Learning to Draw: Chapter 1

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Index of Chapter 1: Freedom from the Symbols

1. The Symbolic Perception
2. First Exercise: Mirror Images
3. Second Exercise: Inverted Pictures
4. Third Exercise: Void Spaces

Chapter 1 - Freedom from the Symbols

This chapter will teach you to active your artistic hemisphere when drawing, not allowing your logical hemisphere to draw its symbolic version of the world.

1.1 - The Symbolic Perception

What do you think when you see the following figure?

That's right. And wrong. The logical hemisphere instantly identifies it with a well known symbol and gives you its name and meaning, but it's really just three crossing lines:

The same thing happens when you try to draw something: the logical side takes the control and draws the symbol it has in its memory of the thing you are trying to draw. Most symbols are stored in the memory during the childhood, when you didn't still have good control of your hands, and that's the kind of things the logical side tries to draw, children drafts. And how to "turn off" the logical hemisphere before it takes everything it sees as a symbol? The next section presents the first kind of exercise to help you to get free from the symbolic perception while drawing.

1.2 - First Exercise: Mirror Images

The book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" suggests the drawing of "vase-face" figures as a beginning:

A vase-face is a classical perception test. If you look at the black shape, you see a vase, but if you look at the external white area, you can see two faces looking one another. To draw a vase-face, follow the instructions:

1. Draw the first face on the left side of a paper sheet. You can copy it from a model or simply print it. If you are left-handed, draw it on the right side of the paper.
2. Draw the lines of the top and bottom of the vase.
3. Draw the symmetric version of the first face. Don't name any part of the face (this is the nose, this is the mouth etc...), just follow the lines, see the angles, the lengths.

The "trick" of this exercise is to force the logical hemisphere to quit trying to do something it's not skilled to do: follow lines and curves to draw a symmetric picture.
Repeat the exercise two or three times, drawing different faces and even other simple symmetric objects:

1.3 - Second Exercise: Inverted Pictures

Another good exercise to force the logical hemisphere to allow the other to "wake up" is to draw an inverted image:

1. Take a black and white picture, without gray scales (no shadows), only border lines. More complex pictures are better, but not with minuscule and hard to see lines and details.
2. Fix the picture with the top side down and the bottom up (you may use an adhesive tape). You can use a computer and a graphic program to invert the image and draw directly from the monitor.
3. Fix a paper sheet on the table.
4. Choose a line or curve on the left upper corner of the picture (if you are left-handed, choose a line on the right). Study its length and angle with the horizontal border. Draw that line on the paper. Draw exactly what you see, so you'll draw the picture inverted as it is. Never name things, like "hands", "eyes" etc., just let your mind measure the length and angle of lines, their position and distance from one another.
5. Search for an adjacent line or curve. Study it and draw it. Do the same to draw all the picture, passing from one line to another. Don't stop until you finish. Never try to right the paper to see the unfinished work.

A sample picture:

Not used to do such exercises, you may be tired after the first drawing. And you may become surprised to see that it's not bad at all. Some parts may be out of proportion, but it's natural. There'll be specific exercises to correct the proportions.

After a resting, you will repeat the exercise using another pictures. This time, you may try to draw a picture with some shadows, instead of a completely black and white one. You can try some simple photographs.

Another sample picture:

1.4 - Third Exercise: Void Spaces

When you look at an object, the brain uses to look at the borders, lines and curves, giving the logical hemisphere the things it needs to identify it. A good way to avoid the logical hemisphere to take the control of the drawing is to look at the spaces formed by the lines and curves:

Now, you will draw the spaces of a picture. The procedures are similar to the inverted pictures drawing:

1. Take a B&W (Black and White) picture, without "gray scale" (no half-tone or dithering shadows).
2. Fix a paper sheet on the table.
3. Choose a space in the picture, any space. Study its size and border forms. Draw that space on the paper.
4. Search for an adjacent space. Study it and draw it. Do the same to draw all the picture, passing from one space to another. When you find very complex shapes, like the ones marked in red in the picture, draw the neighbour spaces, marked in blue, or the enclosing edges, marked in green.
5. Complete the picture drawing the loosen lines and the details of the more complex spaces. You don't need to draw all lines, because the purpose of these exercise is to draw spaces, not to fill them.
6. Repeat the exercise with other pictures, more complex, with shadows and even colorful pictures.

A sample picture:

Page last modified on 1997-April-9 Wednesday.

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