by Henk ter Heide on Wednesday August 5, 2009
I’ve been wanting to do a drawing like this for ages. But I just didn’t dare.
Actually I still don’t.
So I rushed it.
The big black part is to get it done fast.
Doing a drawing like this I understand the stories about the old masters drinking a lot of alcohol. At the moment I sure feel the need to rush down town and drink this doubting fearing feeling away.
But this drawing has one good thing.
It gives me a lot of ideas.
Strangely enough. About half of the ideas are for techniques I want to try without knowing kind of picture I would get.
And the other half are for picture I would want to make without knowing how to do them.
But something along the line I’m following now should work.
Blossom
Looking at this picture it’s clear which parts of the drawing I like and which I don’t like.
Clearly my next drawing will take a lot more time.
Good thing I’m on holiday.
I’ve been wanting to do a drawing like this for ages. But I just didn’t dare. Actually I still don’t. So I rushed it. The big black part is to...
![]()
by Henk ter Heide on Sunday August 2, 2009
![]()
by Henk ter Heide on Friday July 31, 2009
This was a very nice drawing to do.
Although I like to draw, it always took a large amount of effort to get myself to sit down and work on a drawing.
I always suspected that it had something to do with the autistic need for structure. But I couldn’t find a way.
On week days I could draw in the evening. But if I have a holiday I would like to draw in the morning. In the weekend I do my shopping in the morning so then I would like to draw in the afternoon.
So no structure what so ever.
After I had figured out what it is that I like about drawing I was planning to take some time out to find the best way to get some structure to drawing. But it wasn’t necessary.
Turns out that not knowing what I felt was the reason why drawing took so much effort.
This drawing almost drew it self.
Which is one reason why this was a very nice drawing to do.
Gaining heart
The other reason is a small victory.
When I first started drawing I thought that having a photographic memory would mean that I would be able to project an image on the paper (so to speak) and then trace it.
But I couldn’t.
I found I couldn’t keep up my concentration long enough. The image would get vague and disappear long before I finished drawing.
But while drawing circles in my last drawing I discovered that I could imagine how a circle looked and then almost draw it.
With this drawing I explored the technique.
I can put a dot on the paper for the center. Then I can draw a line to use as the radius. Then I can imagine that the line is a kind of cord that is attached to the point of the pencil. And draw the circle.
I checked these circles using coins and found that they are five of the best freehand circles I’ve ever done.
With the sixth I lost my concentration.
But it’s a start. A promising start.
This was a very nice drawing to do. Although I like to draw, it always took a large amount of effort to get myself to sit down and work on...
![]()
by Henk ter Heide on Saturday July 25, 2009
![]()
by Henk ter Heide on Saturday July 18, 2009
Only one doodle for today. But I’m satisfied. Partly because I actually like the drawing. And partly because this was a very busy day and I didn’t have time to do more.
Of course there was the usual shopping to do. To have enough to eat to survive the weekend.
But this morning my pc screen suddenly died and I had to rush down town to buy a new one. Which took a lot of time. Then I had to connect it and that took even more time.
Strangely the instruction on how to connect the screen where on a CD. But not having a working screen I couldn’t watch the CD.
After trying several times to connect the screen to it’s foot I finally discovered a printed version of the instructions. Which was, very intelligently, packaged with the last part you need.
Enclosure
Only one doodle for today. But I’m satisfied. Partly because I actually like the drawing. And partly because this was a very busy day and I didn’t have time to...
![]()
by Henk ter Heide on Friday July 17, 2009
![]()
by Henk ter Heide on Tuesday July 14, 2009
![]()
by Henk ter Heide on Tuesday July 14, 2009
Autistics don’t doodle.
I’m not sure why. But now I’m thinking about it. It’s probably something to do with the subconscious.
As I understand it doodling is when your hand moves subconsciously about the paper while your mind is otherwise occupied.
Autistics don’t have a subconscious. Or so I’m told. So no subconsciously drawing while listening to people at some meeting.
But subconscious or not I find doodling a very interesting process. Mostly because you don’t know what you’re going to draw before you start.
For the last year or so I have the feeling that it’s something I should try me hand at.
In a way because it’s the next logical step.
I’ve tried drawing from my photographic memory. But that became boring long before I got skilled enough to really show what I wanted to draw.
Then I tried my hand at a kind of projects where I thought of a picture before I started. Without it being something from RL.
But still it gets stale long before I get around to drawing the picture.
So the next logical step would be to start drawing without knowing what I’m going to draw. But that’s scary.
That I’ve been putting it off for more then a year proves how scary it is.
Or does it?
Thinking about it the other day I realized that it actually only proves one thing: I’m prone to procrastination.
And of course procrastination creates it’s own feelings. The longer you put something off the more frightening it gets.
But that doesn’t mean that doodling is scary.
From reaching that point it was only a small step to realize that my actual problem is a kind of writers block.
I’m afraid of that blanc sheet of paper staring at me. Waiting to be filled.
But there’s actually a very good method of getting through writers block called “Free writing”.
Just start writing.
Doesn’t matter what you write about.
Maybe a note to the milkman. Maybe only repeating words. Really doesn’t matter. Just start and go on for 30 minutes a day. Daily. For a few weeks. And at some point your writings will become meaningful. (To you.)
Free drawing would be doodling.
So that’s what I’m going to do for the next few weeks. And I must say I have high expectation as to what kind of drawings I will be doing in a few weeks.
After doing the first two I find that I’m not really doodling. I’m putting far too much thought in to the process. They’re more like a kind of quick sketches.
Even so. I think I’m going to learn a lot from doing a few of these a day for the next couple of weeks.
img052
img053
Autistics don’t doodle. I’m not sure why. But now I’m thinking about it. It’s probably something to do with the subconscious. As I understand it doodling is when your hand...
![]()
by Henk ter Heide on Sunday June 21, 2009
This was a very hard drawing to design.
Going with the theory of important lines within a drawing to catch the attention of the audience. This was meant as a kind of minimalistic design. In a sense to see how empty a drawing can be and still be interesting.
The idea was for one leaf on the sidewalk. But to make it more interesting I wanted to change the size of the tiles. I spend a few days thinking about the best size for the tiles (and being busy with other things). But when I finally had time to make the drawing I couldn’t.
It felt as though something was wrong but I could put my finger on it.
After a boring day of playing computer games I realized that I had made a mistake in the design and had no problem drawing it.
Lines and leaf
Probably you’ll have seen what the problem is.
These kind of tiles they use on the sidewalk have a fixed size of about 25 * 25 centimeters. And everybody knows that.
As an artist I am allowed to change reality in any way I feel will make my drawing more interesting.
But the trick is not to be caught. Since everybody knows the size of sidewalk tiles the leaf will seem very large.
I have thought of an other design using both a sidewalk and leafs. But that’s for the next drawing.
Commenting this and my last drawing
Although it’s not really a problem with this drawing. Again I had a problem drawing the right side and the left side of the leaf symmetrical.
In this case it’s not really a problem because I shaded and it seems as though part of the leaf is lifted from the ground.
I realized that the problem is that I’m not very good in drawing curves that run from right to left. So I’m tempted to start with the curve running from left to right. Which usually is the right curve. (I turned the paper to draw the leaf). Then when I try to draw the left curve my hand covers the right curve and I can’t see what I’m doing.
Might be a good idea to start with the left curve and see how it goes.
The goal in doing EyeSee was to test the theory that putting interesting features on specific lines would trap the eye of the audience in a circular motion.
But although I did like the drawing I didn’t feel that my eyes were trapped.
It wasn’t until after I had posted the drawing that I realized that the problem was with the background.
As in. There is no background.
The point is not to draw attention to features on specific lines. The point is to help the audience find interesting features in the drawing by guiding there eyes.
For instance a row of trees in a landscape could guide the eye to a few interesting houses. Or interestingly colored clouds could guide the eye to a mountain range.
This was a very hard drawing to design. Going with the theory of important lines within a drawing to catch the attention of the audience. This was meant as a...
![]()
by Henk ter Heide on Monday May 18, 2009
This is the first picture in the book by Jack Hamm. Although this is a very bad copy of the picture it’s actually the best face I’ve ever done. Because I now have kind of an idea as to how mouths and hair are supposed to look when you draw them.
The only thing is that it’s not much fun to copy a drawing by some one else.
I think the next thing I’m going to do is print out a bunch of famous faces and try to draw them.
Looking at the drawing I see that I still have a problem with getting the left and the right side of the face symmetrical. At least in part this problem has to do with the fact that I cover the right side of the drawing with my hand while drawing the left side.
Maybe I should start with the left side…
Posted on Flickr by Henk ter Heide
This is the first picture in the book by Jack Hamm. Although this is a very bad copy of the picture it’s actually the best face I’ve ever done. Because...
![]()
