Drawing...

Well, I've been right into the drawing lessons and have spent a few hours each day working on them. I bought myself a proper sketch pad and pencil yesterday before carrying on with the pictures below.

I was just thinking about the timeliness of reading this lesson book and how it is really quite perfect for the winter season, and has given me some direction and purpose I was needing. I had started to feel unsettled with the days whiling away just reading books (which is very nice to do, but also a bit of a time-filler) and doing housework. So here I am tucked up in the house with the fire roaring, in the quiet where I have the time to do the pictures and let time run away on me, no guilt about thinking I should be outside in the garden ... and just being.

Yesterday I did another upside-down drawing (was quite happy with it aside from a few things out of proportion).

I then made my first attempt at a Modified Contour drawing. So where previously I had to draw my hand without looking at my actual drawing, this time the instructions said to look at your hand for 90% of the time, and the other 10% at the picture just to get a gauge on where the pencil is in relation to the drawing. The idea with the contour drawings is to let your eye/mind only see the lines/angles/spaces/shapes for what they are. By allowing your right-brain to kick in you are no longer seeing the picture as fingernails, fingers, wrinkles, knuckles as this is when the left-brain starts to try and draw on its logic and we continue to draw as we always have done (typically at a 10yr old level).

The first picture here was done as a preinstruction drawing - just to see where my skills lay prior to reading/doing the lessons. The 2nd is my contour drawing.