William Whitaker, Learning to Draw Through Copywork
“I wish I’d done more serious copying. Really accurate, serious copying! Back in the dark ages of the 20th century, copying was discouraged. We had to be original! Very stupid. The old masters learned by copying. Art museums were originally set up so art students could copy master works. If you are moved by something, copy it! That way you’ll get your mind inside your inspiration and you’ll learn much faster.”
“Copy away. Copy whatever inspires you the most. You will cut years off your learning curve.”
“By and by, make some extremely exact copies of things that move you. Getting to almost-accurate is pretty easy, but all your growth will be in the area between almost-accurate and dead-on accurate.”
“Making a few perfect copies is best thing all of us can do. More than anything else, it teaches us to see and makes us tough.”
“Don’t worry about originality, creativity, such like. Just draw like crazy and your art will lead you.”
“If you make very diligent copies, you will save a lot of time in your artistic development.”
“Schools that promote self-expression and originality and forget skill turn out lots of graduates that go nowhere in the visual world. Never feel guilty about copying. You will learn faster and grow farther that way.”