Isabel Pohjanen

Media Literature 2020

Essay 2

Scott Robertson with Thomas Bertling: How to Draw

Continuing my path to strengthen my basics, I felt like studying the fundamentals of shape would be
the next logical step for me. After some googling I deemed that Scott Robertson is a master of his
craft, technical drawing. He has released two books about drawing accurately. The first part glossing
over themes such as shape, perspective and how to produce accurate material to eventually be able
to draw environments and objects from your imagination. That sounded good to me. The second
part is a straight follow up to the first one, and the sequel shows how to render the shapes in a
realistic manner to eventually be able to produce accurate light and shadow from your imagination.

I originally planned to include the second part in my course studies, but whilst studying the first
part, I came to the conclusion that there will be plenty of things for me to grasp before I will be
ready to move on to the next part. I decided to rather spend time meticulously studying the first one
to truly understand how to create forms from imagination. The books are very time consuming and
cover such a wide range of topics that squeezing them both into one essay would not have been
beneficial for the learning experience. Instead of just flipping through the pages, this is a book that
requires the reader to follow the exercises and examples to gain more usable skills in technical
drawing.

Ever since I started working with industry professionals, it became very clear to me that I had lots of
missing skills on my fundamentals department. I understand the big concepts, but if you get only
40% of the fundamentals right, you end up with only 40% of the maximum effect that the image
could have if you had the knowledge. Or in a worse case, you end up with 60% more distracting
negative things in an image.
When I started going through these books, I was determined to make less mistakes in shape and
perspective than I did before to eventually create better concepts and images. And to be fair, Scott
Robertson does start from the most basic of basics: drawing straight lines and ellipses freehand. And
it is way harder than one might expect at first glance. I have been doing more of these practices
lately, but the small tips that these masters give are always a big help. And understanding the whole
concept of perspective is a big task that needs to be tackled. Fortunately, the book holds the
student’s hand, and has an additional app, that gives the student access to recorded video tutorials
on the exercises the book goes through. These videos proved to be a big help, and I was able to
move forwards faster when I opened the videos the pages had a link to. I ended up reading the first
third several times to fully understand the concepts, and I feel like I made great progress once I
decided to try using the videos also.

After I had gathered the basics of free-handing lines and ellipses, it was time to move on to grids and
different perspectives. I have worked with grids before on Photoshop, but this was the first time I
tried to create grids myself. I ended up drawing several pages full of straight lines, all to draw one
cube. Even though I usually get to use tools on digital art platforms that create the grids with ease, I
thought that it would be good for me to know the theory of how things work so I could perhaps
apply that information while using the tools. Turns out, this was the right way to go and I do feel like
I can use the tools I had before better. Understanding things from the root up has been something
that has always helped me gain better results, If I was willing to put in the work.

After drawing cubes for a big while, I eventually got around to drawing ellipses in perspective. This is
something I did not have much experience before, and this proved to be one of the most
groundbreaking chapters for me, since if one is able to draw a circle in perspective, one is also able
to draw a perfect cube anywhere. This results in being able to draw one exact unit in one three-
dimensional space, which helps the artist place everything according to physics and common logic.
Once most of the basic tools were laid down, it was time to move towards drawing more interesting
shapes and mirroring them. I ended up drawing tens of pages of the same exercises to get the
desired result. One of the best things about Robertson’s book is that while he teaches, he also
acknowledges a lot of things about how professionals work in the field, with speed. Often to get best
result as fast as possible, it is not fuel efficient to create everything from scratch if you do
understand how it works in the first place. On many pages he would state that this is how this
practice is done with pen and paper, but often you could skip this part and use a 3D-program. He is
familiar with the importance of speed over artistic suffering and offers alternatives after you have a
good basic understanding of something.

I have to admit I was first slightly disappointed when I realized that the part I was most excited for,
drawing environments was a lot shorter than the ones prepared for vehicles. But now looking at it
backwards, I think that the main things to be understood about environments are based on so many
basic shapes such as cubes, so eventually it is more beneficial to tech about how to mirror complex
shapes rather than creating buildings and trees. These are things that the professionals always get a
reference for and they hardly ever memorize anything so certainly that they would just skip the
reference boards. It is more difficult to draw something ”perfect” that was made by human hand
compared to irregular, unsymmetrical trees and other environmental nature aspects. If you
understand what the trees consist of (cylinders), you are way ahead already. No need to spend time
trying to memorize something you will get a reference for, rather use that time to study the basics so
you can use the knowledge to your advantage on anything that resembles a cylinders, not only trees.

The rest of the book had exercises on how to construct simple cars and planes with the tools you
gained earlier. The book did not really go through design aspects of drawing, but it was okay. How to
Draw is not meant to cover those things, it is for art fundamentals purposes. Design is something
that comes after the fundamentals and it is something that is learned from other sources that are
meant for understanding what makes a pleasing design.

The book and the learning experiences were intense, but fun too. I did have some trouble getting
myself to star on many days, but once began I got hooked on the exercises and would tweak small
things for several hours to create three-dimensional objects on two-dimensional paper.

Scott Robertson’s How To Draw also presented me with a realization considering my studies:
listening to music slows me down. The book was so dense with its content that I had to put down my
headphones to truly understand what I was reading, without any outer distractions. I have studied
for a few years with constant music playing, so after the realization on how much faster I would
proceed in the book, I decided to include this practice more to my study sessions. Music has been
playing less in my household due to this magnum epos. All the pictures included in this essay are my
practice pieces and exercises done with the help of this book. Many of these things I couldn’t have
produced before reading How To Draw, and that is an exciting thing for an artist.
While looking back on the reading experience, I think that this has been one of the most beneficial
books I have read in the last few years considering my studies. This book that Scott Robertson has
created, is a treasure and a valuable asset for anyone who wants to work in the field of drawing,
architecture, illustration or art in general. The book contains so much information, that it was a
relatively slow read. This is also due to my method of reading that included practicing the exercises
to make something out of what I was reading. I do not think that this is the kind of book that you
truly benefit from unless you are willing to participate. It was also important to be patient and take it
slow. The book has barely any chit chat, and while reading I had to really make lots of highlights to
the pages and focus on what I was doing. Skipping parts or glossing through things would
immediately tamper with the ability to understand the rest of the book, so my recently acquired
patience for studying art was a virtue during my study time with this book.

I think I reached many of my goals considering this book. I have noticed that I have learned tons of
new things while going through Robertson’s pages over again, and I have gained a relatively good
basis for understanding perspective and shapes in a three-dimensional space. The detailed
instructions and videos did help my process especially since the book is very linear in the way it
should be read. The more you I went through the pages, the easier the concepts would become.
Sometimes it was necessary for me to go backwards to apply new information on top of the things I
should have studied more closer earlier. But the most rewarding part of the studying was when
things just clicked. For example, now I could construct a logical and accurate spaceship, mirror assets
by hand for vehicles and create environments that feel real. The best thing is being able to see how
much learning has happened in a relatively short amount of time. I put a lot of effort into widening
my understanding of these subjects, and I think the efforts have been paying off.
I most definitely do not know the book by heart yet. I believe that this will be a staple in my
collection and a book I will gladly go back to for many years to come to gain new insight and detail to
the fundamentals of shape and volume. There is so much knowledge to be learned, that it would be
impossible to gain a total control over Robertson’s craft with just one read. But I would personally
still deem this as one of the most helpful books for anyone above intermediate level, who wants to
learn to draw.