Drawing Less Wrong: Technical Skill — LessWrong
The ability to observe is probably at least 2/3rds of what separates non-artists from amateur artists. But those 2/3rds are near-useless without the ability to move your pencil the way your eyes want to it to go. And once you've transitioned into an amateur artist, around 9,000 hours of honing your technical skill is what separates you from a professional. "Technical Skill" is a broad term - kind of a catch all for all term for various motor skills you'll need to develop, background knowledge about how particular types of lines and shapes are perceived by most humans, and how to combine those skills and knowledge to produce particular effects with your drawing. I can't even begin to cover all of it, and most of it isn't really appropriate for Less Wrong. But I will talk about some key motor skills that tie in with the next article, and a significant bias that plays a role in them. This article was challenging to write - distilling a kinesthetic process into written words is difficult.