This is a continuation of a series of posts about learning to draw using the Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain concept. The last update was about drawing my first live model profile.

In the last two classes that concluded yesterday, we discussed how the Brain can interpret a small amount of detail and fill in the pieces, giving the viewer the ability to see the image intended by the artist.  Think R-Mode or right brain recognition of the image despite a lack of clear detail.  I’m not sure I said that in a clear way but an example will help.

Gustave Courbet a french realist painter in the 19th century, was known for one of his self-portraits that has informally been called the fisherman.  Note below the use of shadows and highlights and the seemingly small amount of information contained in the drawing. Yet, his self portrait is striking and memorable enough that many people recognize this painting, once they have been exposure to its beauty.

As an exercise in learning to draw with shadows and highlights we created a grounding (a dark shaded rectangle) using graphite and then began to erase and darken as needed. I “copied” Gustave’s famous painting upside down for 20 minutes or so and then flipped it over and added a little more detail. I worked about 10 more minutes and got to the drawing shown below.  When I set out on the exercise, I set a goal to draw as little as I can to see how quickly I could come up with a drawing that resembles the Fisherman. Or at least a drawing that can be recognized as a man in a hat with smoking a pipe.

I’m not sure my drawing look’s anything like Gustave’s but I do think it is a decent drawing given I had 30 minutes total in it, and it is my first highlight and shadow drawing.

At the conclusion of the class we started working on our self portrait. I have included an image of that drawing here for contrast.  This draft was done with about 30 minutes of drawing and a lot of set up time and juggling with the mirror and lighting.  In the next class we will spend 2 to 3 more hours on our self portrait.  So I do expect this to get a lot better. Lets hope so anyway!

I’m really enjoying the class and wish it would never end.  two more classes and then I’m done.  Hope to take the advanced colors class if it is taught in the summer.

The next article in this series is about drawing negative space.

This is a continuation of a series of posts about learning to draw using Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain concept. The last update was the draft version of this profile.

This is the final version of my first live profile. Of all the work I have done in the class so far, this is the drawing I’m most proud of. Within 20 minutes I had a likeness of Bill down on paper and after probably 1 and a half to 2 hours total, I arrived at this drawing.

When I first started drawing Bill my left brain wanted to stop me and kept saying this is too complicated and you don’t know where to begin. But then I was able to quiet the brain down, go to the basic unit of measure concept and mark the position of the back of the eye, the chin and the back of the ear. After that the right brain took over and and Bill started to appear. I’m now a very big supporter of the Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain concept.

All my drawing posts can be viewed here.

On to the Self-Portrait. Yahoo!!!!

This is a continuation of a series of posts about learning to draw using Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain concept. The last update was the simple profile post.

Last night I spent less than an hour drawing Bill. I still have more work to do on darkness and lightness. Given this is my first live profile I’m happy with it. I’m hoping to draw my family after the class is complete.

I’ll post the final version when its ready in a week or two.

This is a continuation of a prior Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain posts (Learning to Draw). See update 6 for my perspective drawing example.

So in the last class we practiced drawing a profile after learning some fascinating information about proportions and location of eyes, ears and more. Pretty cool stuff. Very Left-Brain information necessary to get the Right-Brain working artistically.

We practiced drawing a freehand copy of a profile called Madame X by John Singer Sargent .

Below is the image we used to freehand copy and then my copy. Still needs lots of work and you can see I moved a lot of lines around (the chin area especially) to try to get the proportion worked out.

The original Madame X by John Singer Sargent

And my Version

Tonight we are going to do live profiles of each other. Now that should be interesting.

This post continues the prior posts about Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - See update 5.

In update 5 I showed my first perspective that was done to learn some of the techniques. This example is our official perspective. I did this over 2 classes and a little at home. I probably have about 4 hours into this one.

It’s a corner in the speech center at the University of Richmond. Pretty complicated with lots of doors, hallways and trim work. I’m pretty pleased with this one with the exception I don’t have door knobs on the doors and there are some places where the proportion and angles could be a lot better. But all told, not bad for my first complex perspective.

I’m pretty excited about the process of learing to draw. I’m really looking forward to the process of the self portrait. If that comes out looking good, I’m going to draw my daughters after the class is finished.

Up next, we are going to learn to draw profiles.