Back to the drawing board
So much for a daily blog….. well, I’ll try for weekly. New year, new term and my watercolour class at Haverfordwest community college were back at their drawing boards eager to get to work last wednesday, so I’m aiming for an art tip each week. This week we were working on drawing theory, learning to look at an object (for example your hand) and follow its lines with your eyes and pencil at the same slow speed. The trick is to keep your eyes on the object, not looking at the page at all. Try it – what ends up on the paper will be a mess because you’re not looking where the pencil is being placed, but it will get you in the way of looking and seeing – and you may be surprised at the result. We’re going to do more next week, silencing the impatient part of the brain that says ‘oh, don’t bother looking at that, I know what that looks like!’ Read Betty Edwards “Drawing on the right side of the brain” for more background. It’s a good teaching method – it worked for me!