Table of contents for Drawing with the right side of the brain
- Left or right sided thinking (Drawing: Faces and Vases)
- Drawing up side down
- Understanding right sided thinking (Drawing: Horse without a knight)
- Don’t feel like talking (Drawing: Lines inside hand)
- Free hand (Drawing: Left hand)
- Drawing: Left hand 2
- Beware of details (Sketch: Chair)
- Negative space (Drawing: Negative chair)
- Drawing: Naked chair
- An Irishmans difficulties with the Dutch language
I’ve finally finished my drawing of my chair without the pillows and as you can see I’m not very satisfied with the result.
It is a difficult drawing. Especially the curved lines that must be drawn at an angle.
I’m not sure what I should expect from myself with this kinds of drawings. But I keep seeing a lot of details that aren’t drawn the way they should.
Probable it just means that I’ll have to revisit this drawing at some point.
Naked chair
(For those who can’t read the comments (starting at the top and going clock wise): wrong angle, to thick, wrong shape, wrong angle, wrong angle, should be further forward, lost my patience)
I almost forgot.
This is more or less the negative space drawing assignment for the right side of the brain book. Of course the drawing for the book should only have an out line were as I tried to draw the details on the in site of the chair.
One trick that the book teaches and that I found to be something of a mix blessing is how to judge what the proportions of the different parts of the chair.
You just pick a line on your subject that is of a middle length. That line is called “one unit”. Then you compare every other line in you subject to that unit.
To translate it to your drawing you pick a unit that is nicely proportionated to the size of your paper to measure your subject.
The nice thing about this method is that it’s very easy figure out how to get the interesting parts of your subject on the paper without it being to small or to large.
I found that the down side is that it’s very hard to judge the length of lines that are much shorter then your unit. Is a line 1/5 or 1/6 of the length of the unit?
For this kind of drawing it does matter.
See me draw
I think that you are being a bit too hard on yourself.
Look at the things that are right about the chair. Every drawing does not have to be a perfectly accurate drawing. You have captured your chair, and it would work well for a painting.
Now, if you really want to capture that chair perfectly realistically, there are several ways to do that. One way is to use a grid.
Another way is to begin with a horizon line to represent eye level, then use two point, or more, perspective to draw the chair. And use a ruler. You don’t have to measure things so precisely as to 1/16th or 1/5 measurements. You can kind of “eyeball it”, but use the ruler to get your angles, and length and width, and to place the parts. And, if you have a doubt about something, stop and measure.
Also, stop and prop your picture up vertically from time to time to check it. Probably you are drawing with your paper on a drawing board or table, and that can throw you off as you draw. You are looing at something that is vertical, in front of you, but your paper is horizontal. So, of course, there can be problems in translating that 3 dimensional vertical object onto a 2 dimensional horizontal surface.
That’s why we use easels and lift top drafting tables, if possible. We couldn’t do that in most school classrooms, so I would tape the student’s paper on the blackboard, and have them stand up and draw. I would staple paper on my bulletin board, and draw along with them, at times. One year, I had a man make us some easels, but he made them cheaply, and they were too wobbly to use for drawing. I finally gave them to another department when they needed to display signs, and we went back to using the blackboard.
Draw lightly so that you can make corrections as you work.
And actually measure the parts as you work to make sure that you have the proportions correct.
The biggest problem that I see with the drawing of your chair is that the legs appear a little short compared to the back and seat of the chair. You might be using some foreshortening in making the seat of the chair more prominent, as if you are looking somewhat down into the chair, and that will work, too.
There are some minor corrections that you could make with the angle of the side rail on the right. You can easily fix this by using a ruler, and laying it down along the top edge of the left side rail. Then slide the ruler up to the top of the left rail, making sure that the ruler is at the same angle. Repeat for the bottom part of the rail.
You could also measure the arm rest supports. The far one seems to be a little thicker than the one closest to the viewer. It isn’t off that much though, but, it might feel a little better to you if you switched and made the one closest to the viewer a little larger than the one on the right.
The back cross pieces work, but you might check to see that one doesn’t stick out further than the other one, and that both either show the thickness of the wood, by showing the ends, or that you don’t show it in either piece.
I always told my students to draw lightly so that they could erase and fix things as they work. Sometimes, too, you just have to put something back for a while and look at it later, or you have to get someone else to look at it and see where you might be off a little. There’s something about looking at something for a while, to the point that you feel something is not right, but you just can’t see it, no matter what you try. It takes a fresh pair of eyes, as the saying goes.
It is apparent from your notes, that you have an idea of what you need to do, or what is a little off in the drawing. You just need to make those corrections.
The only time when you don’t want to do corrections as you work is on certain kinds of paper that would be damaged, or in some exercises where you have rules to follow, such as going with the first line that you put down, or not lifting your pencil until you have finished the drawing.
If you are trying to do a negative drawing of the chair, then do not draw the chair.
Draw everything that you see around the chair.
The shape of the chair will be filled in as you draw up to the edges. When you get through, there will be a blank spot, but in the shape of your chair.
It will look more like a contour drawing of the chair, but there will be no outline and the background will be detailed.
This is one way to train us to look at things, as are the other excercises.
I hope that this isn’t too long. And I hope that you will take this as in the spirit that I am offering it. I do not want to sound critical or anything like that.
I taught art/English and Journalism, in public schools in Texas for 36 years and have retired. But, you know, teachers just can’t quit teaching! I’ve used these things myself and in teaching so I know that they work.
Hope this helps. If you have any questions, I’ll be glad to answer if I can.
Hi Cecelia,
Again rather long. But you’re right.
I have never been a teacher but I have done volunteer work with children and mentally disabled and it’s true. When you start with teaching people it is very hard to stop.
I’ve been told about the method of the grid but have never used it because you would end up with a drawing with a grid that wasn’t in the real picture. I never realized that since it would be only for practice it doesn’t matter.
Maybe I’ll try it some day.
I’m aware that if you lay your drawing down and look at it the next day it looks different. Usually I like my drawing a lot better after I’ve scanned them. But I’ve never thought of it as a way to improve my drawing. Laying it down and starting an other drawing and later coming back to it.
Maybe. I’ve have to think about how to use that both to learn how to draw as how to use that for my blog.
regards Henk
Henk, sorry to be so long. That’s why I write novels…
Hi Cecelia,
Your right. Your comments are to long. Although I like it to get comments I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be better if you just wrote your comments on your on blog and trackback to mine.