker. Yet, each of these guitarists, who learned through copying, developed their own distinctive style and mastery of the instrument. Listen to Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits as a guest on someone else’s record and you will recognize the distinctive voice of his playing style.
So, why is there a stigma in art about copying? Well, of course, copying another artist’s work and presenting it as your own is plagiarism. Yet, mimicking or imitation is great for self study and a time honored method of learning from a Master. There are writers who will literally transcribe page after page of a favorite author to study their rhythms and style.
Many artists feel it will interfere with their own creativity or style, that they will somehow be considered “derivative” and unoriginal. I strongly disagree. Learning to draw is much like mastering a musical instrument and it requires practice and study. Writers read other writers work, musicians listen to other musician’s songs, actors watch other actors perform, artists look at other artists artwork and all of them can benefit through copying.
So free yourself of that guilt. One of the most powerful tools you have to develop drawing skill is to study a master’s work, and the best way I know to study is to do Master copies. There are many ways to approach copying and subsequent articles will go into greater detail. Many art museums allow artists to actually paint (after going through a permissions process) and copy works of art on display. Unless you are a full time student that probably isn’t going to happen. So we’ll look at some easier, more efficient and pragmatic methods.
In my drawing workshops we start by learning to set up and copy from the Charles Bargue plates in a method known as “sight-size”. This is simply setting up so you can observe your subject and drawing at the same scale. We use the Bargue plates to practice setting up a drawing and a method for seeing, measurement, and a procedure for drawing. Students learn to control line quality, make corrections, compare their results to a standard and make adjustments. They learn to make judgments in separating light and dark values. These are all great skills that will serve them in their own drawing. I encourage them to use this technique to copy some of their favorite drawings.
In today’s busy world the reality is most of us won’t spend as much time as we’d like studying or practicing a skill that requires time like drawing. Very few will be able to devote hours to a regular class. Copying from a master is like learning directly from that artist. It can happen at your own pace at whatever time works for you.
My biggest influence in learning to draw architecture was the Architect and Master of Many Arts, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. Though he died in 1924 I felt like he was my personal instructor. I copied many of his beautiful pen and ink renderings back in the 1980s and would frequently look at his work while preparing my own drawings when I began rendering professionally. I’ve also copied many other illustrators and artists whose work I admired including old masters like Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael. I studied architectural renderings, mostly in pen: Frank Lloyd Wright, Arthur Guptill, Herb Railton, Joseph Pennell. I studied illustrators like Franklin Booth, Maxfield Parrish, and Joseph Clement Coll. I learned things I never learned in art classes or would by working on my own.
Much like learning a piece of music on classical guitar, once I copy a drawing, I have an entirely new appreciation and a deeper understanding for the work of art and the artist. And, a profound respect for the act of creation that went into the making of the piece. At some point one realizes it’s one thing to be able to play a work by Bach or Led Zeppelin and something entirely more difficult and rare, to be able to create a work of that caliber.
Franklin Booth, one of the most distinctive and successful pen illustrators of all time, developed his unique style by faithfully copying magazine illustrations he thought were pen & ink drawings but were in fact engravings. He developed a technique so distinctive that he influenced generations of pen & ink artists.
In summary, why copy master drawings:
1. Focus on technique. Learn how picture making was accomplished by recreating it yourself.This can range from a vague study of the composition to a close recreation using the same materials and procedures as used by the artist.
2. Challenges your thinking process. Consider ideas and methods you might not come to on your own.
3. Practice seeing
4. Learn control of your medium
So nearly every electric guitarist today who plays single line solos will have either studied BB King or have studied the work of someone else who studied his playing. Free yourself to study the work of your favorite artists. By all means, go look at them in a museum or in reproductions. But take a more active role and carefully study their work through copying. Though you are learning by following their example, you are teaching yourself by problem solving the recreation of their work in your own hand.