Artists' Drawing Strategies Serve to Overcome Visual Processing Limitations

Most people learn to draw casually at an early age, but learning to create accurate observational drawings usually require extensive practice. Why is accurate drawing so hard? And what distinguishes people skilled at accurate drawing from those who are not? Empirical research has primarily studied these questions for the task of copying a source picture. This article argues that the difficulty of copying tasks can be explained by limitations of visual memory and peripheral vision. In addition, variation in the control of eye movements could explain mixed findings regarding the relationship between perceptual skill and drawing skill, and regarding the role of prior knowledge in drawing. We explore the hypothesis that artists aiming to create accurate drawings from observation employ a broad suite of strategies for coordinating their eye movements with drawing actions, enabling them to transfer information from the source image to their drawing within the limitations of visual memory and peripheral vision. We advocate for further study of these strategies in naturalistic scenarios that extend beyond copying tasks.