I first heard about Neil Cohn’s book Speaking in Pictures from this panel discussion about comics in academia. The book is a thorough and fascinating look at different systems of language and communication, and where drawing fits into this. Presented as a comic itself, it’s reminiscent of Scott McCloud’s seminal work Understanding Comics (and its successors Reinventing Comics and Making Comics).
We learn about the language of drawing via a classroom lecture, in which the “character” of Neil is depicted delivering the content of the book. He also weaves in other voices, like the “students” in the class.
The whole book is a great read, but I found the section on learning through copying particularly interesting for creativity and art. In this section, Cohn makes the connection between learning language and learning drawing.
Learning the language of drawing
As children, we are surrounded by language, and we’re encouraged to imitate it in order to learn how to produce it ourselves.
We learn to write by copying letterforms, eventually learning how to string them together in various combinations to make words. Everyone learns this, yet everyone’s handwriting looks different. It’s shaped by our own unique influences, our muscles, and the way we perceive the world.
But when it comes to art, there is a belief that copying other drawings interferes with our creativity, and that if we copy, we’ll never create our own unique style.
Although studies show this belief is incorrect, its pervasiveness makes learning to draw harder than it needs to be.
This idea resonated with me because I can remember struggling in childhood with the idea that I was “not good at” drawing. That my drawings didn’t immediately look amazing and realistic. I expected drawing to come easily and naturally, and didn’t know that it was something I could practice and become better at.
Learning by copying drawings is just a stepping stone on the journey to developing our unique style. And just like handwriting, we can learn the basic patterns, and then put them together and produce them like nobody else can.
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