An interesting thing happened this past week. My daughter, Elaine, has been visiting and we went to Yosemite National Park to record a video about drawing landscapes.

Later we were taking about some of the drawing skills I’ve been covering in these recent newsletters (blog posts).

The direction of these posts—in my mind—has been that drawing isn’t as hard as most people make it in their minds.

But, in my discussions with Elaine, I realize that some of these ideas I’ve been claiming will make drawing easy, may not be clicking with everyone.

She said, “ Yeah, for you, with all your many-years’ experience.”

The more we talked the more her main issue surfaced. Measuring.

Here I am saying how easy it is to find the center of an object. Or how easy it is to break something into thirds.

But she hasn’t experienced that. She’s seen both myself and her mother holding a pencil out, taking measurements, and just doesn’t understand what it is we’re doing.

When I tried to explain what artists are actually trying to accomplish when they hold out a pencil and close one eye—

“Why do you close one eye?” she asked

I stopped. I blinked.

For me closing one eye when taking measurements is as natural as breathing. Have I not explained why? If this is new to her, perhaps it’s new to some of you as well.

Why is it so important?

Why Do Artists Close One Eye?

Artists need a way to flatten the three-dimensional world around them into a two-dimensional image that matches their paper or canvas.

But normally in our daily lives there’s no reason to do this.

Look at this diagram. Each eye sees a scene from a slightly different view. Here an observer is looking at a tree.

When you’re observing a tree far away and close one eye, then the other, things close to the tree won’t appear to shift much.

But things closer to you will shift quite a bit the closer they are to you.

With both eyes open the images are blended together in our brain and we think we’re only seeing a single image. And that’s true, we are—a single three-dimensional image.

But artists need to select one of those images from one eye only to put on their paper.

When you use a viewfinder you’ll really see the problem. A viewfinder held at arms length is close enough to your eyes to show quite a shift between them.

See how the lid of the honey pot shifts against the Kleenex box? If you’re trying to draw this you’ll never get the measurements right if you don’t close one eye.

Using Photos Is Easier for Beginning Artists

I’ve told artists that as beginners it’s easier to learn drawing from using photos as reference than trying to draw from real life. Here’s why.

When you’re looking at things in the real world you need a way to flatten the 3D image your eyes are seeing into a 2D image that matches your drawing paper.

In one sense that is all an artist is doing. Drawing is like a magic trick. They’re squishing the three-dimensional world onto a two-dimensional sheet of paper or canvas.

You can only do this with a single point of view (one eye, not both).

Running Out of Room

Running out of room is the most frustrating thing for beginning artists.

Remember all the times you’ve drawn a picture over the years and sometimes it all fits on the paper? But about the same number of times you run out of room?

This can make drawing feel like a dicey, unpredictable exercise. Half the time you come away with a drawing you’re happy with and half the time it starts okay then you run out of room. But at the beginning you never know which way it’s going to go.

It would be like every time you got in a car to drive you didn’t have the confidence that you’d get in a crash or not.

But what if you could have complete confidence that you will never run out of room again?

Can Drawing Really Be Easy?

I’m realizing why this is so important. It’s actually one of the most important things you can learn at the beginning.

Learning to measure is the one thing that will give you complete confidence that your drawing will always end up on the page where you want it, and you will never run out of room again.

I don’t want to be “that guy” who says drawing is easy because I just happen to be an artist and it’s easier for me than for most people.

I think I’ve found some things that are helpful. Am I just up in the night?

I’ve heard from other subscribers that what I’m sharing is really helping them.

But what about you? Have these posts helped you make some drawings that you’re happy with? Please let me know.