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Monday 30 January 2012

Day 27: Drawing on the right side of the brain

Once I was talking to a friend of mine about drawing and happened to say that I think that any artist should be able to draw. What I meant is that an effort is needed in order to make some sort of representation not that it needs to be a wonderful drawing. A lady that happened to overhear what we said  turned to me and said that she can't draw and what I was saying was rubbish. Well, each to it's own.
I am not  great at drawing but I do enjoy it and I am trying to work on my drawing skills. I have been following Betty Edward's technique on drawing with the right brain.
Basically, it is a technique that gets the left brain to finally shut up and stop rushing and judging and let the right brain draw what it sees.





I am showing my attempts here in order to share the fact that drawing does not come down to talent but hard work and understanding of what we see. While I am good at drawing and painting my inner world, I hugely struggle with perception and lines as well as shadows and light. I see my self as 'straight-line dyslectic', understanding straight line as well as numbers poses a challenge for me. It takes me a lot of working out in order to be able to put it on paper while other things I breeze through. But in order to be a complete artist I need both so I there is nothing to it then try and improve.

I am particularly pleased with the chair as it was a real challenge to get it together. I started with the small space between chair rest and seat and worked my way out from there piecing it together. The portrait of my cat Missy was much quicker as she moves all the time. I managed to catch her shape on my plastic viewfinder (basically a plastic overhead sheet that I draw lines on while looking through it and it makes 3d into 2d) and then photographed her while she still sat there. From those two items I produced a much more realistic drawing then my previous attempts. This is also first time I have successfully used erasing technique to create highlights.



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