Drawing from memory basically means that you're trying to recall some real image that you've captured with your brain in the past and trying to draw or paint them out.

Drawing from imagination is a little bit different. Imagination means there's an image, which could be completely fictitious like a fantasy being, that you want to draw out.

So one is a real image, while the other can be a completely fictitious image. Why is it important to know the difference? Many members on my site ask the same question, and when I sat down to really think about this, I think many people are actually confused as to why they can't transfer the images in their head on to a piece of paper.

Knowing the difference between the two types of drawing would be a good start to clear up the confusion. Let's say you have a fictitious image that you want to draw, but find that you have problems drawing it out on paper. What's the problem here?

Well, you may be lacking the drawing ability to express yourself well in a drawing.

That can be easily solved. Simply spend time to strengthen your drawing foundation so that you can express yourself better with a pencil and your problem will be solved.

But let's say you now want to recall an image and draw it on paper, but somehow, even though you have really great skills, you still couldn't get it right. What could be the problem here?

The problem lies in the source of the reference image, which is the one captured in your head. Because your mind has skewed the image somehow, the information will be transferred to your drawing paper.

Unfortunately, there's no easy solution to this problem, except that unless you have photographic memory, which must be trained from young, you'll find it hard to capture an entire image exactly the way it is in your head.