artamaze by Katherine Hilden

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2019/09/16/facing-the-portrait-with-henry-raeburn-1/

Facing the Portrait with Henry Raeburn, 2

Posted in faces, Seeing, Upside-Down Drawing, tagged eye, Henry Raeburn, Robert Brown of Newhall, Upside-down drawing on September 16, 2019| 2 Comments »

JudyRaeburn

This student, Judy, also working upside-down, stayed with the assignment. So difficult, remember. It can be very frustrating not to be able to outline the eyes with some clarity.

But look, turned right-side-up, the face comes through with eerie intensity. Most striking is the eye on the shadow side of the face. Notice, that the only thing that says “eye” is the white of the eye. There is no other anatomical feature stated.

We will continue to work with faces in this class. What makes a likeness, an emotional expression–what draws a viewer in—all that is quite nuanced and fascinating.

To review the basic set-up of this assignment, visit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Raeburn

Facing the Portrait with Henry Raeburn, 1

Posted in faces, Seeing, Technique and Demo, Upside-Down Drawing, tagged eyes, Henry Raeburn, portraiture, Ribert Brown of Newhall, Upside-down drawing on September 16, 2019| 2 Comments »

HenryRaeburn I like to present my students with art work that feels modern but was actually done centuries ago. Henry Raeburn (1756-1823) was a Scottish portrait painter with a modern, romantic sensibility. In our fourth drawing class we were working from Raeburn’s portrait of one Robert Brown of Newhall (1790’s), about whom I know nothing, but Raeburn must have seen him as self-confident and introverted at the same time.

Now, the catch is that we drew Mr. Brown upside down from a b/w Xerox copy.

HenryRaeburnBWusd

This is a difficult assignment!

It’s difficult because, even looking at it upside down, you know it’s a face and that means you want to do it justice. You want to get it right. You know, for example, that the grayish smudge you’re looking at in the Xerox copy is actually representing an eye. An eye is a highly intelligent feature and it’s super important in getting a likeness.

20190905_114033

As you can see, this student could not resist the temptation of drawing a clear face with clearly articulated features. It’s interesting that Robert Brown’s keen intelligence somehow comes through in Justin’s line drawing.

But, alas, the assignment was not to produce a line drawing but to observe and duplicate the various shades of gray. So difficult, takes so much patience and detachment. We will have more exercises like this to practice.

http://www.masmorrastudio.com/wine-project

Marcos Alberti’s Wine Project

Posted in faces, Seeing, Technique and Demo, Upside-Down Drawing, tagged Maracos Alberti, Mary Petty, Upside-down drawing, wine project on October 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Because this is an unfamiliar angle, the artist/student thought she’d better tackle it upside-down. That’s because she didn’t trust herself to draw what’s really there; she would instead be tempted to “correct” the face and make it look more “normal.” Drawing upside-down helps you see shapes as shapes, not as labeled familiar things, and if you just stick to that program, lo and behold, everything will fall into place.

The photo is taken from the Wine Project by Marcos Alberti.

I highly recommend these photos for students to draw from.

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2012/04/12/upside-down-drawing/

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/drawing-sculpture/

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/up-side-down-face/

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/drawing-on-the-right-side-of-the-brain-by-betty-edwards/

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/09/30/ptolemy-in-ulm/

Drawing by Mary Petty, graphite on paper, ~ 14 x 11

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/drawing-on-the-right-side-of-the-brain-by-betty-edwards/

Drawing Sculpture

Posted in Achievement, faces, literalness, Seeing, Technique and Demo, Upside-Down Drawing, tagged Betty Edwards, Florence, Jeanne Mueller, Medici, Michelangelo, Photo, three-dimension, two dimension, Upside-down drawing on October 2, 2016| 2 Comments »

More precisely, drawing from photos of sculpture.

If you think of drawing as translating, then drawing from sculpture is easier than drawing from life, because the sculptor has already done the half the work for you. He or she has simplified the forms for you.

Taking this a step further, drawing from a photo of a sculpture means that two-thirds of the work has been done for you. The photo takes the additional step of flattening the three-dimension orm into two and two dimensions is where your drawing functions. Piece o’ cake.

Well, no, not exactly simple. You still have to get over naming what you’re drawing because naming—the whole verbal mode—gets in the way. To that end, we turn things upside-down. And to turn a Michelangelo sculpture up-side-down, it’s really handy to have a photo of the humongous thing, especially if the original is in Florence.

Drawing by Jeanne Mueller, graphite on paper, ~14” x 11”

Michelangelo Buonarotti, 1475-1564. The Medici Chapel, 1520-1534

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/09/30/ptolemy-in-ulm/

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulmer_M%C3%BCnster

Ptolemy in Ulm

Posted in Achievement, literalness, Seeing, Technique and Demo, Upside-Down Drawing, tagged Betty Edwards, choir stalls, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brainwards, Jörg Syrlin, Jeanne Mueller, Ptolemy, sculpture, South Germany, Ulm Minster, Upside-down drawing on September 30, 2016| 3 Comments »

When I bring in photographs of figures or faces to draw, my students more often than not choose to draw upside-down. This may seem counter-intuitive. I must have been persuasive, about three years ago, when I presented Betty Edwards’ theory and research on the subject: when you draw something upside down, you are able to disconnect your expectations and verbal labeling, allowing your brain to go into visual. And then–ta-tah!–you actually see.

Yes, the drawing you see here was made as you see it, upside-down, from a photo that the artist/student was looking at, also upside-down.

This is Ptolemy with is model of rotating heavenly spheres. He is one of the many historical and mythical figures that the sculptor Jörg Syrlin the Elder (1425 – 1491) carved out of oak for the choir stalls in the Ulm Minster, around 1470.

Here’s the sculptor, portraying himself at the end of a row of his figures, surveys his work. These sculptures, btw, are perfectly preserved. 1470! Very moving.

Building on the Ulm Minster in Southern Germany was begun in 1399 and completed in 1890.

Drawing by Jeanne Mueller, graphite on paper, ~14″ x 11″

https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/drawing-on-the-right-side-of-the-brain-by-betty-edwards/

Up-Side-Down Face

Posted in Achievement, faces, Technique and Demo, Upside-Down Drawing, tagged ease, Maggy, process, Upside-down drawing on June 14, 2012| 1 Comment »

This is a sequel to the previous post. One student, Maggy, really got into the Up-Side-Down thing—meaning, the value of this approach really sunk in. So much so, that when the Caravaggio exercise was done, she was the only one in the class to draw a face upside down from a photo. In the process, she noticed how asymmetrical the face was and was delighted by this discovery. When you’re drawing right-side-up it’s harder to notice such things because you tend to equalize, to perfect. That’s a no-no! The expressiveness and character in a face lies precisely in asymmetry.

Being all fired up by the Caravaggio exercise and then by drawing a face up-side-down, she then turned the magazine page right-side-up and drew the guy again. This was easy now, because her seeing was “true” and it took her no time at all, with very impressive results. It’s interesting to compare the two versions. The second view of the face, with the photo placed right-side-up, didn’t look anything like the UPS photo drawn previously. So, it’s not a case of doing the same thing twice, not at all. What matters here is the ease with which the second drawing came about and that was the result of the nature of the exercise itself.

“”Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain,” by Betty Edwards

Posted in Technique and Demo, Upside-Down Drawing, tagged Betty Edwards, brain, practice, progress, seeing, skill, Tribune, Upside-down drawing, visual mode on April 13, 2012| 4 Comments »

On August 1, 1979 the Chicago Tribune printed a drawing by Picasso. It filled more than half the page. Picasso fans immediately identified it as representing Stravinsky, but they would have been in the minority and that’s not what matters. What matters is that the drawing was upside down.

The caption read: “Can’t draw? Try copying this upside-down drawing. It’s one trick art teacher Betty Edwards uses to get students into the right-side brain mode. Because the left hemisphere cannot process inverted information, the student is forced to draw what he sees, not what he thinks should be there.”

As she was doing a demo in her drawing class one day, Betty Edward, a fifty-one year old art teacher in California, had to admit that she couldn’t talk and draw at the same time. Her dilemma had a physiological explanation: the left hemisphere of the brain controls verbal skills and the right side of the brain does the visual work. Since one has to dominate at any time, the two get into a conflict if you try to draw and verbalize what you’re doing at the same time. In order to subdue the verbal side, she made her students practice upside-down drawing. Within three months they could draw with astonishing skill and complexity. The before and after examples she prints in her books are breathtaking.

Three months!! ! Upside-down drawing is the most valuable exercise you can do if you want to learn to draw. Practice! Practice daily.

See previous post for how to set up your drawing exercise. Save your early work in a folder somewhere. Three months later, pull it out, place it next to your accomplished drawing and remind yourself that learning to draw was easy. Granted, it takes a rescheduling of your time, but an hour a day and two hours on Saturday or Sunday will do it. Congratulations! As Edwards says, if you can write your name and ride a bicycle (not at the same time) you have the necessary motor skills and hand-eye coordination it takes to draw.

In 1986, Edwards published “Drawing on the Artist Within.” Both books are recommended for their insights and instructions. But it’s not about quoting artists, dropping names and technical term, or knowing theory. It don’t mean a thing unless you set time aside to practice. Astonish yourself! Get into the buzz of drawing.

To quote Edwards from the Tribune article: “It can be a life-changing process in the sense that it’s not just learning to draw but learning to look at things differently, to see more. Many of my students say that life seems richer, that they look at people differently, not in the verbal way of naming—old, young, ugly, pretty—and dismissing, but that they stop and look at people’s faces and trees and plants.”

(I could not find the Tribune article by Connie Lauerman online. More on Betty Edwares at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Edwards)

Posted in Technique and Demo, Upside-Down Drawing, tagged Betty Edwards, crazy, Right side of the brain, technique, Upside-down drawing, valuable on April 12, 2012| 2 Comments »

At the end of the class, one of the new students said, “this is crazy.”

He had been trying to draw what I had tacked up on the wall, a line drawing of a person sitting on a stool with legs pulled up. The part that was crazy about this was that the drawing was upside down.

Not crazy at all. The only way to draw is to first see and in order to see you need to stop labeling what you see. You have to turn off the verbal part of your brain and switch to visual. Easier said than done. In fact, this is very hard. Your brain does not want to shut down the verbal facility, which it has worked so hard to refine. The upside-down drawing exercise subverts your verbal impulses and over time allows you to enter a visual state. When you’re in this visual mode, you get a buzz, a kind of high, an altered state, and, behold, you will see. It’s so corny to talk about this. It has to be experienced.

My new student listened to some of this left brain/right brain talk and my reference to Betty Edwards’ 1979 book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Oh, yea, he said, I have a copy of that book.

Right. Lots of people have copies. Or had, before they dumped them at some used book shop. If you’re not familiar with this book, you can pick up a copy at a used books store for, oh, about a dollar. When it first came out in 1979 it was all the rage and it raised hopes that everybody could learn to draw. Well, yes, everybody can. You know what I’ll say next, don’t you: you have to practice.

Upside-down drawing is the most valuable exercise you can do. Here’s how you do it:

• Find a complex drawing by an admired artist or a magazine photo that shows clear outlines.

• Tape it upside-down on your drawing board above the drawing paper which is also taped down.

• Observe large shapes and general directions. Draw these as guide lines. Keep them as part of the drawing.

• Start by drawing lines that relate to the edge of the paper.

• Observe aspects of a line: beginning and end, where it bends, relation to other lines. Observe negative space.

• Pull the pencil without scratchy backstrokes. For large drawings, hold the pencil so that your thumb is on top. Lean back in your chair.

• Leave faint lines in place. Erase if the lines are too confusing. You’re not aiming for a neat, “perfect” page.

• Do not invert the drawing until you are done.

The value of this exercise is in the concentration and the process, not in the result.