I never want to look in the mirror again! I spent almost two hours staring at my face and trying to draw my self-portrait...again...in order to show my progress. Admittedly, I skipped the chapter on light and shadow, which apparently is crucial to drawing a nuanced likeness of yourself. But I really wanted to finish my creative skill blog with a self-portrait since that is how I began it.
If I have learned anything through this process, it is that you CANNOT skip steps. Developing a skill is a process. All components of the process rely on the other. Sure I was able to produce a slightly better likeness of myself, but I do not think it is representative of the progress that I have made as a person who draws.
To be honest, I thought that it was turning out great. The eyes were awesome and really captured the sadness in my eyes -- not that I am a sad person, I just have sad eyes. The nose was not too bad, but the mouth kind of threw things off. I had my head tilted at an angle in the mirror, and I do not think that I was returning to the right angle because my lips are off. Then the hair. I hate drawing hair. I have not made the leap from actual to representation with hair. I can right brain everything except hair. BOOOOOO.....
I think I might try this again soon. I just get so impatient. Plus, this has been hard to endeavor on my own. I really miss the instruction part of learning. I enjoy being taught and having a teacher to give feedback, so the learning on my own part, I think, exacerbated my impatience.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Portrait of Proportion redux
So the second part of the lesson on proportion was to draw a portrait in profile using a live subject. I was a bit skeptical of my ability to pull this off. I know that I have gone out on own my own to test my progress, but that was different because I was deliberately off task, so failure was not only ok, it was expected. So far, I feel like I have been relatively successful at all of the assignments set forth by the book. This one was the first one that I thought I might not be ready for.
I selected my boyfriend as a subject. I figured that it would not be so hard to get him to sit still in profile on TV night. The result was not that bad. He feels like it is a true likeness; I do not. If I had never seen him and then saw the drawing, I might think that the drawing was really good. However, I don't think that it is a true likeness, so from that perspective, I am not truly happy with it. But the fact that it looks like a real human in proportion is a success that is not lost on me.
Without further ado...Dan in profile:
I selected my boyfriend as a subject. I figured that it would not be so hard to get him to sit still in profile on TV night. The result was not that bad. He feels like it is a true likeness; I do not. If I had never seen him and then saw the drawing, I might think that the drawing was really good. However, I don't think that it is a true likeness, so from that perspective, I am not truly happy with it. But the fact that it looks like a real human in proportion is a success that is not lost on me.
Without further ado...Dan in profile:
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Porttrait of Proportion
So now that I have "mastered" perspective, it is time to move on to proportion. My book uses portraiture for this lesson for two reasons: 1) they are perceived as more difficult, so doing one successfully builds confidence and 2) they effectively demonstrate how proportion can be easily misconstrued by a brain that sometimes overcompensates.
The second factor is actually a really interesting phenomenon. Apparently, because the top of the head is less interesting than the eyes, we see the eyes in a more prominent spot on the face. When beginning drawers draw a face, they mistakenly place the eyes 1/3 of the way down from the top of the head, even though the eyes are actually located half way. The result is what the author calls "cut off skull." One way to see proof of this overcompensation of how the brain "sees" proportion is to look in the mirror. Your head LOOKS the size that it is in actual space. However, if you take a marker and outline the image on the mirror and then measure it, the image of your head ON the mirror will be way smaller than the head you see IN the mirror.
To introductory lesson in portraiture is to copy (not trace) a portrait done by the master artist John Singer Sargent. The author believes that beginners can learn a lot by trying to draw like a master. She was right. On first glance, the portrait seems simple. I thought that it would be super easy to copy. However, the complexities are so subtle that you do not realize their genius until you get into it. Some of the lines are softer and broken while others are hard and solid. The lines are also very fluid, and the curvature so slight that it is easy to either make the curve too round or too straight, which really distorts the image. The author allows you to choose whether you copy the image right side up or upside down. I chose right side up because I thought it looked easy. Wrong.
I started and balled up my paper three times -- even though I was using my pane and grid as a guide. This is where I learned all of the great lessons about lines and subtle complexity, but it was nearly impossible to successfully recreate this portrait even remotely close to the original artist's work. So I started over one last time, but this time I recreated the image upside down. It did not turn out so great compared to the other image. However, if I had never seen the other image, and only seen mine, I would not have thought that mine was half bad.
Here is the original:
My girl's forehead is a little weird, but I kinda like it:
The second factor is actually a really interesting phenomenon. Apparently, because the top of the head is less interesting than the eyes, we see the eyes in a more prominent spot on the face. When beginning drawers draw a face, they mistakenly place the eyes 1/3 of the way down from the top of the head, even though the eyes are actually located half way. The result is what the author calls "cut off skull." One way to see proof of this overcompensation of how the brain "sees" proportion is to look in the mirror. Your head LOOKS the size that it is in actual space. However, if you take a marker and outline the image on the mirror and then measure it, the image of your head ON the mirror will be way smaller than the head you see IN the mirror.
To introductory lesson in portraiture is to copy (not trace) a portrait done by the master artist John Singer Sargent. The author believes that beginners can learn a lot by trying to draw like a master. She was right. On first glance, the portrait seems simple. I thought that it would be super easy to copy. However, the complexities are so subtle that you do not realize their genius until you get into it. Some of the lines are softer and broken while others are hard and solid. The lines are also very fluid, and the curvature so slight that it is easy to either make the curve too round or too straight, which really distorts the image. The author allows you to choose whether you copy the image right side up or upside down. I chose right side up because I thought it looked easy. Wrong.
I started and balled up my paper three times -- even though I was using my pane and grid as a guide. This is where I learned all of the great lessons about lines and subtle complexity, but it was nearly impossible to successfully recreate this portrait even remotely close to the original artist's work. So I started over one last time, but this time I recreated the image upside down. It did not turn out so great compared to the other image. However, if I had never seen the other image, and only seen mine, I would not have thought that mine was half bad.
Here is the original:
My girl's forehead is a little weird, but I kinda like it:
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Perspective Pain
After abandoning the book and drawing that awful rendering of my dog, I came back to the book for the next lesson, which was on perspective. I set myself up to complete the perspective assignment -- I chose my hallway -- and began. The exercise required me to first map out the hallway with my "perspective pane" -- or as I have begun to call it, my perspective pain.
The first couple of times that used the pane, it amazed me. When I used it to aid me in drawing my hand, the pane was resting on my hand and was, therefore, stable and did not shift around. Using the pane to draw something that requires you to hold the pane up with one hand and draw on it with the other is nearly impossible. And in order for the final drawing to be accurate, the image on the pane has to be accurate as well. With no way to actually stabilize the pane enough to draw my hallway on it with any degree of accuracy, I decided to scrap it. I am not suggesting that I am too good for the pane. But I do feel like it was getting in the way. Because I feel like I fully understood the lesson that the pane taught, I did not feel like it would hinder my progress too much to try and do the lesson without it.
I have no idea what I might have produced with the pane, but I am pleased with what I drew without it. Perspective is not difficult. It is mainly a trick of the eye. Closing one eye flattens the image enough that the line and angles sort of pop into place. As long as you get out of the left brain and focus on drawing the lines as they intersect instead of trying to draw an open door in terms of how language understands an open door, it is pretty easy. I even experienced the "flow" that the author spoke about -- losing track of time and becoming so immersed that you "lose yourself."
Here is the drawing of my hallway:
The first couple of times that used the pane, it amazed me. When I used it to aid me in drawing my hand, the pane was resting on my hand and was, therefore, stable and did not shift around. Using the pane to draw something that requires you to hold the pane up with one hand and draw on it with the other is nearly impossible. And in order for the final drawing to be accurate, the image on the pane has to be accurate as well. With no way to actually stabilize the pane enough to draw my hallway on it with any degree of accuracy, I decided to scrap it. I am not suggesting that I am too good for the pane. But I do feel like it was getting in the way. Because I feel like I fully understood the lesson that the pane taught, I did not feel like it would hinder my progress too much to try and do the lesson without it.
I have no idea what I might have produced with the pane, but I am pleased with what I drew without it. Perspective is not difficult. It is mainly a trick of the eye. Closing one eye flattens the image enough that the line and angles sort of pop into place. As long as you get out of the left brain and focus on drawing the lines as they intersect instead of trying to draw an open door in terms of how language understands an open door, it is pretty easy. I even experienced the "flow" that the author spoke about -- losing track of time and becoming so immersed that you "lose yourself."
Here is the drawing of my hallway:
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Hmmm....
Well...I never said it was going to be good.
So I took a break to the book, and while it was fun and made me feel like a real artist using a graphite stick instead of a pencil, the product was less than awesome. Let's just say that my two tries at drawing without the guidance of Betty Edwards are...um...er...minimalist?
So I took a break to the book, and while it was fun and made me feel like a real artist using a graphite stick instead of a pencil, the product was less than awesome. Let's just say that my two tries at drawing without the guidance of Betty Edwards are...um...er...minimalist?
A break from the Book
I love the Drawing from the right side of the brain book, and I feel like I have learned a lot from it, but true to my nature, I have grown bored with the lessons...and impatient. I am tired of drawing hands and chairs. So, this week I felt like branching out on my own. I have been working on a drawing of my dog. I have wanted for a while to have a pencil drawing of him that I could frame and hang. I just never thought that I would be the one drawing it!
So far, it is not too bad. I am doing it from a photo, so I don't need the window pane. So see... I am still employing the concepts of the book; however, my creativity dictated that I do something for myself at this point in journey. I am still working on it, but I will post a photo of the drawing of the photo as soon as I feel like it is presentable. Stay tuned!!
So far, it is not too bad. I am doing it from a photo, so I don't need the window pane. So see... I am still employing the concepts of the book; however, my creativity dictated that I do something for myself at this point in journey. I am still working on it, but I will post a photo of the drawing of the photo as soon as I feel like it is presentable. Stay tuned!!
Friday, March 13, 2009
Negative Progress
It was bound to happen. I have hit a wall.
The most recent lesson was on negative space -- which I was really excited about because I love the idea of negative space. In art and in life, I believe that perception is reality. Negative space is a perfect example of this. I also love the idea that the spaces in between things are as important as the things themselves...very zen. And it reminds me of quantum physics.
However, the lesson on negative spaces has frustrated me. We are supposed to draw a chair only using the negative spaces of it -- using our perspective panes. I am beginning to hate this perspective pane. It is nearly impossible to hold up the pane and draw on it without the pane moving around and distorting the perspective. Conceptually, it makes perfect sense. But in production it makes what started out as an exciting task an arduous one.
So I decided to put down the pane and try to draw the negative spaces free hand. But I have not cultivated the skills fully or mastered proportion. So everything is really off and distorted.
See, this is the old impatience creeping in. I want to be able to draw now, and I do not want to put in the work. I feel like the karate kid when he was waxing on and waxing off -- working on the fundamentals when all you want to do is kick some ass.
I will go back to the perspective pane. But I won't like it, and I will need to wallow in my set back for a day or two.
The most recent lesson was on negative space -- which I was really excited about because I love the idea of negative space. In art and in life, I believe that perception is reality. Negative space is a perfect example of this. I also love the idea that the spaces in between things are as important as the things themselves...very zen. And it reminds me of quantum physics.
However, the lesson on negative spaces has frustrated me. We are supposed to draw a chair only using the negative spaces of it -- using our perspective panes. I am beginning to hate this perspective pane. It is nearly impossible to hold up the pane and draw on it without the pane moving around and distorting the perspective. Conceptually, it makes perfect sense. But in production it makes what started out as an exciting task an arduous one.
So I decided to put down the pane and try to draw the negative spaces free hand. But I have not cultivated the skills fully or mastered proportion. So everything is really off and distorted.
See, this is the old impatience creeping in. I want to be able to draw now, and I do not want to put in the work. I feel like the karate kid when he was waxing on and waxing off -- working on the fundamentals when all you want to do is kick some ass.
I will go back to the perspective pane. But I won't like it, and I will need to wallow in my set back for a day or two.
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