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Arty question for artists - and translators!

Aurinne June 11, 2019 6:38 am

So, this has been bothering me for a while. In Japanese comics (and I think I've read it in Chinese or Korean as well?), where I would expect to see the verb "paint" (as in creating an artistic painting), it is consistently translated as "draw". I think any common English speaker would see the two terms as generally different.

Now, I'm fairly interested in art and studied art (poorly) in high school, and I've never come across the verb "draw" encompassing "paint" (well, let's not get picky about when mixed or non-traditional media or art forms are used, I'm talking simply about traditional painting using any type of standard paint).

So I was wondering two things:
In the English-speaking art world, or even anywhere in the Western art world, can it be common to use the term "draw" to mean "paint" and I'm just not aware of it? Or is only my experience of the two always (or almost always) having separate meanings?

In Japanese (or other languages), do they actually use a word that MEANS "draw" for "paint"? Or, do they have a third term that encompasses both, and it somehow always gets translated as draw?

Thanks if you know!

Responses
    Patan June 11, 2019 1:24 pm

    you see in Japanese they use 描く(egaku or kaku)which is the same word for to paint, draw, sketch. So it's basically a word used as a broad term for, to make art, if you know what I mean.

    There is also 塗る (nuru) which is also commonly used as well, but it's more specific towards painting, varnishing, and /or to plaster things.

    I would say egaku is more commonly used because people would learn this earlier in life I think? (don't quote me on this) so it's easy to just translate it as to draw as opposed to nuru.

    This is the same with Chinese to paint and to draw are usually 畫(hua). Hua is a commonly used word and children and adults understand it easier than the alternative.

    I think it's mostly to do with convenience and using common words though and to be honest, it's kinda convenient as a chinese speaker to have one word that covers everything~ cause I'm lazy~ (づ ̄ ³ ̄)づ

    Patan June 11, 2019 1:26 pm

    also as an english speaker as well I don't usually use the term "draw" to mean "paint" cause I usually think of drawing with a pen rather than a brush.

    WHen I do digital art however then that's a different story hehe ╮( ̄▽ ̄)╭

    Patan June 11, 2019 1:26 pm

    shit man I'm commenting so much! anyway here's the dictionary I used for that huge ass paragraph heh gotta reference you know?

    https://jisho.org/search/to%20paint

    Aurinne June 11, 2019 4:08 pm
    shit man I'm commenting so much! anyway here's the dictionary I used for that huge ass paragraph heh gotta reference you know?https://jisho.org/search/to%20paint Patan

    Thanks for the replies (and link)! It feels awkward/jarring to me to use draw for paint, but I can at least relax a little by understanding "draw" as generally meaning "to create art". It somehow feels that English is lacking a verb we didn't know were needed!

    Patan June 11, 2019 10:14 pm
    Thanks for the replies (and link)! It feels awkward/jarring to me to use draw for paint, but I can at least relax a little by understanding "draw" as generally meaning "to create art". It somehow feels that Eng... Aurinne

    Haha no problem :D I think English is fine the way it is :o it’s just that the Japanese language is hella sophisticated and really intriguing and somewhat difficult to learn imo. :D