This year I decided to overcome my lifelong fear of drawing and confront it head on by committing to a daily art project. Then I doubled down by enrolling in a beginning drawing class at our local university. And tripled down by joining a group of artists who meet monthly for life drawing with a model. Finally I cracked a copy of "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain," a famous method of (supposedly) enabling yourself to overcome all sorts of left-brain obstacles and drawing exactly what's in front of you.
Time for a progress report.
First, the drawing class. The semester is over and I got an A+. I learned to do a pretty good job of drawing white geometric shapes such as vases, boxes, spheres and cups. Not so thrilled with my chairs, trees, flowers or outdoor scenes.
I learned that I like working in ink, that I like the softest graphite pencils, that I like the soft charcoal pencils even more but avoid them because you can't erase your mistakes. I learned that shadows and graduated tones improve when you blend them with a paper stump or your finger.
a not particularly good drawing, somewhat resembling my husband
I learned that you can go online and find any number of videos and tutorials on how to draw just about anything you can name -- and that some of them are way better than others. If you find a teacher whose styles you like (drawing style, narration style, video production style), find more videos by the same guy and learn how to draw other things.
I'm glad the class is over. My textbook, "Keys to Drawing" by Bert Dodson, was excellent and some day I might go back to it, redo some of the exercises that we did in class and tackle the exercises that weren't assigned. But not right now.
Next I'll tell you about my adventures with drawing on the right side of the brain. Stay tuned.
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