I know this blog hasn't been particularly interesting, informational or helpful in personal development lately. Im going through an interesting time and feel like Im learning quite a bit exploring these feelings. I thought I was a bit depressed from the loss of poker. It kinda feels like a loss of something important from my life. Haven't really decided if this is just a need for keeping things the same that is pulling at me. Regardless I have been having fun and filling my time with drawing and reading and a bit of cooking.
  On to the next bit of excercises in the book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" By Betty Edwards. You will recall the begining where we were drawing things upside down so as to not know what we were drawing. This seemed to really help me get back into the drawing mode. I liked my drawings a lot and felt like I did a great job. This next couple of excercises had me a bit uncomfortable and took me a few days to actually make myself do them. Drawing hands in foreshortened views is a dreadful task if you dont know where to start.
  The excercises were amazing here. The idea is to view things on a picture plane. Essentially look at something as if you are looking through a pane of glass. Close one eye so that the images are in 2D and then hold still and draw what you see. Paying attention only to the lines, edges and contours and not what you are actually drawing. First step was to actually get a piece of plastic and draw cross hairs. Then pose your hand and balance the plastic on top. Close one eye and draw using an wet erase marker directly on the plastic. I was amazed after I opened my other eye and saw what I drew as kind of similar to a 3D version of my hand. This was just to get a feel for it and to give you a  guide for sizing via the cross hairs.

I'll be honest that I don't think the drawing is that great in the overall scheme of things. I will say however that I am amazed that I got it this good. I never thought I could draw anything remotely looking like a hand. I included some of the other students drawings from the book just for reference.



I really liked this excercise and I think Ill do another hand drawing for practice. I started reading the next chapter already. Im getting really excited about the next excercise. This chapter is about positive/negative spaces. Essentially drawing things by looking at the spaces and edges around them. By drawing the spaces around the object you will essentially have drawn the object since the objects and the spaces share edges. Seems like a fun concept in my mind. Maybe over the weekend Ill find some time.

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