Drawing - Articles

simpson character

Fri, 26 Nov 2010 17:58:08 +0000

Upside-down drawing

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 01:06:21 +0000

Tips on drawing:

This tip was the number one lesson that I learned from The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards

If you want to make a drawing from a photograph, just turn the photo upside-down and then copy exactly what you see.

Try it. This sounds really stupid but it actually works!

The idea here is to confuse the left (rational) side of your brain and prevent it from taking-over your drawing process and making you draw things as the symbols that it sees in. If you leave the drawing or photograph the right way up, the left side of your brain will dive in there and say "Ah! An eye! I know what an eye looks like...!" and then you end up drawing an eye or a face or whatever as you think it should look - rather than the way that it actually looks...

There is really nothing very difficult about drawing. Almost anyone with a functioning hand and reasonable eyesight, fingers, paper and a pencil can do it! No special fingers are needed - ordinary ones will do just fine!!!!! And the only skill you need to master is the ability to condition your mind into drawing what is there and not the symbols that the left side of your brain rationalizes in.

Just go ahead and give it a try... You'll be amazed at the results! Once you have done this a few times and you start to build your confidence, you'll find that you are able to just copy exactly what you see - (rather than what the left side of your brain thinks you are seeing.) Once you have conditioned yourself in this way, you will find that you no longer need to turn your subject upside down...

Drawing "white space"

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 01:01:04 +0000

This is another really useful trick that I learned from The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards

Tip: Instead of drawing, for example, a man's arm with his hand resting on his hip - look at the space between his arm and his body.
Do not look at his arm and do not look at his body.
Look only at the space in between his arm and his body... Then draw draw that space!

The same thing applies to drawing the outside edge of the man's arm...
Look at the nearest object to his arm and draw the space between that object and the man's arm!

That way, you overcome the tendency of the left-side of your brain to make you draw things in the simplified symbol images with which that part of your brain rationalizes the world around you. Then, having overcome this annoying tendency of the left-side of your brain to continually butt-in and interfere with your art - (which is, essentially, a job for the right-side of the brain) - you end up easily being able to draw what is actually there - rather than what the left-side of your brain would very much like you to draw...!!