Telling a convincing lie

Unfortunately, we tend to be too smart for our own good. The fact that we understand that what we're drawing is just a series of marks on a flat page is something we communicate to the viewer through subtle properties of the actual marks we put down. To put it simply - we're subconsciously speaking to the viewer's subconscious that none of this is real.

The trick is more about learning to lie effectively. That's what these drawings are - they're illusions created to trick the viewer into believing in something that isn't actually there. The best way to tell a lie isn't to be extra clever, but rather to be a fool. When we believe in the lie we're selling, everything we say and do will reinforce the lie, whether we're conscious of it or not. It's this wealth of information all pointing to the impossible, and the fact that it all does it in a cohesive, consistent manner, that makes this impossible thing believable.

Aside from the basic technical skills covered in lesson 1, that's ultimately what Drawabox is about. It's about taking students who are all too aware of what they're doing and gradually teaching them to believe in fairy tales. It's not something that just happens, it's not a truth that'll sink in the moment you're told - because there's no truth to it at all. It's all a lie.

So when you move through the exercises in this lesson and those moving forward (especially those where we're drawing actual objects like plants, insects, animals, vehicles, etc.) we're not learning to draw those objects. We're using them as a theme for exercises targeted at making you understand how everything you draw is three dimensional, solid, tangible and real. This is much more fundamental than learning how to draw a tiger or a porsche.