Friday, February 3, 2012

right side drawing

I began drawing with a new group this week. We are starting with the basics which I am really enjoying because I need to review and refresh my knowledge and technique.
Today we did the beginner exercise called blind contour drawing. This method is meant to engage the right side of your brain and to tell the left side to go to sleep or shut up. You must use a marker or something that cannot be erased. And you must draw very slowly, looking at your subject and Never look down at your paper the whole time. I found it best if I did not lift my marker during the process and just made one continuous line.
I call it "drawing blind". Only you aren't blind, you are just blind to what is one the paper.
When you finally stop and look down, sometimes the result can be quite a pleasant surprise, and sometimes, it is just a mess of lines. The important thing is what is going on in your brain, not the drawing itself.
We had a model sitting in front of us, I started with the skeleton that was standing next to him.
There are two continuous line drawings shown here.
And then the next drawing can be executed with allowing yourself to occasionally glance at your paper, but to continue to draw very slowly with mostly one continuous line. This of course actually looks like the model but has a quality of life that a sketch usually doesn't achieve.