Today I finished off the last of the two upside-down drawings I had to do, following the course in "Drawing on the right side of the brain". "The Complete Book Of Drawing" has a history of drawing section and I figured starting with the Egyptians would be a realistic challenge. Again, I really doubt mine would have looked anywhere near this .. non-terrible, had I drawn in the normal orientation.
In the next section the book wanted me to draw my hand without actually looking on the paper. The purpose is to sense the feeling of using the right side of the brain, focusing entirely on shapes instead of naming sections as you go along (index finger, pinky, etc.).
As you can see it was an amazing success. Still, one or two of the student examples in the book looked worse. Next tasks are: using the same process draw a relatively complex plant, a relatively complex thing in nature (I'm going with a rock), and finally crumpled paper. Here's a spoiler: the plant looks even worse than the hands.
The weather turned pretty good, so I figured I could use my newly acquired skills to try some landscape drawing. Close to my home there's a really nice park, and when I got there the sun was shining brightly at a low angle, creating some really nice dark shadows, and high contrast goodness.
What went well:
Sketching the outline went quick and without significant problems. I had forgotten my eraser - maybe that's why.
Shading went fairly well too.
Needs improvements:
Leaves are annoying, geez.
If you had asked me a couple of weeks ago to spend an hour or two sitting in the park drawing a landscape I'd probably look at you funny, but sitting there in the sun drawing to the sounds of Stan Getz, João Gilberto and John Coltrane was highly satisfying.
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