faces

To draw better you’ll have to learn to awaken the right side of your brain.

The idea behind Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is that the two halves of the brain have different tasks and different strengths. To clarify that the book has some information about research that is done and the relation between being right or left handed and thinking with the left or right side of your brain.
But I already knew most of that so I skipped that chapter.
The book did have a very interesting table of characteristics of the left and right half of the brain. I don’t know if I can put it like this but going by this table it seems that I use the right side of my brain much more then most people.

After this little explanation the book goes on with several exercises that are meant to awaken the right side of your brain.
The first is rather strange.
I had to start out to draw the left face (if you’re right handed) of the face/vase drawing and then draw the right side.

It seemed to me that would be a very easy assignment and it was. It took me about 30 seconds. The only hard bit is after you’ve drawn the forehead, of the right face, you have to decide whether the line should go to the right or to the left.
At that point you switch the picture in your mind from faces to vases.
Although it isn’t very easy to draw the vase exactly symmetrical the overall shape isn’t that hard.

Faces and vases

The confusing part started when I read on. Apparently you’re supposed to take five or six minutes to do this drawing. Why on earth would you want to take that much time?
I feel like I’m back in school and I’ve just finished some exam well before my classmates. Did I miss something?
There’s a two page explanation about why this drawing is so difficult and different solutions people chose to solve it. But there is no mention of what you should do if you didn’t have a problem.

That leave one big question. Isn’t this drawing a problem for me because the brain of autistics is wired differently. Or is this just something that is different in me.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Tip of my tongue

Have you ever had that you know what you wanted to say but you just couldn’t remember the words.
In Dutch we talk about having something at the tip of ones tongue.

I have a lot this type of experience. Not with words but with pictures.
Sometimes when I try to remember someone, his face is gone. I know he has a face but I can’t remember it.
For years I was afraid that would mean that I wouldn’t recognize him the next time I’d meet him. Although I always did it still it frightened me.
Especially the fact that it almost always were people I liked a lot, whose face I couldn’t remember had me scared. (Although it’s quite possible that I also would have had this problem with people I didn’t like. Maybe I never noticed it because I don’t think as much about people I don’t like.)

Do you like my work? Subscribe to See me draw

When I try to draw a portrait from memory I run into the same problem. I can remember one detail of the face and when I try to concentrate on the rest of the face, everything disappears. The harder I try, the less I remember.
While the face is disappearing from my memory I feel that if I would see a picture or a drawing of him I would recognize him.

Next drawing

After trying my hand at a drawing of a fire I thought I go on with playing with color and shape and draw another rockface.

Cliffside 1st sketch

Building a drawing

After I drew this part I found something strange.
I have no idea what is to the left of this point.
I do know what is to the right of this point but I can’t see it in my mind. I can almost feel it. I have the same feeling as when I have something on the tip of my tongue.

Not knowing what’s to the left of this point isn’t really a problem. It just calls for a re-framing of the drawing. Just like you would with a photograph.
I just didn’t think it possible to get in the same situation when your drawing from memory.

As I told you before I have a kind of syntheses between seeing and feeling. While I’m looking at something I can chose to “touch” it with a kind of imagionary hand. When I do I have a strange all be very exciting feeling.

Not being able to see what is to the right of this point I used my imaginary hand to feel it and got very, very excited.

The problem with getting very excited is that I can’t sit still. I have to move. Go out and cycle for a bit or just bounce through my room. Which means that this drawing is turning out to be much more difficult than I had expected.

A second problem is that I have to decide on colors while I’m trying to feel my way round this rock formation. It wasn’t long before I realized that I had made a mistake. In the middle of the drawing is a red-brown patch. Just below there’s a dark brown patch. The dark brown patch should have been much lighter. I tried to save it by making the dark patch reddish but it didn’t work.

To give myself some grip I tried sketching a part with a graphic pencil.

Ravine 2th sketch

Usually if I find a sketch isn’t what I wanted I put it away and start anew. This time I put the sketch in front so I could see part of the landscape. I figured that would subdue the excitement and I would be able to finish the drawing.
But it didn’t work. Or actually it did work but not in the way I expected.

The feeling of excitement left me completely and was replaced with a feeling of complete boredom. I couldn’t concentrate on the drawing and within minutes I caught myself making a mistake.

The next morning while looking at the inside of my eyelids I saw the Cliffside as it should be.
I’m not sure whether I already have the technical skill necessary to draw this picture. I get back to it.

Hack

I’m finding that I have some difficulty in drawing parallel lines. Especially when they are more then a few centimeters apart.
To make this easier turn the sheet of paper till the first line is pointing straight down. When you draw your second line straight down it will be parallel to the first.
You can use almost the same technique to draw two lines at right angle. Just turn the paper till the first line is horizontal. Draw the second line straight down and you’ll have your right angle.

Link

I would never call this Youtube video art but I am sure you never saw anything like this. It sure gives a whole new meaning to the word food coloring (Couldn’t resist ).