Lab 9: Wrong-Handed Portraits

Today's exercise involves drawing people with your non-dominant hand. According to the author, this is designed to help you get over your fear of not drawing a perfect picture. The rules are no erasing, so out came the black sharpie pens again. I worked from a picture of my four little ones (since the real four little ones are generally sleeping late at night, while I create). Here is the picture of (L-R) Gideon, Tabitha, Maggie, and Simon with their backpacks in different colors getting ready to leave the house for their first day of school, taken September 1, 2010:
Now, here's what I came up with on my first set of sketches, all done with my left hand:Pretty cool, huh?

Now, onto the artist trading cards. What I found is that I'm getting too good at drawing with my left hand. I used this technique with the cats, too, and after that exercise and then just the four drawings above, I created the following two drawings on Bristol vellum:




I wasn't very happy with these two drawings. It looks like I didn't even use my left hand. The lines are way too smooth. I think what I have here are just two bad drawings. Not at all what I wanted. I had to try over and over again to loosen up with my drawings. Looking away from the page helped to create a bit more freedom in my drawings. After many, many tries, here are the four cards that I am happy with, also on Bristol vellum using a black Sharpie pen:


Tabitha's portrait gave me the most difficulty with her hair. I actually started one drawing and set it aside and then, after many attempts, came back to that drawing and finished it up - - that's the one that I ended up choosing above. I really like these drawings and it's amazing how they seem to capture their personalities, as well. Simon's especially - who is a child who likes to please and make others happy, but is also a bit mischievous.