... on a tangent

I was so uninspired by my "folds" drawing, that I set out on a tangent tom Sian's sketch project. I figured I needed some help to see the lines and shadows of the fabric. I started looking on the internet, but most of the online tuition was on drawing clothes on the body. So then I thought to look on my bookshelf (I am truly ashamed to admit that I googled before looking for a book). I found Betty Edwards "Drawing on the right side of the brain". Bingo! A lot of the theory resonates with me, and I can hear my dominating left brain - trained for all those years in scientific research - harping on and on. Especially about the folds in fabric - "its all too hard and complicated", " its all just a bunch of lines", "get it finished".

... SO ...

Here are 3 days worth of pure contour line drawings of my hand. Draw the edges slowly while looking at the subject & not the page. I love them in all their imprecision.

I can see why I was quite pleased with a lot of my drawing last week. I realise now that I spent quite a long time doing those sketches, I lost track of the time most days & was having a really good time. I often thought about what direction the line was going, and how the lines related to the spaces in between them as well as to each other. I even remember thinking about how I had wanted to draw what I thought was there, rather than what was really there.