When you draw

Drawing is the key to all of the arts. It helps you see better, and think visually, which is helpful in sculpture, painting, printmaking, digital art, photography, 3d modelling and just about any other visual art you can think of. Drawing is THE ROOT of all other visual arts. Practicing it regularly will help your hand-eye coordination, help you see the world in visual ways... and relate it to your other arts. I know that personally when I get to working heavy duty in 3d modelling in Lightwave, creating character heads, and other things, I'll constantly find myself in the real world thinking about how to recreate real world stuff in 3d. It's really weird to be sitting in a meeting at work, looking at the people around you and thinking things to yourself stuff like, man, that persons forhead has too many splotches and wrinkles, God should turn up the sub d level right there... or thinking about where would be good places to put splines on someone's nose, etc. When working heavy duty with painting, the same sort of things pop in to my head. I'll be sitting in Church, looking around, and see my eye attracted to one person sitting across the room, and then try to think about why that's happening. It usually has to do with contrast or chiarascuro related things, for instance, maybe that person has red hair and a light colored shirt and it stands out since all the people standing around him or her has on dark, cool colors and dark hair... maybe some light streaming from a stain glass window is highlighting a certain area in the church that person is sitting close to, etc. Art helps you see the world around you, and seeing the world around helps your art. Live Life!