Part 1 ➤ Drawing and Seeing, Seeing and Drawing 20 Okay, ready? Spread your drawings out and consider the following: ➤ Can you see where, as a young child, you drew without particular regard for “correct- ness,” and instead drew to tell a story or as a response to life? ➤ Did you draw your family? ➤ Can you pick out yourself in the drawings? In Lauren’s, she always has long blonde hair, an interesting psychological point as she’s always had brown hair—long, but defi- nitely brown! Lisa always made her eyes very large, and it turns out they’re not partic- ularly big at all. So wishful thinking probably plays a part as well. ➤ Did you find drawings dating from when you were an older child? If so, can you see evidence of mounting frustration as you tried to draw complicated things or things in space or perspective? Can you see where you began to struggle for correctness to please the exacting left side of your brain? If your mother wasn’t a pack rat, try looking at the drawings of any child. What you’ll no- tice is how the process of development is almost always the same. As the child grows older, his or her purely visual response to things is hampered by the ongoing demands of the left Spread your childhood artwork out and take a look at how your own drawing de- veloped. Can you see where you moved from not worrying about what was correct to a more judgmental approach? What difference did it make in your work? 21 Chapter 2 ➤ Toward Seeing for Drawing brain as language, identification, and exactness take over and pass judgment on the more intuitive right-brain responses, particularly drawing. Here are two of Lauren’s childhood drawings of her family. Simple Materials to Begin While your first exercises require only pencil, paper, and some time, we will add more and more materials as your drawing skills improve. For now, we’d like to introduce you to the simple materials that will get you started. Think that paper is just paper and a pencil’s just a pencil? Think again! Paper, pencils, eraser, and a place to keep it all—and you’re on your way! Paper A pad of drawing or sketching paper (9" × 12" or 11" × 14") is nice to start, but you can also begin with some sheets of typing, computer, or fax paper. No excuses accepted here; begin on the backs of envelopes, if you have to. Eventually, you’ll want to explore what the shelves of your local art supply store have to offer in the way of paper—you’ll be amazed at the variety! Part 1 ➤ Drawing and Seeing, Seeing and Drawing 22 Pencils Any #2 pencil will work, but if you’re going out for a pad of paper anyway, do yourself a favor and get some mechanical pencils. In the past, these were used mostly for drafting, but they’re readily available and are great for drawing. They make a clean, consistent line that can be varied with pressure. Plus, they never need sharpening! Look for a pencil with a smooth barrel that feels good in your hand. Mechanical pencil leads come with different thicknesses and hard- nesses; a good choice is a variety of 0.5 leads in a range of hardnesses. For starters, HB and B will do; they are less smudgy than a standard #2 pencil, although a B is more smudgy than an HB. Mechanical pencil leads are labeled as to thickness and hardness on their little storage boxes. Check to make sure that the pencil barrel and thickness of lead correspond. It is handy to have a pencil for each hardness that you want to use. You can also buy the pencils in a vari- ety of colors to color code the hardnesses you are using so you know which is which. Eraser A kneaded eraser is best. You may remember this type of eraser from grammar school days. Like kneaded bread dough, it can be stretched and pinched into shapes to get at whatever you want to change—even the smallest line—and should be considered as much of a tool as your pencils and paper. Don’t settle for less than a good quality kneaded eraser. It’s the cleanest way to erase—and you’ll be doing lots of eras- ing! Drawing Board A simple piece of plywood ( 1 / 4 " – 3 / 8 " thick) with sanded edges and that fits comfortably on your lap is fine as a drawing board. You can also buy masonite boards at any art supply store, a place you’ll begin to fre- quent more and more. The important thing is to have a strong, flat, hard, smooth surface on which you can work without worrying about bumps and bruises. A Few Other Things Here are a few other art supplies you may want to consider buying now. They’re not ab- solutely necessary this early on, but you may find them helpful. ➤ While you’re up and about, you may want to buy some masking or artist’s tape. Artist’s tape does less damage to paper than masking tape, but the latter will work if you’re picking up a few quick supplies along with the groceries and it’s all you can find. ➤ A ruler will often prove helpful. If you haven’t got a ruler, anything that offers a straight edge will come in handy sooner or later. ➤ A few strong clips to hold your work to the board are an alternative to taping and are handy to have. More on these later. Try Your Hand If you live in an area where there’s a paper specialty store, you’ll want to stop by at some point. Take the time to feel the paper, to note its grain and tex- ture. There’s more to paper than meets the eye! Artist’s Sketchbook Pencil hardnesses range from the very hard Hs, which you can use to make a faint line, to the very soft Bs, which are smudgier, ranging from 6H all the way to 6B. Regular pencils are numbered as to hardness on the point. 23 Chapter 2 ➤ Toward Seeing for Drawing Exercises to Get You on the Right Side (of the Brain) So you’ve got your pencil, paper, eraser, and drawing board or hard surface. It’s time to get over to the right side—of the brain, that is. We’re going to provide you with two exercises that will help you begin to see the difference between how the two sides of your brain see, the classic Profile/Vase-Vase/Profile exercise, and a copying exercise. Profile/Vase-Vase/Profile This drawing exercise is used by Betty Edwards and many other art educators to demonstrate the difficulty of drawing while the brain is functioning on its left side. The “logical left” is not helpful when it comes to visual tasks best given to the “relational right,” as you’ll dis- cover when you take a stab at the exercise and experience your left brain trying to perform a right-brain task. 1. First, draw a simple profile, either the example here or an imagi- nary one. 2. As you draw, think about each part of the profile, naming them to yourself as you draw: forehead, eyes, nose, upper lip, mouth, lower lip, and chin. Try Your Hand If you go to an art store to pur- chase your first materials, let your- self look around and enjoy the place. Poke into the piles and boxes. Get acquainted with all the toys (they are toys, and you will like playing with them!). Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Learning to explore this new territory is an important aspect of learning to draw—and it’s fun as well! Here’s an example of a profile/vase-vase/profile drawing. Yours may or may not resemble this one. 3. For this exercise to be most effective, right- handed people should work on a left-facing profile, and left-handed people should work on a right-facing profile. Part 1 ➤ Drawing and Seeing, Seeing and Drawing 24 4. When you’ve finished drawing the profile, draw a horizontal line at the top and bot- tom of your profile, moving out from the profile itself. 5. Now, retrace your profile, thinking again about each feature and naming it to yourself as you draw. 6. Last, switch sides and try to draw the mirror image profile that will make a symmetri- cal contour drawing of a vase. Draw a horizontal line at the top and bottom of your profile. Draw a mirror image of the profile. Reviewing the Exercise Did you find this exercise difficult? It may surprise you to learn that most people do. That’s because the naming of the parts of the profile while drawing gets us thinking on the logical left, the side of the brain that likes to name and organize everything. It thinks it has it all figured out: The forehead, eyes, nose, lips, and chin make a profile. Repeating the names after you drew the horizontal lines on the top and bottom of the pro- file reinforces the left brain: Yes, that was it—forehead, eyes, nose, lips, and chin, a profile, all right—even with the lines! Next, the quick switch to drawing the opposite, mirror-image profile is a problem. The logi- cal left is confused by the task of repeating the profile backwards. This is a task that requires sensitivity to shapes and relationships, something the logical left is simply not good at. The profile is not the same as the other side; in fact, you may have found it difficult to draw it 25 Chapter 2 ➤ Toward Seeing for Drawing at all. Plus, the vase isn’t even symmetrical—something that strikes horror into the heart of the left brain (if it had a heart!). You may have tried a tactic or two to complete the profile and make the vase symmetrical. If that’s the case, how did you do it? Were you confused? Did you settle for a profile that was different? That would be letting the left side stay in charge of the profile, but the vase would end up asymmetrical. Did you ignore the names for the parts and concentrate on the shapes? Did you concentrate on the vase and try to make the line symmetrical with the first side? Did you measure or mark the curves or relationships between the curves? Did you start in the middle or at the bottom and work backwards? Any of these solu- tions would have been right-brain approaches to the problem, paying attention to the visual and not what you thought you knew. All right, we admit it: Your first drawing was a set-up, purposely a “left brainer,” full of identification and names. To match it on the other, right side required a switch to the visual, to see the shapes instead of the names. Drawing is easiest when you think the least, and just see the shapes, without naming them. The first profile is conceptual and imaginary, drawn from memory, but naming the parts makes it a left-brain activity. To really draw as you see, you must be able to make a perceptual or relational drawing, a right-brain activity. In order to match the shapes, rela- tionships, and curves on the second side and make the vase sym- metrical, you must focus your eyes and mind on the first profile in order to draw the second—and chances are, your left brain wouldn’t let you do that. Try Your Hand What this exercise asked you to do was make a shift mentally from your normal cognitive function— the left side—that named all the pieces, to the visual side—the right side—that cares about the shapes and the relationship be- tween them. That’s because the nonverbal right is better suited for the business of seeing than the linguistic left. The left profile, the first one drawn, corresponds to the left side of the brain; the right profile, the one copied, draws on the right side of the brain. The ability to switch modes of brain function is the ability to see differently. Once you master this switching, you’ll find that it’s very handy for all sorts of problem solving in your daily existence! Part 1 ➤ Drawing and Seeing, Seeing and Drawing 26 When the Familiar Gets Unfamiliar Now that you’re aware of the difficulty of doing a right-brain task while you’re operating on the left, let’s try an exercise that helps get you over the fence onto the right side. We recognize and identify things in our world based on our familiarity with them. We see, identify, name, categorize, and remember, so we think we “know.” That’s fine for facts: names, dates, numbers, concepts, and ideas. For seeing and drawing, though, a more flexi- ble, responsive way of observing is better, because things are not always as they seem. Mostly, we’re used to seeing things one way, right side up. Our left brain easily identifies an object and names it for us, and then we know what it is and feel confident and secure. But the familiar becomes instantly unfamiliar when it’s upside down or backwards. We ex- pect to see it right side up and are confused when it’s not. Upside-down shapes and rela- tionships are strange to us because they’re different from the memory we’ve stored from past experience. Our brain doesn’t like them. Right Side Up/Upside Down Here are two exercises to help you see how you feel when the familiar is somehow changed. Write your name (this is something you’re used to). ➤ Now look at it in a mirror—is it hard to read? ➤ Look at it upside down. For some, this is even harder to read than a mirror image. ➤ Try looking at your signature upside down and backwards. Does it appear to be hiero- glyphics or a foreign language—or no language at all? Right-handed Left-handed Student samples of the exercise drawn right- handed and left-handed. The numbers indicate the order in which each profile was drawn. 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 27 Chapter 2 ➤ Toward Seeing for Drawing Now, look at yourself in the mirror. This, too, is what you’re used to. ➤ Look at a photo of yourself; it will look slightly different because we are all a little asymmetrical, and the mirror image is the one we’re most familiar with. ➤ Look at the photo of yourself upside down. Does this look a little odd to you? ➤ Now look at it upside down and in the mirror. This looks even stranger, doesn’t it? Normal signature Upside down Backwards (in mirror) Upside down and backwards Try looking at your sig- nature upside down and backwards. Here’s Lauren’s. Photos of Lauren, right side up and upside down. Part 1 ➤ Drawing and Seeing, Seeing and Drawing 28 We know our world—or think that we do—because we can identify and remember. Upside down or backwards, things look a little odd or even unsettling, particularly faces and handwriting, because they’re asymmetrical. Our logical left brain is easily confused when our mem- ory is different from reality, and visual tricks or problems are frustrat- ing. The organized memory is of no use here and often gives up or over to the relative right. For us, that’s good news—it’s just what we want to happen! Copy a Complicated Drawing When it comes to a complicated drawing with detail, proportion, and foreshortening, it can be much easier to copy the image upside down as forgers do, concentrating on the shapes and relationships rather than on the drawing itself, which can seem intimidatingly difficult. A complicated drawing can throw the logical left into complete revolt and send it packing. That’s the idea behind this exercise—to see with the relational right. Try Your Hand If you need a new career, you might be interested to know that forgers practice new signatures up- side down, to pay more attention to the shapes of a particular hand and less to the letters themselves. You might want to try this even if you are gainfully employed. Just don’t try to pass one of those checks with a forged signature! Use these images to practice copying a draw- ing right side up and up- side down. 29 Chapter 2 ➤ Toward Seeing for Drawing 1. Select one of the previous images above and copy it right side up. 2. Now, turn the same example image upside down. 3. Begin a new drawing of the upside-down image. Here are some tips to try as you work on the upside-down image: ➤ Concentrate on the shapes, not the image. ➤ Don’t try to draw the whole thing first and fill in the detail. ➤ Start where you can see a shape and draw it. ➤ Think about lines. Which way do they go? Do they curve or stay straight? Where do they connect to other lines? ➤ Where are the horizontals, the verticals? Which way do they go? ➤ Compare shapes rather than identify them. How do they relate to others? ➤ Work on one area at a time. You can cover most of the example drawing and only look at the part you are drawing. ➤ Resist the temptation to see how you are doing or even think about it. ➤ Try not to think at all. Just look and draw what you see. Keep Up the Good Work Your second, upside-down drawing should be a significant improvement over the first, right-side-up one. Problems like scale, proportion, likeness, and detail that were very diffi- cult right side up are merely shapes and relationships when viewed upside down, and so they can be observed and drawn easily, one by one. You may have just done the first drawing that you liked in years by concentrating on shapes and relationships with the relational right and sending the logical left off to sleep. Fascinating, isn’t it? Amazing, even—and that’s just the beginning. When you can send the logical left on vacation at will and concentrate on seeing what’s there rather than what you thought you knew, you’ll find the door to drawing swing open! Exercising Your Right(s) Right side up Upside down Right side up Upside down . Hand If you go to an art store to pur- chase your first materials, let your- self look around and enjoy the place. Poke into the piles and boxes. Get acquainted with all the toys (they are toys, and. where there’s a paper specialty store, you’ll want to stop by at some point. Take the time to feel the paper, to note its grain and tex- ture. There’s more to paper than meets the eye! Artist’s Sketchbook Pencil. you can use to make a faint line, to the very soft Bs, which are smudgier, ranging from 6H all the way to 6B. Regular pencils are numbered as to hardness on the point. 23 Chapter 2 ➤ Toward Seeing