Observation is the first and most important aspect of drawing and of art making in general. This has to do with each of three aspects of observation which are looking, recording, and the outcome. So here it is in three parts.
The first aspect of observation might be expressed as deep looking. In José Saramago's novel Blindness an entire population looses the ability to see. Near the end of the book one of the characters who has regained sight says "I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see." What Saramago is pointing out is that most people go through life seeing just enough to get by and not taking the time or making the effort to look deeper.
Maybe that's like driving. When you drive you must focus only on the most important things; being in the correct lane, going the right speed, not hitting the other cars, not letting the other cars hit you, etc. You don't have the freedom to look at things and contemplate them.
Life isn't like driving. We have our obligations, but we do have the freedom to slow down and pay attention. That's the first part of observation; slowing down, paying attention and in doing so learning.
This is not as simple as it sounds. It's a skill that takes practice and time to develop. It's an important skill to develop and worth the effort. It's worth the effort because if you can't look deeply and truly see what's in front of you then you can't think about it, you can't understand it, you can't work with it and you certainly can't draw it. Here's an example, well it's an apple, but it's an apple and an example at the same time:
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| http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Red_Apple.jpg |
What can you observe about this apple?
It's red, it's round, it's on it's side.
But what else? Here are 25 more things:
1 - It still has it's stem.
2 - The stem is light brown green and black.
3 - This apple isn't just red. It's red, yellow, green, brown, black, white, and a kind of peachy orange.
4 - There seems to be a thin waxy crust that's coming away from the skin in some places.
5 - The shadow at the base of the stem isn't actually black. It's more like a very deep brown.
6 - The skin in the sunken area around the stem is yellow.
7 - This apple has spots.
8 - Some of the spots look like they have a much smaller brownish spot in their center.
9 - This apple has splotches of color.
10 - There are a couple of faint bruises.
11 - The bruises look like a faint browness underneath the skin's color.
12 - There are small dents and dings.
13 - Some of the dents have a real darkness, like there is a dark grey mixed into their red color.
14 - Some of the dents have light reflecting out of their contoured surfaces.
15 - The light source is reflecting off of the apple in a big white spot.
16 - That big white spot has a fainter hazy looking area above it that's also reflecting light.
17 - The top half is dominated by a fairly solid red with small spots in it.
18 - The bottom half has almost all of the variety of color in splotches.
19 - In the bottom half the yellows seem to come in splotches but the red is more in short streaks.
20 - The stem has roughly two halves. The half closer to the apple is almost totally brown and is smoother.
21 - The half of the stem farther from the apple is green on top and bottom with a brown streak through the middle.
22 - That same half has a kind of flared curve on the bottom.
23 - The very end of the stem, where it was broken off of the tree, has a kind of black and dark brown line that follows it's edge.
24 - There's a swollen place near the mid-point of the stem that marks it's middle, like a knee or elbow.
25 - The shadow of the stem brings out a green in the yellow part of the apple's skin.
These 25 observations are still a very superficial list and is far, far from complete. Notice that these observations go from general to specific. That's how it works for most people. You go from the obvious to the subtle. And once you get into it and start really seeing, really observing, you can keep going for a long time. A good observer could make a list of hundreds of things about this apple. And it would take that many to make a list or a drawing that accurately represents this apple as an individual that is distinct from all others. In other words, in order to make a drawing of this apple as an individual it is imperative that you know and understand this apple as an individual.
So, observation isn't so simple as seeing an apple and knowing it's an apple and maybe what kind it is. Observation is deep looking, thinking, and learning about your subject.
The second aspect of observation is tied up with the first aspect. It is recording data. You can slow down and pay attention but if you haven't recorded any information by making a list, making drawings, taking photos or whatever it is you do then you haven't fully observed your subject.
This might seem trivial and you might think you can remember what you need. In the first place you're fooling yourself if you think you can remember. You can't. In the second place when ideas are floating around in your mind they're too easy to treat lightly or over estimate. Once a thing is written down and staring back at you, you have to take responsibility for it and truly deal with it and maybe even provide for it. There is an Arab saying, when a thing is true they say "it is written." The other side of that coin might be that if you're going to write anything down you had better make sure it's true. You have to decide if what you have written is actually true or not and whether you're being honest with yourself. Are your observations accurate or inaccurate? If it's accurate, fine. Move on. Keep looking and recording. But if it's not accurate you have to figure out why and what changes need to be made. This is often where the real learning takes place, where you begin to really understand your subject. You realize that your initial impressions weren't the important things at all. You'll find out that you've assumed all sorts of things, that your drawing looks wrong because you didn't include something that you didn't notice or didn't think important, that you're not using the right tool for the job, or any number of things.
The third aspect of observation is any of the information you have gained and recorded as well as the outcome of your observations. The list above is my first 25 observations on the apple. If I had made a drawing of the apple that would equally be called my observations on the apple. Following that, a work of art is where an artist collects all of their observations about a subject, puts them in order and presents them in the same way a writer might publish an essay.
At the beginning of this page I said that observation is the first and most important aspect of drawing and of art making in general. That's because observation, while it is about looking, is also very much about thinking. You have to think deeply about your subject to be able to observe it and make observations about it. You don't just notice that the reds in the bottom half of the apple come in short streaks, you have to think about it. It takes thinking about how those shapes are different from the nature of the shapes nearby or in other parts of the apple. And then making a drawing or a painting of this apple takes real and deep thought about it. As Gary Stephan said of Cezanne, "this is not the neutral reception of the complete world but that it’s the co-construction of reality with brain-meets-the-world."
Since Cezanne, thinking very deeply, about the subjects of their work is the one thing that is common to most artists who have been of any consequence or influence no matter what they make and even if they don't make anything. (There have been many artists who don't make things.) Artists who work from obscure philosophical margins are making observations about ideas. Those who make art about art are making observations about art. Those who are making art about life are making observations about life. Artists who make drawings of apples are making observations about apples.
And it doesn't stop there. It extends and becomes real research. That's a separate essay.
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