The importance of drawing your own designs

I must ask the all so important question of how is drawing my designs of scrolls important? (I also understand some people want a fresh look and of course some just have a badass unique look) I understand the steadying of the hand and it making your cuts/lines more accurate; but say I want to just print off a design I've found somewhere else and wax paper it onto my object I'm carving? I mean I don't plan on doing any of my work for profit or financial gain; I plan to do it mainly for engraving gifts for the kids and future grandkids or something to brag about to the buddies or something of the sort. I also understand the importance of siting who you got the design from so don't expect me to not site the work of another artist.

My thought is that if you didnt design it , it isnt your work. You just copy someone elses and i wouldnt brag even for friends of work i just copied.
Other side is, if you planned and made it your self, then its all your work and i think that is the time you can go bragging.

For practicing i think borrowing someone elses design is part of the learning and i think its perfectly ok, if not even necessary at first. But i wouldnt count those pieces to my own work.

Copying is a great way to learn.

Wheat, I was 42 years old when I first picked up an engraver. I had never had any kind of art lesson or drawn anything in my life. I took it for granted I couldn't learn to draw anything. I just wanted to learn to engrave so I could embellish the bits, spurs, and buckles that I was learning to build. I planned on doing just what you are talking about -- finding patterns somewhere and copying them. But my teacher and friend Johny Weyerts encouraged me to start drawing and see what happened. Well pretty soon I discovered that the real fun in engraving is creating the design. I would encourage you to pick up a pencil and see what happens. Don't be disappointed if it doesn't happen over night. Just keep picking away and I think one day you'll discover that drawing the design is the exciting part of this craft. Good luck!
Stewart

If that's what you want to do, then there are plenty of pattern books that are copyright free. You can copy the work, engrave it, or whatever. Check out Dover Books. As you will soon learn, copying/transferring puts severe limitations on what you can do as it can be next to impossible to find designs that fit a particular area or shape.

If you wish to copy another engraver's designs for any reason, do the right thing and ask for permission first. I'll tell you now that it's a very touchy subject with a lot of engravers, and you'll make a lot more friends creating your own designs as opposed to copying someone else's.

I use a mix- my dragon came from a Dover book on Dragons, my ships are vectorized from photos and my scroll work is all mine. What ever gets the particular job done!

If you rely only on copying designs it might limit your ability to create your best work. I draw all my designs on the subject with pencil and then cut. this allows me to work my design with the different contours of the subject I am working on. If you would rely only on designs of somebodies else's works then you might not achieve what you have envisioned for your project. That is where drawing a design to fit your work comes into play. ZZ

With trepidation, as a beginner engraver, but as traditional/historical blacksmith and educator of 30 years, I weigh in here.

I helped develop a curriculum and taught a program of forged architectural ironwork with a very traditional bent. One set of skills that I found most challenging to teach were the observational skills: the ability to observe symmetry/asymmetry; the ability to judge volume/ area ratios; the ability to assess straightness or evaluate a curve for elbows and flats.

It is possible to develop observation skills by working at the forge and anvil and enduring a pointed critique of the work. Yet, I found it more efficient to address such issues with paper and pencil. For the first two semesters all my students had a technical sketching project due each week. Inevitably, those who took the drawing seriously and progressed as draftsmen/women also developed their technical forging skills most rapidly.

So, my answer to the original posters question, is to draw as a way to observe and a means to develop observational skills. This will pay dividends in your ability to assess the work you are looking to copy or adapt. Ultimately, it will help you make an objective assessment of your own work, which is the first step toward improvement.

As the others have said, engraving someone else's design for practice is a great way to learn. At the beginning it's much better to engrave someone else's good design than to just make semi-random cuts.

But if all you can do is work from a transfer you'll find yourself extremely limited. As a simple example, try to get a good, clean transfer on something domed - like a concho. You'll be much better off if you can just draw your design on the darn thing.

And it turns out that a lot of the drawing for engraving is not that hard to do. Ron Smith's two books, Lee Griffith's book & dvd, Sam's dvd - they'll all teach you how to take a few simple lines applied in a pretty standard sequence and get some good looking designs. There's more to it than that, of course, but it really is amazing how much you can do with an arc, a hook and an S-curve. That and a reasonable scroll spiral.

But if you want to see why you really want to be able to draw well just look through the threads by all the European students who've been working their way through the traditional schools. The years of art instruction they get let them create fabulous grotesques and arabesques.

From reading your original post, it seems you have answered your own questions.

From what you talked about why and what you had I mind for engraving. You want to cut Mickey Mouse the trace and cut. The kids and grandkids are more modern cut the anima characters on their necklaces. These are good cutting practice. You want to copy a scroll for the mrs. go ahead. eventually you will naturally start to draw your own anyway. Fred