B.S. Donovan

I continue to follow the exercises in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Unlike in my misspent youth, I follow the book about as exactly as I can. IN the past, I’m sure I would have jumped all over the place, probably wouldn’t have even read the text, just gone to the parts that interested me. Maybe I’m a little more neurotic than I used to be.

Check out the sketch below. Part of the exercise is to draw directly onto a plastic viewfinder. You draw a vertical and horizontal line so you can see the proportions and relationships within the viewfinder. Then you draw that onto paper. You can probably see the lines a little bit. They cross in the middle, just over the nail on my middle finger. I also tried to use an eraser to make highlights, so you can see the difference in shading.

Emboldened, I went ahead and added an object. So, not just a hand, but a hand holding a cup. Getting a little crazy. Of course, that was in the book as a suggestion as well, so not too too crazy.  Below is what I was looking at when I sketched.

And below is the result. I like it, but it is feeling very comic-bookish. I think that my lines are a little thick. That’s probably why it feels that way.

And finally, I have gone straight over the edge and decided that hands are a thing of the past. Instead, you get to see my… legs. Again, this is from the book. I started this one with the negative space, the space where the legs aren’t, instead of where they are. It was surprisingly liberating. I paid attention to the shapes, rather than the legs, which is the object of the lesson. What you see below is a little thinner than the reality, so there might be a little wishful thinking that made it through to the page.