Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain

I first started the book and was instructed to do some pre-instruction drawings: a self portrait using a mirror, a portrait of someone I knew from memory (in this case my best friend) and a drawing of my hand, from observation.

As you can see below my self portrait is dire, the portrait of my friend is even worse, and the hand sketch isn't too bad. I think the hand sketch was better because I applied myself more to this drawing; I knew the portrait drawings would be bad anyway so I didn't bother with these too much.

Self portrait

Portrait of best friend

Hand drawing

After the hiatus; CTRL+ Paint, and Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain by Betty Edwards

About October 2014 I picked up a pencil again with a view to practise and improve on my art on a more regular basis.

I started with CTRL+ Paint, and got up to where many life studies are necessary, but I felt like I had to take a step backwards with my skills and brush up on the basics. After browsing a few forums Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain by Betty Edwards kept cropping up as a good beginners drawing book. So I promptly booked this book out of the library in October 2014, and finished it on 2nd January 2015.

At first I thought the techniques were a bit pointless, such as pure contour drawing, but as I progressed through the book I realised the techniques came in handy. I particularly liked the learning to draw with light and shadows, and drawing with negative spaces.

Over the coming weeks I'll share with you my drawings first from CTRL+ paint, then from the Betty Edwards book. You'll see by the end of the book just how much I've improved, though I still have much to learn.

CTRL+ Paint - Practising drawing simple forms in different angles

CTRL+ Paint - Drawing using just the outer edged of a form

CTRL+ Paint - More drawing outer edges of forms

CTRL+ Paint - Practising blocking out shapes to help with drawing more complex forms

Improving

Over time I have learnt more in my drawings, but not developed any sense of style yet. I feel I still need to improve my foundations of drawing before finding my own style.

The below are a random assortment of what I consider my better drawings, they are not necessarily newer than the ones in my previous posts, but I have spent more time and effort on them.

This brings me up to about summer time this year, from about summer was when I started on CTRL Paint, and I think I got the Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain in the autumn. Future posts will include drawings from both of these schools of learning.

So this is where my actual journey with this blog begins, I hope you'll join me for the ride!

Garnet from Final Fantasy 9. One of the pivotal scenes

 

Spongebob Squarepants. This was a challenge to mix something up. I'm a big kid and love this cartoon, so I loved drawing it too! Can anyone spot the mistake I made?

 

Stitch from Lilo and Stitch. This was drawn with chalks (just testing the chalks to see how I got on with them). On the original I spilt my beer on it (lesson learned - don't drink and draw!), but it was a blessing in disguise. I had to start from scratch, but on the original the head was too small.

Daily & weekend sketch challenges

In a bid to improve my drawing I joined the DSC on DeviantArt, or Daily Sketch Challenge group. I'm not entirely sure the challenges helped; it certainly installed discipline to draw every day, but due to lack of knowledge of the fundamentals of art, and the mostly obscure references the group picked for their daily topics I eventually lost interest. I usually enjoyed the Weekend Sketches more, as you were usually allowed more time to work on your sketch.

In the end I only did the drawings of which I had knowledge about, but during the later half of 2014 I all but stopped going on DeviantArt. I still check in from time to time to see if there's anything challenges I feel up to doing, but I get bored of drawing some super hero I've never heard of.

I've since found other inspirations for drawing on a daily basis. Please see my DSC's below and enjoy!

Weekend Sketch Challenge - George Harrison. I decided to keep the rendering simple on this, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out

Weekend Sketch Challenge - Jason Voorhees



Weekend Sketch Challenge - Kaa. I loved drawing this one, as soon as I knew it was Kaa I'd already thought of this composition, and as one commented put on DeviantArt, "that sly snake!".

Daily Sketch Challenge - Lock, Stock and Barrel from The Nightmare Before Christmas, one of my favourite childhood films

Weekend Sketch Challenge - Marilyn Monroe. This was my first ever WSC, and although I'm not happy with how I portrayed the folds in the dress I hugely enjoyed working on this WSC

Weekend Sketch Challenge - card for Mars Attacks

Weekend Sketch Challenge - Princess Leia

Daily Sketch Challenge - Ren and Stimpy. They used to show this adult cartoon when I was a kid, eating my dinner after finishing school!

Daily Sketch Challenge - Super Mario

Daily Sketch Challenge - Too Much Coffee Man. My first ever DSC!

Weekend Sketch Challenge - The Torch of Liberty. Notice how I struggled with the human form