Part 1 ➤ Drawing and Seeing, Seeing and Drawing 40 Another Set to Keep It Gone The “it,” of course, is that left brain of yours, just waiting for a chance to come back in and tell you what it thinks about all this drawing stuff. Keep it out of your life for a while. Try the same exercise, but with a household object, like a corkscrew or a pair of scissors. Pick an object with a complicated shape that will require the same careful looking and relating to shapes. As you see and draw, your own innate creativity will be accessible to you. The specialness of your eyes and mind is a gift. Use it! You’ll find that the pleasure of simple accomplishment in a high-tech world is a personal triumph. Contour Drawing of an Object—Without Looking If you would like to really see what a difference it can make to concentrate on just seeing and drawing what you see, you can make a drawing of your object before you start these exercises. Just do it, to the best of your ability, and set it aside. Then you can compare it to the second drawing that you do, when you can look again. 1. Start by setting up your area to draw. Your pad of sketch paper on your board and a pencil will do. 2. Seat yourself in a comfortable chair, angled away from your drawing board. 3. Take a good look at the object that you have chosen. Make sure that you cannot see the drawing itself as you draw. 4. Decide on a place to start on your object. One of the lines that makes the shape is a good beginning point. 5. Put your pencil down on your paper and consider that spot the same as the spot or line you picked on your object. Once you’ve placed your pencil, don’t look at the page again. 6. Look very carefully at the line that goes off from your starting spot. ➤ Which way does it go? ➤ For how far? ➤ Does it curve? ➤ How much? ➤ Is there another line that it meets? 7. Move your pencil, slowly, in response to what you see. Remember—don’t look at the page! 8. Look at the lines in your object, one by one as they touch each other, and try to draw exactly those lines that you are looking at. 9. Keep at it. Don’t look! 10. Remain observant and sensitive to the wealth of linear texture, shape, and proportion in your object, and try to put it into your drawing. 11. Keep working until you have drawn all the lines and shapes in your object. That it won’t look like the object you chose doesn’t matter; your absorption in another purely visual task is what counts. Has your left brain called home? 41 Chapter 3 ➤ Loosen Up Contour Drawing of an Object—While Looking Now, we’d like you try the same drawing, only this time, while looking. Even if it is a com- plicated object, you can get a decent drawing if you do just as much looking and relating of one line to another as you did in the other exercises. The contour drawing while looking should be done with the same focus on seeing the lines, but you get to follow your drawing hand by looking. Stay focused on what you see. 1. Change your seated position so you can look at the object you are drawing. 2. Take another good look at your object. 3. Pick a place and a line on your object to start with. 4. Pick a place on your paper to place and begin your drawing. 5. Make the same careful observations about your object as before. ➤ How far does the first line go? ➤ In what direction? ➤ Does it curve? ➤ Which way? ➤ When does it meet another line? ➤ Then what happens? 6. Draw what you see, not what you think you see. 7. Work slowly and carefully until you have gone all around your object and recorded all the lines that you can see. As with your first set of drawings, you’ll find that the more you practice really seeing and drawing what you see rather than what you think you see, the better your drawings will be. To tap into your creative energy and realize your potential is a great power, one you can use for more than just drawing. You may feel tremendously energized by the process. You can use this creativity to solve problems of all kinds, by looking at all sides of a problem rather than seeing things in the usual ordered way. You’ll be able to see the big picture, moving beyond the concepts to the relationships. Here are some contour drawings of objects done without looking. Back to the Drawing Board Looking while you’re doing the “blind” contour drawing is just the chance Old Lefty needs to come back in and try to tell you what you’re doing wrong. The point here is to do a drawing that has nothing to do with anything— except seeing the lines. Part 1 ➤ Drawing and Seeing, Seeing and Drawing 42 Farewell, Old Lefty These exercises should have made Old Lefty head for the hills for good. They also should also have shown you some beginning practice at seeing and relating shapes and lines, whether you were looking at your subject or not. In the next chapter, we’ll be taking a look at using the plastic picture frame, a surprisingly simple method of projecting an image onto paper. We’ve provided a set of sample contour drawings of objects done while looking. Chapter 3 ➤ Loosen Up Your Sketchbook Page Try your hand at practicing the exercises you’ve learned in this chapter. Part 1 ➤ Drawing and Seeing, Seeing and Drawing 44 The Least You Need to Know ➤ A warm-up for your eyes and hand is a good way for beginning artists to start a drawing session. ➤ Drawing brings you into a higher state of consciousness. ➤ Contour drawing focuses your attention and observation, while switching your cognitive brain function from the “logical left” to the “relational right.” ➤ Looking carefully at the detail in any drawing subject will keep you working on the right side. ➤ You can see as an artist does and keep the left side out of the mix. Part 2 Now You Are Ready to Draw It’s time to meet some of the tools of the trade, including the view finder frame and the plastic picture plane. We’ll show you how to make your own view finder frame and plastic picture plane to take with you wherever you go, and how to use both of these tools to help with your drawings. Your first drawings will concentrate on learning to see an object in space, using a contour line to describe the shapes, and looking at the negative spaces in and around those objects. If you’ve come this far, you’ve already developed some real drawing skills. Now it’s time to start thinking about your studio and some more materials for your new work. . plane to take with you wherever you go, and how to use both of these tools to help with your drawings. Your first drawings will concentrate on learning to see an object in space, using a contour. contour drawings of objects done without looking. Back to the Drawing Board Looking while you’re doing the “blind” contour drawing is just the chance Old Lefty needs to come back in and try to. mix. Part 2 Now You Are Ready to Draw It’s time to meet some of the tools of the trade, including the view finder frame and the plastic picture plane. We’ll show you how to make your own view finder