Copying is NOT wrong to learn as long as you DO NOT claim someone else's work as your own

@carm9716

8 ай бұрын

Yes, this is exactly it. Do it to learn and apply the lessons to your OWN work.

@ImperfectBoss

7 ай бұрын

You’re exactly right.

Of course, it's great training and only a problem if one lies about it being one's own work. Nobody is good right from the start, a unique style develops over years.

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

👍👍👍

@drawinfo99

7 ай бұрын

@ALPHONSODUNN thank you very much to making this video and explaining what is the copy and how we learn from copying heart so I've been artist and designer since last 15 to 20 years after doing lot of practise I realise sometime see the artwork from other artists it's have a lot of motivation and learning to decomposition technique and simplification with the same subject when we try to draw in actual location or spot which is the good inspiration if we take from that kind of artwork and then we can develop our own style in the art and the second point you mention the sketching or drawing is a problem solving it it it is that I'm doing as my career I'm a problem solver and I saw across all the problems and this sketching from last 20 years it's helped me to solve any complex level of problem so thanks for sharing your thought chess

@raakareiska9804

7 ай бұрын

It's with every art form. Musicians copy and rotate the same chord progressions that earlier musicians did and try to give it just some personal twist on top of that. You cant really re-invent the wheel again on stuff that has been made for hundreds of years.

@borby4584

7 ай бұрын

That was my stance too. Nothing wrong with tracing and copying, so long as you’re transparent about it, and not gaining clout or profit

@chaoswolf7976

7 ай бұрын

​@@alphonsodunn it may not be the topic of this, but can you allready tell, when your new book will be available for purchase?

i only copy someone’s work just to study their art style. i keep it to myself, and never post it online and claim it as my own

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

Good practice

I went to the Salvador Dali museum in Florida. I was blown away by the fact that they had some works of his which were in the style of or copies of old masters, even Impressionists. As we all know, Dali did *not* continue that way! 🤣 It was so cool to see that a famous artist did those kinds of exercises!

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

And the more you study the more examples like that you’ll find among the greats

@GirlCOsk8er

8 ай бұрын

that exhibition was awesome ! i have been numerous times to the museum, but the last time i went a month ago it was extraordinary. It was a charm to see his works from youth and his copies and sketches like you said.

@kerriemckinstry-jett8625

8 ай бұрын

@@GirlCOsk8er I went over a decade ago. We didn't even know the museum was there, we just happened to see a brochure or something online. It's a neat building, too, purposefully shaped like his mustache. 😂

@kerriemckinstry-jett8625

8 ай бұрын

@@alphonsodunn How many examples like that survive, though? And how many are correctly attributed? I doubt we'd find anything like that for Caravaggio. With more modern artists, there's a better chance that their earlier work survives... and that it's signed or otherwise documented! It's cool to see when you can, though!

Recently i had the idea of learning to draw being the same as learning to play music, you learn the basics then find the stuff that sparked that fire in the first place and study those artists do covers of original songs and etc....until your own style starts to form and you understand what makes a "good" song so ive started using this mindset towards art ❤

@DonVigaDeFierro

8 ай бұрын

Yeah, it's a great approach, but if you want to produce some "original songs", you have to learn music theory, chord progressions, counterpoint, etc. It's true that many musicians and visual artists make great songs and illustrations without a formal education, but we aren't geniuses like them! So we need to study the theory, and learn how to apply it, even if we don't pay for an expensive degree from an art school.

@luigi9659

8 ай бұрын

@@DonVigaDeFierro like i said....the basics a.k.a fundamentals

First Or maybe not, that doesn’t matter. Fact is. It is helpful. Massively so. I can and with confidence, say that if I hadn’t copied Art I wouldn’t be able of doing 1/10th of what i am capable of rn

Love your book and your workbook!! Have learned lots by copying your examples. I can't think of a single artist that has never "copied" anything. Now, making identical copies and selling as your own is an issue

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

Thanks so much

@katemcnulty4303

7 ай бұрын

Let us know when we can pre-order!

Life is based on copying. It's all about context.

“it is by copying that we invent” Paul Valery

Thank you for your clarity and pointers on how to preserve your own creativity while copying to understand how other artists are "solving" their artistic problems.

Love your books. Thanks 😊 ❤

Solid advice. Copy as a means to the end, never as an end to itself... That's just a brilliant way to put it.

I remember many decades ago going to art museums and copying great masterpieces usually in pencil. It gave the feeling of how the artist developed his masterpiece. I did not feel like I did anything wrong in this process. I just wanted to be able to get the idea and feeling how the artist felt as he was painting. Just my thoughts. Thanks for your work, Alphonso. You are a treasure and I appreciate what you do

Dude you invented drawing, line widths, strokes , value boxes and hatching, never mind the thousands of books that preceded yours, for you are master

I love the style of Thomas Kinkade, the painter of light. I like realism. I went about studying his technique. I went to where he was appearing and watched what he did to try and come near what he painted. In the meantime, I was going to week-long seminars in painting flowers in oil. I ended up drawing one of his paintings I had seen on a calender. It took me 4 months to paint it. It was a very involved painting. Lol. I used my own color combinations and changed a few things up in the image. It now hangs on my wall and been so for 20 years. Friends have come into my house and have seen that painting, as well as others, and requested if I would paint that exact picture. I told them no, because I could not pour my all into it. It took my all to get the end results and painting in that style was for me and my pleasure. I feel I have done nothing wrong, as my paintings, if I copy one of his drawings and style and then hang it on my wall for me only, then it is okay. Anyone who looks at it recognizes it is Thomas Kinkade reproduction, his style and the painter of light. He showed all those nae sayers of his work that thousands loved and his name and style is known around the world. It is a shame he decided to end his life.

Your message here in this video speaks volumes, i belive you hit the nail on the head. It definitely depends copy for a reason you give yourself a purpose Weather that be copying... 1) shapes Squares triangles 2) Negative space 3) Gesture Etc... in my specific case i copy to not only get the "momentum" going and get in the flow state but sometimes i copy to see how fast i can put something down on the paper even if its not accurate. im trying to become a concept artist or a (character artist) if you will, conveying an idea fairly quickly is important to that matter, the detail and creative process comes after.

Great video and drawing!!! I drew this at the museum, It's an amazing piece!!!

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

Amazing indeed, from all angles

As a child I started copying stuff on some metsl hurlant magazined my father left behind. And some FIERRO magazines from Argentina. Awesome stuff.

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

Thats how it starts

Very invaluable inputs and info.

Right now I'm learning fabric folds by using the pictures in the book. After these are done I'll have a better idea of what to do and draw from actual fabric.

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

👏👏👏

Just found your channel. And subsequently subscribed .As for copying outer Artist's work as we know Students Apprenticed to a marster in the Renaissance had to copy day in day out other Artist's work .(no copyright in those days lol) as with the innovation of this AI .I think it's totally ok to copy .Great channel kind regards

No, it’s not wrong. It’s good practice, and it helps you develop your own style.

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

Yes it can

When I copy for practice, I still use the same process of drawing as if it was an original drawing. Such as building off of stick figures.

I don’t often copy artwork, but if I do, I tackle it in the same way as if it’s just an object I’m sketching. I’m not trying to duplicate the original but just give my impression of it, in my own style, just like when I draw a chair or a flower or sketch from a reference photo etc.

I use it as reference art to help me understand the dynamics of the human body or objects. Just to get a good idea as to how things are done.

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

Indeed

Great video👍

Thank for the video!!!

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

Very welcome 🙂

Thank you

One of these days someone is going to be gaslit that KZread artists are a pair of sentient, talking, disembodied hands.

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

😅

@luigi9659

8 ай бұрын

But they are?........

My ex who's now a 'fine artist' and member of an elite FAA, has a style very much like her college tutor's. In my youth I drooled over the work of Brian Froud and his renditions of faeries and trolls in his work. Then I found the early works of John Bauer and Arthur Rackham, and immediately saw where Froud had gotten his styles from, even down to composition. I don't think he ever gave them credit, and made a fortune when Jim Henson commissioned him to draw characters for 'The Labyrinth' and 'The Dark Crystal'.

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

Wow! The influence runs deep

I definitely copy manny images and paintings, I try make sure they are over 200yrs old and they are turned into something completely unrecognisable but familiar enough.

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

👍

I have missed watching these videos and listening to these little nuggets of knowledge from Alphonso 💪🏿💪🏿💪🏿

I believe doing master copy is good. Helps to understand techniques, gives opportunity to try something different (like plein air painter tries surrealism) and also there is a kind of tribute to artist. The only problem may occur when trying to sell copy... that's wrong.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Me encanta, gracias.

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

Gracias🙏

If you can copy them well, even better their work, then you have achieved a huge goal. You have learned a lot through this path of theft.

I personally see copying as a tool for developing technique more than anything: I copy plenty of watercolor paintings and ink drawings, and my watercolor painting and ink drawing ability have improved a lot. But have I learned to draw the subjects I was copying? Not really. When I was copying, I learned to observe and copy. Not exactly to construct. Yeah, I can kind of replicate the subjects I copied, but not without reference. So, copying is a must for learning technique, but for learning a subject and drawing from imagination is best to learn anatomy, perspective, 3D construction, etc. All the boring stuff to build our visual library... Trying to understand and move our subject in 3D, which is difficult, and requires a broader set of skills, not just observing spatial relations. Either way, if one copies, one gets better at copying. And what is copying? Observing and replicating our subject, which are extremely important skills for any artist. So, copying definitely has its merit. However, one has to be picky about what to copy, because with little experience, we may be replicating the mistakes of the original artist without noticing... But other than that, there's no reason not to copy. Even when we make an original work, we may need reference material. When we study a new subject, we start copying it (especially if the subject in question doesn't really exist, like a dragon). Anyways, copying is good, but we need to train all the other skills of an artist.

Yessir..

💯🔥🙏

it's one way of learning.

👍

I can only color I cannot draw at all can you color to

Very beautiful work👍👍

Copying to learn something from that artist is good as you have a goal in mind.

Your ability to just draw w/ pen like that is incredible to me. I have never had that level of confidence.

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

Honestly, as much as it involves some subtle measurement-taking, much of it is risk taking. You realize that, the earlier you are with taking risks the better

your videos never fail to motivate, thanks!

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

🙂🙏

So glad I clicked on this

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

🙂🙂🙂

I have learned that by copying, sometimes I learn something new, but sometimes copying some style that's radically different than my own actually makes my drawing worse

its just developing a skill, beginners don't think about it enough like that. Copy like 500 faces or something and you'll be way better at faces, not going to see it right away.

Bonne soirée

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

🙏🙂

everyone copies to a degree either directly or indirectly, knowingly or unconsciously. we are influenced by our environment and it is the original source for our artwork.

I cannot copy others style , don't matter how had I try it tends to look different more like my style

Yes, but be careful. If you ever get good enough to show someone else how to cross hatch a cube, Alphonso will sue you. He invented cross hatching and basic shading techniques and phrases.

The mentality that you should not copy others feels like the a varaint of the same movement that said copying pictures of places to draw scenery is bad. These people claimed that the good artist can recreate any environment, and that the small mistakes were a quality and that bad artists that copied from pcitures were lazy and bad, that the correct recreation was a sign of flawed art or skill. But in reality, people that copied from pictures learned how to better draw and understand the details they were missing. Furthermore they were also able to work more dedicated and for far longer than artists that were bound to only being able to work on the site during the correct hours because the moment they wanted to recreate was immortalized in front of them. In the end, it feels like they were jelous that a tool had become available that they didn't have, and wanted to exclude it and the people using it. Like a means to deplatform upcomming artists and defame them. This claim that you should not copy other artists feels similar, as in you should be denied a valuable tool to improve your own artistic capabilities. That once again, artists somehow has to have this quality or skill to just manifest talent on their own with no influence. It is true that if you just copy to copy, or worse, claim a copy as your own full work. But it also holds true that as long as you are learning, you are not misusing the tool.

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

Thanks for that comment. It was a pleasure to read. While I agree with the advantages to copying fr an image, there are also lots of advantages to drawing from life, whether plein-air or studio-setup. Finding a way to utilize both is ideal and what I think most professional artists try to do.

@GaudiFanYAY

8 ай бұрын

@@alphonsodunn I fully agree with you. One should do both copying and actively drawing from life in order to learn techniques and applying it to your art. Both are valuable tools and teachers.

Should you copy other artists?

and than you'll find yourself after 20 years of copying, keep practicing and learning without making anything original.

I don't think it's wrong as long as you've copied to learn. I started by tracing then seeing then from memory. Of course, threw it all away after discovering Alphonso Dunn's videos 😊.

oh my god your so log 20 hours ago

Bad artists borrow great artists steal

Copy the style not the subject

@hopecraftsman451

8 ай бұрын

If you went to a museum and copied only the work of art lame. But if you Drew the art inside the museum I see no problem.

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

Not sure I follow

I copy about 6 different artists all the time and people all over the world copy my window painting.

Amazing

@alphonsodunn

8 ай бұрын

🙏🙏🙏🙂