draw

pencil and paper. I am glad to have gotten back in touch with the me who loved to draw. What do you know- I’m still her!

Oh and yay for dA, too.

I know the brain is a strange filter, and perception is subjective, but sometimes I don’t realize how much my picture of things (in my head) differs from what is actually there.

I’ve been practicing, trying to draw realistically, and I find that if I have a real-life model (an actual set of keys or person or plant), I do much better than if I am drawing from a photograph or another drawing. With a model, I still have my moments of “But… that’s not quite right… [re-gauge, re-measure, re-eyeball].” Lots of erasing, still. ;) With a 2-D representation, I try and look very carefully, draw, and then realize that doesn’t match in the least, and it takes me four or five times to get it right, or to see what the variation is at all.

Maybe it’s because when I look at an actual model, I think of it as “real” and my brain agrees to try and cooperate. When I look at a picture, especially a comic or something drawn, etc, then it’s a representation of something real- it’s not the real thing itself, and I find myself drawing my personal interpretation instead. It’s like I’m contributing to the artistic dialogue about what that real thing (or symbol) means, and I’m not so concerned with portraying it as it is. (And god help us if it’s an imaginary character.)

I find myself doing that a lot in life, actually. When I sing along with the radio, I often find that I’m not really singing the melody. I’m singing the harmony, by default, and I’m not even aware of it until I try to sing by myself. I think I’m just experiencing the song as it is, but I’m contributing (projecting, embellishing, distorting, whatever) something without realizing it. There’s always this interaction going on, and it’s easy and tempting to mistake the interaction for the real thing itself.

By nature I am a very imaginative person, which can be good and can be bad. I know that I experience my life not as it may seem to another, but through several overlays (personal prejudices and understandings, past experiences, wishes, dreams, fears, love). Sometimes the overlays add to what’s actually there, sometimes they detract from the actual, but they always interact with the actual and too often distort it.

Drawing realistically (or making the attempt to do so) has made me more aware of this in myself. It’s very therapeutic to me.

and put them away in a folder. So that, after having done the other exercises in the book, and practicing, I’ll see progress in a few months’ time.

In the process of learning to draw [which involves learning to control the tendency of the “Left Brain” to dominate the “Right Brain”], one also learns to control how one’s own brain handles information.

.... [Furthermore]

Part of what we see is changed, interpreted, or conceptualized in ways that depend on a person’s training, mind-set, and past experiences. We tend to see what we expect to see or what we decide we have seen. But this expectation or decision is not a conscious process. Instead, the brain often does the expecting and the deciding without our conscious awareness, and then alters or rearranges- or simply disregards- the raw data of vision that hits the retina. Learning perception through drawing seems to change this process and to allow a different, more direct kind of seeing. The brain’s editing is somehow put on hold, thereby permitting one to see more fully.

_{from the preface of 1989 edition Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (Betty Edwards).}

So in learning to draw, one is made aware of how one perceives and processes the world, and so one also learns how to better manage that, and how to be aware of the reality of the present moment more fully.

How wonderful it is when it all ties together. :)

and I am starting it up again. Enough of thinking I can’t do it.

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (Betty Edwards) came in today, and just leafing through it I can tell it speaks my language.

oone of my goals is to make my best friend a homemade birthday cake!!

Last night is the second night in a row that I just could not sleep, so I started using my pastels again. It’s been awhile since I have worked on any personal work so I am starting over with my still life drawings.I did these two pastels overnight,

I am not happy with this pear

but I love the green apple on the left. I am actually surprised at my work here.

Used to draw a lot when I was younger, want to start again. Interested in patterns, landscapes, buildings, surrealistic stuff.

If you can muster up at least 15 minutes a day to draw, it’s wonderful. i havent drawn in several days and my art muscle is chiding me for it! >_< time to hit the drawing board- (After cleaning room!!)