In the past month or so that the club has been running, I've heard many voices of support, but a few spoke out and defended tracing as a learning method. All of us have something to learn from each other, in my opinion, and as much as I hated the idea of saying anything positive about tracing at first, I sat down and chewed on what they said for a while and came up with this article.

Tracing can be helpful in certain ways, HOWEVER:

Do not use it as your sole learning method.

So far, everyone I have talked to that said they think tracing actually helped them has also mentioned the fact that they used other methods along with it. There is also a certain amount of thought that needs to be put into whatever you happen to be tracing. You can't just sit there and go over the lines while daydreaming about something else.

Try other things. Draw from life, especially. Tracing can help you get a handle on the pencil, but it can not teach you how to take something from 3D and put it into 2D. When you trace, you are tracing over an artist's (or a camera's) interpretation of something. Only a real human body is going to give you a perfect, realistic model.

An art teacher commented on my page saying that she had her students trace- I was taken aback at first. But she also explained that she had the students break down everything they traced with lines and circles, effectively destroying the artwork but turning it into a learning tool.

Concluding this rather long first section, my final advice would be this: If you're going to trace, do it as little as possible. Sitting there tracing drawing after drawing is not going to get you very far.

Tracing and drawing freehand are two very different things- ultimately, you need to practice freehanding.

Do not show your traces off.

They are not something to be proud of, and they're not something to show off. They're not your art. If you're doing this for learning purposes, you don't need to spread it all over the internet or anything.

The major problem with posting traces on deviantART, even if you're aware they're not really yours and you're saying "it's just practice," is that they're likely going to be better than your actual drawings when you start freehanding. People are going to watch you because they like your traces. Some people don't care about deviation descriptions and so on and so forth- they'll +fav anything as long as it has their favorite character in it or something.

And when you start freehanding, many of these watchers you've gained will be of no use to you. They won't give you critique. Your freehand drawings probably will not look as good as the traces they watched you for- they might just unwatch you.

Furthermore, there really isn't any way to critique a trace beyond "you missed an ear" or something. Nobody can truly help you by giving you a crit on your traces, because honestly, as long as you pay attention to what you're doing the trace is going to come out just like the original. And then what would they be doing? They wouldn't be giving you advice for your drawing- they'd be giving advice that basically just applies to the original drawing.

We can help you if you're a crappy freehand drawer.

It's okay if you suck.

EVERYONE starts off like crap. Your first drawings are probably going to suck rocks through a twisty straw. And it doesn't mean you don't deserve to be an artist, or that you'll NEVER be good, if you don't start off awesome.

It's like learning to ride a bicycle, in a way. You're wobbly, you crash, you have trouble turning the corners, you get some skinned knees, and then it all starts coming together. You get a feel for what you're doing and you just get better and better.

Tracing is like using training wheels on the bicycle. Even with training wheels, you're a little wobbly, but you get better. And when you're good with the training wheels, you take them off and you're a little wobbly and scared again. But eventually, you get the hang of things.

But if you keep those training wheels on forever, you're not going to get anywhere. You're going to stagnate and not learn anything. Plus you'll bump them on garbage cans and stuff and fall into people's roses (I speak from experience).

_{(My deepest apologies to anyone here that has never learned to ride a bicycle, for both the irrelevant metaphor and the lack of bicycle-riding in your life.)}

Another interesting comparison for you: remember when you were learning to write (and later write cursive)? Most anyone that's been through school probably remembers the worksheets- lined paper with examples of the letters, "dotted" letters to trace over, and finally, space to draw the letters on your own. Notice they never filled the entire sheet with the dotted trace-over-me letters; there were a precious few, just to give you a little taste of how to draw the letter, but ultimately, you had to learn to do it yourself.

Back to the point that I wandered away from: yes, you will probably suck at first.

But that doesn't mean you can't get better.

Get bold. Ask for critiques. Go to the Thumbshare forum. Look for clubs like *ArtistsHospital. And of course, you get what you give around here- try to make helpful comments when other people are looking for crits, and they may very well return the favor.

And don't just stick around deviantART! Trust me, it's a great place, but if you want to get comments, exposure is key. Find other sites where you can post your work. It's hard to keep up with having lots of accounts on different sites, but it is likely you'll get more feedback.

So, in short:

Tracing can be used as a learning method.

I'm not trying to "take away your fun" or tell you not to use something that you think is helping you.

However, it is unwise to use it as your SOLE learning method.

It is also not something to show off as if it were your own work.

Art is not something you do alone- it's critique and opinions from other artists that will help you grow and improve.

In closing, I would like to point you to some excellent articles related to what I've discussed in this article.

Portrait-Artist.Org - Tracing, Grids, Etc.
Portrait-Artist.Org - Accept the Fact...
Portrait-Artist.org - Advice For Newbies
Learn To Draw By Tracing

And of course, the usual shameless club promotion :