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I've noticed that when I draw pictures of stuff, it looks better if I try to make it look like a simple, fast pencil drawing with many strokes and loose shapes, than if I try to make it look detailed but can't get it right. I've also noticed the latter effect in other drawings. I've also seen that poorly draw pictures that are colored in seem to be harshly criticized. I wonder if the effect of coloring it a low quality drawing creates the expectation that it's supposed to be good, whereas leaving it simple does not create that expectation.

Can you post some sort of example?
I've always thought graphite artist who insert very small amounts of color to accent an otherwise monochrome looked good. But its a very comic book style these days.

I have always found the same in my own work (long ago).

Done in just pencil (or pen, but monochromatic), a picture tends to be seen as a 'sketch', where some extraneous lines are taken as the norm and therefore disregards (or in some cases assumed to be a subtle hint of something else in the picture and giving it greater depth than you originally intended )...

OTOH, if you colour it in, there is the instant assumption that it is meant to be more 'finished'....this is obviously not always the case, but i find that, even in my own mind, when viewing my own work, i see it as 'worse' when it is coloured and not of a better standard (if that makes sense?)....

If you can't draw well, chances are high you can't color well either. Therefore, yes, adding color makes it look worse.

Full disclosure: I can't draw or color well.

I think it depends on a lot of different factors, but I do know it increases the cost of printing by quite a bit.

I'm a terrible artist, so don't take this as fact, but yes, it does. The natural cover of pencil strokes is messed with when you add color... I think.

With sketches, they look good because the mind is seeing so many lines, and naturally discerns the intended drawing. If you remove the companion lines, it may or may not look as good, depending on the artist. Color is just an extension of that. It's one more thing to go wrong.

I'm afraid to ask, but, are you drawing dead Nazis?

I can't draw well at all. For some reason, this did not stop me from taking art classes. My teacher actually liked a few of the drawings I did (!?), but when I tried to color some of them, it seemed to actually detract from their quality. Not even because I can't color well (I can't), more like, as soon as a colored pencil made a mark on the paper at all, it made it look so much worse.


So the answer is it can,but I don't know if it will in all cases.

Line and colour work very differently, and have very different schools of theory. It's not the fact that you're adding colour that makes the drawing look worse, it's the fact that you don't understand how to add colour.

I also think that having a rough drawing that isn't supposed to be of high quality doesn't raise expectations, but as soon as it looks like it's supposed to be well done, everyone starts seeing the flaws in it. Cartoon characters don't have problems with not appearing realistic because they aren't intended to.

 Fafnir wrote:
Line and colour work very differently, and have very different schools of theory. It's not the fact that you're adding colour that makes the drawing look worse, it's the fact that you don't understand how to add colour.

This.

 Cheesecat wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
Line and colour work very differently, and have very different schools of theory. It's not the fact that you're adding colour that makes the drawing look worse, it's the fact that you don't understand how to add colour.

This.

I definitely agree; you do have to know how to add color, as it's a whole other dimension. Although keeping a rough drawing as a sketch keeps the sense of simplicity to it.