I've been checking out art courses online and it's interesting how many great artists don't realize that showing "how" to do something isn't the best way to teach 🙂

You need to teach people "why" - that allows you to re-use the principle in other ways, not learn by rote.

#Learning #Art #Teaching

@f I tried to do that in my series of art courses , but why seems to get little traction compared to how/what

@MakeAppPie It's possible that some people don't need the "why", or don't care 🙂But I definitely appreciate knowing the "why" because, for me, a "why" means that it's a principle that I can remember.

A "how" (again to me) is just something that I can do for that particular artwork, but it doesn't stick in my mind since (to me) it's just a way to do something for that particular artwork. It doesn't always translate (again in my mind) into something I can use in other artwork ...

I'm trying to think of a good example here. Ran into a very good one just the other day comparing two different courses but can't remember now. Old age 😛

I think it might have been setting up shadow and light for an object. The first course simply said "Do this" and showed setting blend mode to "multiply" and putting a darker colour on that layer to add shadowing. But they didn't explain what multiply did or why that produced shadowing. So all I knew was that I had to select a particular colour, set a particular blend mode and that was it.

Maybe that works for most people? It just doesn't for me 🙂

The other course explained blend modes and mentioned that particular blend modes will turn colours darker and others will make it lighter and how generally anything above "normal" is darker and below is lighter. That stayed with me and made much more sense.

@f I'm all for the why, and that's the way I teach everything I do.

There is a difference between an artist and somwone who wants a picture. Those who look at the theory behind process are the artists, becuse they can make the theory thier own.

some examples I can think of are the insane number of faces in Manga styles. there a formula and some continue to use the formula. Understanding face proportions and planes of the face make for a huge variety of styles, as knowing the rules they are easier to break.

In the Procreate series I did, for light and shade I kept it in classical charcoal without any messing with layers - one color, the eraser and the blend tool. The *why* is where is light and shadow are, why we make gradients. and why contrast is so important.
without the why, the rest will make no sense

The other example is a personal one. I'm color blind, and without color theory, my work would be a mess.

knowing principles make for stuff that works and stuff that is mine