New Experimental Work

I've been keeping myself busy with lots of drawing exercises and playing around.  The following are all experimental drawings except for the line drawing of a friend that I drew with an upside down reference.  

Thanks for dropping by. 

Strange shift of the brain?

I started reading, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards today.  So far, I've only read her theory and her research on the right side of the brain and I can already attest to how different each hemisphere is.  After a couple of months of drawing lefty, I noticed how I now skip many steps while drawing compared to how I drew with my right. I don't know for sure if the left hand uses my right side of the brain "better" but all I know is that my right brain is liking in more.  For example: when drawing portraits I usually would make light sketches of the round skull, the vertical line from forehead to neck, draw lines from ear to ear, perhaps a couple of lines from the ends of the nostrils to the ends of the mouth, etc.  From here I would do more and more value guessing and shape guessing until there was enough information on the page for me to really start.  But now, I just don't have the tolerance for all those steps and I just "go for it."  My methodology changed from "let's plan and take each step one at a time," to "let's get it right the first time!"  As a result, these portraits have never taken more than 2-3hrs.  So somehow my perfectionism has disappeared.  Now this could also be because of my sudden interest in blind contours in February or my timed bird-gesture-drawings-so I can't be sure.

The portraits so far have not had likeness successfully accomplished but I think that also is getting better with practice.  Perhaps a balance of my right and left hand drawing is necessary.  If you can guess who this guy is then I'll give you a......ehhh...idk......a....handshake! lol    

One More Portrait

Here's another one I did a couple of days ago.  I've been trying to make more of these lately but sometimes the left hand doesn't cooperate very well.  Keep practicing, thats' what Mr. Wakabayashi said. :)

4 Old Men

This summer, I'm just going to use my left hand only.  So after doing some blind contours, I attempted to do a couple of portraits in charcoal. They turned out better than I expected:

The Summer Has Begun

Alright, it’s summer!  The last summer of my life!-that is before college ends and the real world begins. 

So here’s my situation: I’m not going to be able to do much art this summer because of my tendinitis on my right arm.  Therefore, I’m going to focus on relearning to draw, and possibly paint, with my left hand.  This summer, I want to get prepared for next year’s graduation.  I want to hit the ground running!  So I plan to read up on a couple of marketing books as well. 

Once again, I’m going to use blogspot to track my progress.  This time, I will only post if I have made significant progress or improvement.  I dislike putting up bad work-so I won’t!   

Also, I’ll make a deal with you: if you comment on my blog, I will not hesitate to make comments on yours.  Please share your opinions and suggestions as I go.

Let’s get started shall we? 

The Final Spoonbill

 After another hour or so.

And then the finished piece.  ~6hrs in total.  By making all those gestures initially, it not only made the painting process faster, but I was able to emphasize the bird structure as it is about to flap it's wings.  

Starting a project

It's time I started a project.  I first selected the poses that I wanted to illustrate and then did a couple of 1minutes in pencil and 5mins with acrylic.  Then a 20min color study.  Now that I'm back in the mindset of gesture I chose the last bird to finalize.  

Here's 30 minutes of gesture and value painting on a 8x11" scale.  

And then 50 minutes of painting.  More to come tonight.