furniture

I got a little bored with only drawing my left hand, so I decide it would be fun to try the same technique on the chair I drew a few months ago.

But that turned out to be a little harder then I imagined. In drawing my left hand I started at the left side and worked my way to the right. Which was exactly what I tried with the chair. But for some reason the result was that the pillows got about ten times as big as they really are.
I thru two sketches out before I finally realized what I was doing wrong.

In drawing a hand you don’t have bother with details. All the fingers are about the same size. So it doesn’t matter that much were you start.
But in starting with a detail of the chair I made it very difficult to estimate how much bigger the pillows should be. To make matters worse, the pillows are at an angle. Which means that if you draw the angle even a few degrees off the pillow gets very much larger.

This time I started with the back of the chair. That’s the widest part of the chair. Since every thing else is smaller it’s a lot easier to estimate the size.

Chair

There’s only one thing I wonder about.
I’ve been reading further in the “brain book” and the author suggests to use a right-angled cut-out to frame the picture you want to draw and a piece of plastic to draw on. That is, draw on the plastic while looking through the plastic. Which means that you’re in fact tracing the chair on to the plastic.
It seems that even a famous painters like Vincent van Gogh used some kind of frame when he was learning to paint.
I use neither.
Does that mean that I’m very good at drawing? Or does that just mean that I’m kind of stupid?

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BAVO RNO

Tomorrow I have a apointment at BAVO RNO. That is an organisation that helps people with autism to find a suitable job. At the moment I’m working at the sheltered workplace Promen in Gouda who also should have given me a suitable job but instead they have me doing unskilled labor.

Mind numbing job

When I say unskilled I really mean very stupid work. At the moment I’m one of a two person team cutting ends of rubber to size. Last thursday I had a headache and worked with my eyes closed. Still my work was of such quality that nobody noticed.
Sadly that’s more due to the stupidity of the job then to my skills.

better job

Three months ago I did an intake interview at BAVO RNO. They told me about a methode they use to figure out what kind of work you’d like to do. Then they school you (if nessesary) and help you find a job.
I’m hoping I’ll be able to get something that involves a little programming.
In any event I should be getting work that pays a little more. Which hopefully will mean that I can work fewer hours and spend more time drawing and writing for this blog.

Reading about art

The only thing I remember from my art history lessons in school was that they were very boring. But since I’m doing a site about drawing and art I though it would be a good idea to read a bit about art.
Luckily the library has a large collection.

Although I’ve only just started I’m already finding that art history isn’t at all like I remember. Maybe I’ve changed but it’s very interesting to read about all those famous painters.

As a sort of bonus I’m finding that reading about art is giving me all sorts of idea for drawings I could make and techniques I should try.

Van Gogh

One of the painters I’ve been reading about is Van Gogh. It seams that the famous story about him that I remember from school isn’t true. The one about him painting for his whole live without ever selling a painting isn’t entirely right.
He did sell some painting and, more important, he was reconized by is peers as doing ground breaking work. It’s just that not everybody liked the work he was doing.

Chair with pillows and blue t-shirt

One of the funny things I read about Van Gogh was that when he was in an asylum he just went on painting. Lacking other subjects he did many paintings of the furniture of his room.

After reading that I realize something that I never thought about.
I tend to think of my furniture as very common because I see it on a daily basis.
But actually there are only a few people who have ever seen my furniture. Which means it’s as good a subject for a drawing as anything I could arrange.

Chair with pillows and blue t-shirt

Less perfect

I came across the website of a Dutch painter living and working in Wales. He has a vague style of painting. It’s just as though you looked through the wrong glasses.
I wanted to do the drawing of the chair in that style but although I couldn’t, it did help me. Instead of trying to get every detail perfect I tried to capture the chair as a whole.

Featured at See me draw

This is by far the strangest site I’ve come across up till now.
Apparently Scott Wade has very dirty cars which he uses as canvas to draw.