{"id":442,"date":"2013-09-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/timothyeller\/drawing-is-the-expression-of-form-on-a-plane-surface\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T20:15:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T20:15:12","slug":"drawing-is-the-expression-of-form-on-a-plane-surface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/timothyeller\/drawing-is-the-expression-of-form-on-a-plane-surface\/","title":{"rendered":"Drawing Is The Expression Of Form On A Plane Surface"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Drawing<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Express Yourself Through Drawing<\/h2>\n

Drawing<\/strong> Art probably owes more to form for its range of expression than to color. Many of the noblest things it is capable of conveying are expressed by form more directly than by anything else.<\/p>\n

And it is interesting to notice how some of the world\u2019s greatest drawing<\/em> artists have been very restricted in their use of color, preferring to depend on form for their chief appeal. It is reported that Apelles only used three colors, black, red, and yellow, and Rembrandt used little else.<\/p>\n

Drawing<\/span>, although the first, is also the last, thing the painter usually studies. There is more in it that can be taught and that repays constant application and effort. Color would seem to depend much more on a natural sense and to be less amenable to teaching.<\/p>\n

A well-trained eye for the appreciation of form is what every student should set himself to acquire with all the might of which he is capable. It is not enough in artistic drawing to portray accurately and in cold blood the appearance of objects.<\/p>\n

To express form one must first be moved by it. There is in the appearance of all objects, animate and inanimate, what has been called an #emotional significance#, a hidden rhythm that is not caught by the accurate, painstaking, but cold artist.<\/p>\n

The form significance of which we speak is never found in a mechanical reproduction like a photograph. You are never moved to say when looking at one, \u201cWhat fine form.\u201d It is difficult to say in what this quality consists.<\/p>\n

The emphasis and selection that is unconsciously given in a drawing done directly under the guidance of strong feeling, are too subtle to be tabulated; they escape analysis. But it is this selection of the significant and suppression of the non-essential that often gives to a few lines drawn quickly, and having a somewhat remote relation to the complex appearance of the real object, more vitality and truth than are to be found in a highly-wrought and painstaking drawing, during the process of which the essential and vital things have been lost sight of in the labor of the work; and the non-essential, which is usually more obvious, is allowed to creep in and obscure the original impression. Of course, had the finished drawing been done with the mind centered upon the particular form significance aimed at, and every touch and detail added in tune to this idea, the comparison might have been different.<\/p>\n

But it is rarely that a good drawing is done this way. Fine things seem only to be seen in flashes, and the nature that can carry over the impression of one of these moments during the labor of a highly-wrought drawing is very rare, and belongs to the few great ones of the craft alone.
\nIt is difficult to know why one should be moved by the expression of form; but it appears to have some physical influence over us. In looking at a fine drawing, say of a strong man, we seem to identify ourselves with it and feel a thrill of its strength in our own bodies, prompting us to set our teeth, stiffen our frame, and exclaim \u201cThat\u2019s fine.\u201d Or, when looking at the drawing of a beautiful woman, we are softened by its charm and feel in ourselves something of its sweetness as we exclaim, \u201cHow beautiful.\u201d The measure of the feeling in either case will be the extent to which the drawing<\/a> artist has identified himself with\u00a0the subject when making the drawing, and has been impelled to select the expressive elements in the forms.<\/p>\n

Timothy Eller<\/p>\n

Would You Like To Be Drawing Cartoons For A Living?<\/h3>\n
\n

Drawing Cartoons For A Living\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Drawing Express Yourself Through Drawing Drawing Art probably owes more to form for its range of expression than to color. Many of the noblest things it is capable of conveying are expressed by form more directly than by anything else. And it is interesting to notice how some of the world\u2019s greatest drawing artists have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[328,11,271],"tags":[696,697,34,698,138],"class_list":["post-442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drawing","category-empower-network","category-timothy-eller","tag-drawing-cartoons-for-a-living","tag-drawings","tag-empower-network","tag-express-yourself-through-drawing","tag-timothy-eller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/timothyeller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/timothyeller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/timothyeller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/timothyeller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/timothyeller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/timothyeller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":536,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/timothyeller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions\/536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/timothyeller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/timothyeller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/timothyeller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}