Popular in today's painting culture is the use of devices to trace images for setting up a painting. Arguments can get heated over this practice, usually supported by those who feel insecure about their drawing skills. Most likely, if you've followed me for a while, you know already that I am not a fan of using tracing devices.
Look at the examples below. Notice your change in response as you glance from one group of names to another. But notice as well how mechanical each feels.
Now, look at the signatures of these three people. Notice the feeling of personality embedded in each of them and compare that with your perception of their names in fonts above. One argument says that tracing is cheating. My view is that it has nothing to do with cheating. Anybody who wants to cheat will find a way to do so one way or another. My stance is that tracing robs the
artist of his or her individual uniqueness. It seems to me that a comparison can be made to how we perceive a person's name in font vs that person's signature as illustrated above.
- Ten people tracing an image will produce results that look almost identical,
a sterile representation rather than an interpretation,
- The same ten people looking at the same image, but drawing it freehand will each produce a unique drawing, an interpretation reflecting each artist's unique voice.
I could write a tome outlining other reasons to avoid tracing, but this one reason seems to me to be enough.
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