Do you consider gridding to be cheating?

Question

I've never really liked it, but this year our art teacher has allowed some of it, more of to save time/frustration/the little things on big projects and stuff. But lately this girl that I have been calling my (second) best chick friend, has began to draw again. She hadn't in a long time and said that she sucked, but now she started up again. I was really impressed at first, everything in her sketchbook turned out AMAZING. But then I found out why, it was ALL gridded. Like I understand about a project, but this is just her sketchbook...
Art really is my life/obsession, so this is really eating away at me. We are having other tensions in our friendships so I can't talk to her about it. She is getting a lot of attention for it...and it really bothers me because...well...to me she doesn't seem to deserve it...
So maybe I am the one wrong, though. Do you think that gridding is okay, or is it cheating?
*Oh and I mean she would always grid photographs, not artworks and not her own sketches

Answer 1

Your question is more of a social one than an artistic one. There really are no hard rules in art; those who draw only freehand from life are not morally superior to those who slavishly copy from photographs, and to grid or not to grid is entirely a personal choice.



However, there are two reasons why "gridding" can be considered a form of cheating.



One, your teacher expects you both to be drawing these freehand; for her to do the sketches from a grid behind the teacher's back is dishonest.



Two, your friend is cheating herself of the practice daily freehand sketching would have given her. Drawing freehand trains the eye and hand to catch the details and get the proportions right without the crutch of a ruler; you friend is setting up bad artistic habits that will impede her development and hurt her later on. "Gridding" works great for photos; it doesn't work at all when drawing from life.



That is what I'm most concerned about. Your friend is afraid; she's scared that if she draws freehand she'll be worse than everyone else and everyone will look down on her. What she doesn't realize is that she is making that happen herself. When the time comes to draw from life, there will be a major discrepancy between her life drawing and all her previous sketches, and she will have a lot of catching up to do (and many hard habits to overcome) before she is as good as the rest of the class again.



Personally, I use a grid occasionally for intricate drawings from photos, if I don't have enough time to do it the long way. It's a useful tool to have when you are in a hurry, or when you want to make sure you are absolutely accurate. But I'm not in art school anymore; the only person I'm cheating is myself.



Good luck with your classes, both of you; hope this helps. If you need help, you can contact me.

Answer 2

Thumbs up for Matty B. Most of art is what in other disciplines we call "cheating". It's true that if you aren't thinking about what you are making: if you are only copying then you are not making a good picture, but a photograph's lines are literally imaginary anyhow: an outline is nothing more than an arbitrary collection of edges which we see between negative space and the object -- they are subject to change as the object or we move and it is more important to get the edges than the "outline". In that sense of course gridding can be self-defeating and all that -- but the truth is that we are all different and there are probably millions of ways to draw. Chuck Close used grids and abstract shapes inside them even before his physical problems made it impossible for him to paint any other way.



I would lighten up. Really, as long as she puts SOMETHING in that sketchbook she's working.

Answer 3

Well, i'd say for beginner artists, gridding helps a heck of a lot more... It's sort of a shortcut though. As far as practice goes, gridding doesn't really improve someone's artistic skill much- people should train their eye to draw without the use of a grid. i wouldn't say gridding is 'cheating', since the shading still takes technique, but it's definitely not as impressive as a great picture that was drawn without a grid :)

Ask her if you can see any of her non-grid work, or ask her if she's ever tried drawing without a grid... maybe she'll realize that since she's so used to using a grid, it's hard for her to try drawing something without one. also, lots of art colleges don't want grid work!- anyways, i definitely know how you feel >< there used to be this kid who traced all his drawings and would show them off, haha- very frusteriating, i know how you feel :<

(just let yourself know that if you can make nice pictures free of grids, your art is worth much more ^^-- And that's what counts!)

Answer 4

I never used grids but regardless, I think people need to get over this concept of cheating in art. Art isn't a competition with a book full of rules. Artist are allowed to use whatever tools and techniques that suit them. Was the first sculpture to use a chisel and not a rock cheating? Or the first person to use a paint brush? You get my point. Don't get beat down by any elite art snobbery about grids and such. The only real cheating in art is taking something someone else did and calling it yours. Other than that, everything's fair game.

Answer 5

No, I think it is an excellent method to help you gain a better sense of space and place. Think of it a little like training wheels on a bike. There is nothing wrong with it at all.

Answer 6

There are no rules or cheating in art. Any method is fine and gridding is just a way of getting the exact measurements of what you're trying to replicate. There's also more to a drawing than creating a photographic perfectly measured image.

Answer 7

This has been answered nicely by everyone.



Jathaan's answer really resonates with me, thumbs-up. And Matty, too - thumbs-up.



I think all of us (ahem...) serious artist-types experience this to some extent. I had a class where virtually everything I did - and I mean really off-the-wall, personal, unique stuff - was lifted by my classmates.



It's really your ego that's bugging you. Don't worry - when you have original ideas and solid technical skills, the amateurs will always be miles behind you.



Don't worry about what they're doing, just go deep with your own vision, expression, searching for meaning, taking creative risks.



There's a point were you will *own* your tech skills - in fact, you'll probably have too much technique and may start over-working your pieces. Then you'll make this mental leap into meaning, content, expression, risk. You'll start getting really loose, un-learning all the dogma of art school drawing classes. The tech chops are just the tools you use to realize your vision. It's like the way vocabulary and grammar are used to communicate ideas and concepts.



Pure technique with no meaning is pointless in fine art. Nobody's impressed by pure technique when you get to MFA and gallery-land, trust me. You're just going through the technique phase - and the competitive, ego phase - and you're already realizing that. As Matty said, it's not a competition. It's what you have to express that is most important.

Answer 8

Even some of the Masters used to do it. A 3D version of gridding was used to realize Mount Rushmore so no, it's not cheating.

Answer 9

i say its ok not really cheating. but if ur in more advanced art, you should start not gridding. u know what i mean?

Answer 10

If by gridding you mean help with concepts such as "the rule of thirds" then I do not believe it is cheating. That's like saying using a ruler is cheating. Just a helper! ;)