By the Book

Visual art is pretty broad terrain, and drawing is a excellent gateway. So I decided to zero in on drawing as my creative project.

After my initial attempt at drawing was a frustrating failure, I thought that I should start simpler. And since I am in my comfort zone learning from a book, I thought it would go a long way to purchase a book on how to draw. I selected Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. After perusing the bookshelves of B & N, I decided on this one because it is specifically designed for people who consider themselves completely unable to draw -- like me. The book is also based on a five day class that Betty Edwards teaches. She maintains that she can teach anyone to draw by helping them to see things with the right side of the brain instead of the left.
The book contains samples of before and after drawings of students who took the five day class, and their progress is remarkable and, according to Edwards, common. Rare is the student who does not progress.

Edwards cautions against doing the lessons out of sequence, and since I already learned my lesson about not starting at the beginning, I willingly completed the first assignment: three "before" drawings, which are meant to be no pressure drawing to use as tangible evidence of my progress. The three drawings are 1) self portrait 2) portrait from memory 3) my own hand in any position.

Another assignment that Edwards suggests is to write about what it felt like to draw these three pictures. Since we are supposed to blog about our experiences, I will do that here.

Self Portrait:
This was done while looking in a mirror. The hardest part was by far the nose. The easiest was the lips. The one thing that I thought would be easiest was the hair, however, after completing the portrait, I have to say that I found the hair to be surprisingly difficult. The finished product was way better than I thought it would be. Perhaps I have exceedingly low expectations of my drawing skills, but seriously, I have rarely attempted more than stick figures.



Portrait from memory:
I chose to do one of my boyfriend. We live together so I see him more than anyone, yet drawing him from memory was a big fat joke. Even though I could see him in my mind's eye, I could not see details. I gave up pretty quickly on trying to make it as detailed as my self-portrait, so it is not good. Oh...and even though you cannot tell it from this portrait, I am not dating Barry Gibb.



My hand:
This was awesome. When I look at it, I cannot believe that I drew it. It has perspective and everything! One thing that really helped me with perspective was blurring my eyes a bit. I know that seems counter intuitive, but it kind of freed my brain from seeing my hand as a hand and made it more a series of lines that intersected at specific places.



I have spent so much time devaluing my innate ability, that it never occurred to me to even try to draw more than stick figures or to seek out a means to learn. Now I am so excited about the possibility of learning how to draw. I have a feeling that it is going to open up new creative potential. But, I am not a genius...yet. I still have to have my first official lesson, at least now I can move forward with confidence -- not frustration.

Winners Never Quit

Clearly I am not a winner. Because I have already quit.

OK. So I haven't quit altogether, but I did quit my first project. I think that I was too ambitious. At least that is what I am telling myself so that I do not feel like such a loser. Ironically, I thought that I was easing myself into drawing.

When I was in high school, my friend Angie was in art class. Once she had this art project where she sectioned off a picture in a grid. Then she created the same grid to exact proportion on a blank sheet. Next, she replicated the picture square for square instead of trying to copy the picture free hand as a whole.

I thought this would be a great exercise to begin my journey as a visual artist. Every time that I have ever attempted to draw something, the one thing that always eluded me was proportion. The grid exercise seemed like the perfect way to tackle this. I thought it would free my mind from the overwhelming idea of the whole, and allow me to focus on drawing bit by bit. I still think that it will.

The problem: I chose a drawing of Obama from the cover of this week's New Yorker. Big Mistake! I underestimated its complexity -- from the subtle use of non-colors to the fact that it is a portrait.

Because I thought I would start with the hardest part as a way of testing my potential, I began the grid project with the square that had one of his eyes. Turns out that the eyes were not really all that hard. It was the dark shading of his ruffle shirt that did me in.

Originally, I wanted to start my foray into drawing as simply as possible so that I would avoid being overwhelmed. Instead I did just the opposite -- which I now realize I do in many other areas of my life. I have a tendency toward overestimating my own potential. I mean, there is nothing wrong with aiming high. But, in my efforts to aim high, I have a pattern of putting the first step of the ladder to far out of my reach, thereby failing before I can even begin.

For most of my life, I have accused myself of not having follow through. Right now -- because of this project -- because I made a creative effort -- I am learning that maybe my problem is not the follow through. Maybe the problem is that, to often, I try to start at the end instead of the beginning. This could be a result of my impatience. Or, perhaps I do not have a realistic view of my own capabilities. I don't know. What I do know is that when starting a project, the most important thing is how you start.

Aim big, start small = following through.

What does this mean for my grid project? As a means to work on my follow through as well as to experience a small victory that may motivate me to continue creating, I will find a simpler picture to use as a start/practice/whatever. Then I am going to find a book on teaching yourself how to draw and start with Chapter 1.


The easy part: The offending part:



Original;

I am going to need a Visual...

I am a huge fan of the stencil, and I am an awesome tracer. However, I do not think that I have ever freely drawn or created an image on paper.

Will it be fun? Relaxing? Or will I leave broken pencils and balls of paper in my wake? I look forward to finding out.

Decisions are the Worst

Ever since the end of class, I have been obsessing over this creative adventure. I have always considered myself a creative person, so I am having a hard time pinning down an activity. Normally when coming up with a topic for an assignment, I can spend hours trying to come up with an initial idea. For this assignment, however, I have come up with too many possibilities.

1. Guitar -- I have no musical ability whatsoever. In fact, I am completely tone deaf. So this creative exercise would definitely push me into new creative territory. Also, my boyfriend is a musician and we have several guitars in the house, so I have the resources for minimal to not cost.

2. Visual art -- I can't draw to save my life. But, I cannot necessarily afford classes and materials. There is a Friday night pottery class at Good Dirt, which is not too costly and I have always wanted to do it. If I do pottery, then I will have a product to bring in.

If I do guitar, will I have to play a tune in front of the class? Yikes...No way.

3. There is a writing project that I have wanted to start for quite some time. It is not exactly outside of my creative comfort zone, but forcing myself to write creatively for a period of time each week would be new. I love to start writing projects, but I have zero follow through. This could be a great opportunity....But I have to write so much for school and work that sometimes the very last thing I want to do is to write, even if it is for pleasure.

4. I have been meaning to put down some design ideas for my house...
5. I haven't sewed in a very long time, and I just inherited a new machine that I have not taken out of the box in six months...
6. I would LOVE to create several simple, large canvas pieces for the bare walls in my house...even though I have never painted ever and have not progressed beyond stick figures...

Hmmmm......this is a tough one. I think I will leave it up to the fates and draw from a hat.

Back in a few with the results...