Time to Learn to Draw - First Go

So this blog is going to be a way to track how I go with learning to draw. I've long thought that I can't draw. At some point in childhood I decided I couldn't draw and that was that.

Ruth has told me many times that anyone can learn to draw. I've felt sceptical.

Then at Christmas dinner there was a discussion about art as my uncle Eric paints and is quite good at it. I mentioned how I've always felt like I can't draw but that I've been told it's not true. Eric suggested I get hold of the book Drawing On The Right Side by Betty Edwards. He reckoned that would sort me out. Enthused, I used a Christmas book voucher to pick up the book at Readings.

This blog will be my way of logging how I'm progressing through the book.

January 14th: The first thing the book asks is that I do three drawings before we launch into learning how to draw. These are the "Before" drawings so I've got a baseline of how crap I used to be once I'm all mad talented and all that. :)

Anyway, I had to draw:
1. My portrait while looking in the mirror
2. Someone I know from memory
3. My hand

Here's how I did:

1. Me, in the mirror:

Thoughts: It's not great but actually better than I thought it would come out. I tried too! I don't think it looks like me though. It's not recognisable. But there are bits I like. The ears aren't too bad. Maybe the lines on the forehead aren't bad. The eyes aren't the same size. That's a problem. With that and maybe the shading under them, I could have drawn a demented and angry bad guy. I'm not sure I'd want to meet that guy in a dark alley.

2. Dad. from memory.

Thoughts: Damn this was hard. My ability to recall someone from memory is terrible. I can't get more than a vague likeness of even the closest people to me in my mind when I think of them. I'm not sure if most people can picture others better than I do or if that's pretty standard. I think the point of the exercise was actually to see what happens when we fall back on the old styles of drawing we learned from childhood. ie. eyes are basically almonds, the nose starts with two lines between the eyes and comes down and out from there etc. Sadly the guy in the above picture looks more like a prehistoric caveman than Dad. He's certainly not quite as hairy as that. I notice I've also drawn him with a beard and it's been a while since he had a beard going on that is as long as the one above.

3. My hand.

Thoughts: well it's not bad. Could have been worse. My wrist is a bit thin and the thumb looks like it was broken at some point in my past and didn't heal well but I don't mind some of the shading I used for the knuckles. Plus the fingernails aren't bad.

Overall, I was happier with the drawings than I thought I would be. I can also see plenty of room for improvement.