Ways IN to the Joy of Drawing
Not being able to draw a straight line is no problem at all. There are no straight lines in nature!
Why would the ability to draw a straight line be a requirement to be an artist? Straightedge rulers are made for that and can do a better job of it. Personally I would find it much more satisfying to follow the unfolding spirals of these yellow rose buds with my pencil.
courtesy of janani fotos, all rights reserved
Over the years I have come across artists who have created a pathway into the joy and mystery of drawing. Although too numerous to include in a single lens, this lens will introduce you to the books and teachings of
Kimon Nicolaides, Harold Speed, Frederick Franck, Betty Edwards, Julia Cameron and Michael Chaitow.
If you have ever had a yearning to try drawing, but have held back for any reason - I invite you to explore some of the pathways in this lens.
Table of Contents
- Kimon Nicolaides "The Natural Way to Draw"
- Contour Drawing
- Gesture Drawing
- "The Natural Way to Draw" on Amazon
- Harold Speed "The Practice and Science of Drawing"
- Line Drawing
- Mass Drawing
- Frederick Franck "The Zen of Seeing; Seeing/Drawing as Meditation"
- To See the World in a Bulb of Garlic
- Betty Edwards "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain"
- Making the Shift into Right Brain Mode
- Julia Cameron "The Artist's Way "
- Michael Chaitow
- Do you think this lens will inspire artists?
- In your opinion, which artist/author has the most to offer?
- View my artwork on Fine Art America
- Excellent Drawing supplies on Amazon
- Say hello, and tell me about your favorite art teachers or art books!
Kimon Nicolaides "The Natural Way to Draw"
"The impulse to draw is as natural as the impulse to talk"
If there were a Heaven just for Art Teachers, and I had a chance to thank just one art teacher (of the many I am grateful to) Kimon Niclaides would be the one.
"Just to see something is not enough. It is necessary to have fresh, vivid contact with what you draw through as many of the senses as possible."
Kimon Nicolaides
Contour Drawing
Kimon Nicolaides "The Natural Way to Draw"
When you look at your first complete contour drawing, you will probably laugh!, Nicolaides advises.
Contour drawing brings you into contact with what you are drawing with the sense of touch. It is done searchingly and sensitively.
With eyes and attention focussed 100% on your model, feel that your pencil is tranversing across the surface of the model. Your pencil then responds to every hill, valley, roughness, smoothness that you encounter with your pencil. If your attention waivers, stop drawing until you are able to gather back your attention, and feel that you are almost touching your model.

The point of a contour drawing is NOT to produce a great work of art that will impress all your friends. The point is to have a pure experience of looking, with little or no concern for what the result is on your paper.
The end result is that you may find a nose as long as an arm, a leg running right off the paper. And this is just fine. A finished contour drawing becomes a record of how well you looked at something.
The result can be surprising and may reveal more about your subject than if you tried too hard to get it right.
Let go any idea of "ME" and whether I can or cannot draw.
It is free. It is legal. Anyone can do it!
Gesture Drawing
Kimon Nicolaides "The Natural Way to Draw"
In gesture drawing, you feel the movement of the whole. You feel that YOU are doing whatever your model is doing.
But it is more than just observing movement, or capturing a specific position in space. Rather the artist seeks to feel the impulse that exists inside the model that is the cause of the pose. For example a feeling of sadness or hopelessness will show in many ways through a persons body language, as will a feeling of inspiration or joy.
Gesture drawing is done quickly, responding to the WHOLE subject all at ONCE.
Just LOOK . . . . FEEL . . . . and let the hand respond.

This gesture drawing was done as a quick response to a dancer I was watching at our local ballet studio.
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While contour drawing is to be done "painstakingly", gesture drawing is to be done "furiously".
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The analytical mind is best left OUT of gesture drawing.
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You can do a gesture drawing of anything - a chair, a snake, a plant. Think of its reason for being when you draw. A chair invites you to sit. A snake slithers through the grass. A plant with its roots in the earth grows upward reaching toward the sun.
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Should you decide to follow Nicolaides art course as outlined in "The Natural Way to Draw" - you will do HUNDREDS of gesture drawings. Use cheap paper and there is no need to keep all your drawings. The value is in the life that you learn to express.
From my experience, what you learn from gesture drawing will stay with you and be reflected in any future form your art may take.
"The Natural Way to Draw" on Amazon
Harold Speed "The Practice and Science of Drawing"
Pearls of wisdom from an English portrait painter
To the beginning art student, he recommended studying "line drawing" and "mass drawing". Each of these has its own type of expressive power are best studied separately at first. Otherwise, trying to master too many skills all at once - a beginner can tend to just "muddle through".
Once each approach has been practiced or mastered separately, the artist can incorparate both into a single drawing with much more effective results.
Line Drawing
Harold Speed "The Practice and Science of Drawing"
Think of it as a routine practice of scales by a trumpet player.
Although playing scales is the means to an end it is essential to the development of the musician.
And so with art study, the discipline of accurate line drawing will enhance your ability to express yourself artistically.

From the study of line drawing the eye is trained to observe and the hand is trained to make a definite statement. Harold Speed describes how to use horizontal and vertical lines for reference, block out key points, measure comparative distances, and portray light and shadow.
From this study you can learn learn the expressive value of line, the subtleties of contour and the construction of form.
Mass Drawing

Without the study of mass drawing the art student will lack knowledge of the tone and atmosphere that always envelop form in nature.
"Be unflinchingly honest to the impression the model gives you - dismiss the camera idea of truth from your mind. Instead of converting yourself into a mechanical instrument for the copying of what is before you, let your drawing be an expression of truth perceived intelligently."
Harold Speed
Books by Harold Speed
Frederick Franck "The Zen of Seeing; Seeing/Drawing as Meditation"
Zen and the Art of Drawing

I have had the pleasure of taking two weekend courses with this artist. Both times at the beginning of the weekend I felt the class to be too easy for me. We were instructed to find a leaf, branch or rock and sit and draw it for 30 minutes. I would wonder why it was necessary to spend so much time drawing one simple thing. Yet after persisting, my perception of the object would change. But beyond that my ability to see everyone and everything around me was enhanced.
At the end of one of these courses, I drew a quick profile of Frederick Franc.
To See the World in a Bulb of Garlic
Frederick Franck "The Zen of Seeing ; Seeing/Drawing as Meditation"

"When all the antennae are out, as they are in seeing/drawing the eye perceives and a reflex goes from the retina via the mind or heart to the hand."
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As to how a person progresses in drawing, Frederic Franc offers no recipe. Only to make the eye-heart-hand reflex more sensitive so that the hand becomes an ever more willing tool of the eye.
Let your pencil become an extension of your hand - a sensitive feeler.
If you are drawing a feather, let your pencil strokes BE as soft as a feather.

If you are drawing a holly bush , let your pencil strokes BE as spikey as the holly.
Books by Frederick Franck
Betty Edwards "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain"
Drawing is a Teachable and Learnable Skill
Inside each of our skulls is a two sided brain with two ways of comprehending the world around us. Most of us reside in a left-brain mode. To draw what you see, requires the ability to let the left-brain take a back seat and allow the right-brain to emerge.
Here is a summary of qualities of each side of the brain:
LEFT BRAIN MODE
RIGHT BRAIN MODE
Verbal
Non verbal
Analytic
Synthetic
Symbolic
Concrete
Abstract
Analogic
Temporal
Nontemporal
Rational
Nonrational
Digital
Spatial
Logical
Intuitive
Linear
Holistic
The abilities of the left-brain are highly valued in this culture and our educational system has been designed to cultivate the ability to speak, label measure, reason and keep to a schedule. The right half of the brain is virtually neglected in many educational settings.
Making the Shift into Right Brain Mode
Betty Edwards "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain"
One way to do this is to look at an image you want to draw upside down. Familiar things do not look the same when they are upside down. The visual clues don't match, and the left-brain becomes confused.
This creates an opening for the right-brain to simply perceive the shapes just as they appear. If the perception of the shapes is clear, the hand with the pencil in it can more easilly reproduce those shapes on paper.
~~~~~reference photograph~~~~~

In working on a portrait of a dancer show below, I used this photograph at the left as a reference. Although most of the time I looked at the photo right side up, if I was having trouble with a particular area of the portrait I would turn the photograph upside down. This allowed me to view the shape of the eye or the mouth for example exactly as is was. We have so many symbolic associations with the features of the face that it is difficult for us to view them simply as shapes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~completed pastel portrait ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Very often audacity, not talent makes one person an artist and another a shadow artist - hiding in the shadows, afraid to step out and expose the dream to the light, fearful that it will disintegrate to the touch."
Julia Cameron
Books by Betty Edwards
The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
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New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Workbook: Guided Practice in the Five Basic Skills of Drawing
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Julia Cameron "The Artist's Way "
A Course in Discovering and Recovering Your Creative Self
Do you feel that you are fully actualizing your creative potential? Julia Cameron specializes in creative recovery, and had designed a twelve week course that guides you through this process. This is a spiritual path to higher creativity.
When I was a child in elementary school, I loved to draw. Horses were my favorite subject and I had sketchbooks full of horse drawings. When I reached middle school this love of drawing went into a cold hybernation. I somehow got the idea that I had no talent, and it became embarassing to even try.

My story is not unusual. For many people the natural joy experienced in drawing and painting, withers away as they grow older.
The young creator of this painting had no artistic inhibitions.
The grown up in us can be skeptical, even judgemental of our efforts to be in touch with our creative sides. According to this author, judging your early artistic efforts is artistic abuse.
"The Artist's Way" pinpoints many core negative beliefs which can hold us back.
Books by Julia Cameron
Michael Chaitow
My Teacher
The dominant hand in us is usually capable of precision and some degree of control. To be instructed to draw a figure with the non-dominant hand (the left hand in my case) is unsettling at first. I couldn't quite tell what my left hand was going to do.

Using the Chinese ink and brush was a new adventure too. So just what is this supposed to be anyway? With a dominant left brain orientation a person can be skeptical, or even critical of what splashes out onto the page.

I felt so out of control at first. Who knows where the ink will run? Yet in persisting with these exercises, I found that a channel had opened to express a more intuitive perception.

Sometimes Michael would have us begin with the left hand, which made a loose and lively start to the drawing. After a time, we were allowed to use the right hand especially if more precision and control were wanted.
If the drawing became too controlled and tight, we could switch back to the the left hand.
This would lead to a lovely dialogue between the left and right hands. Not that all the results of our efforts were something to frame and display. However we experienced some connection between the rational and intuitive within ourselves.

Other ways of exploration in Michael's classes were to hold two pencils in one hand, or hold a pencil in the left and and brush in the right. We even tried painting holding a brush in our mouths.
I have come to appreciate life and energy in art so much that I sometimes prefer the initial drawing or sketches of an artist to their finished oil paintings. Something I really admire is when a finished oil painting carries the life and energy of an original drawing or sketch. But this is a subject for a different lens.
Do you think this lens will inspire artists?
current.............former...............or FUTURE ones!
In your opinion, which artist/author has the most to offer?
If you have someone in mind not listed here, please do visit my guest book, and let us know who it is!
Excellent Drawing supplies on Amazon
Strathmore Drawing Paper Pads Size 8 x 10 inches
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ProArt 18 Piece Drawing & Sketch Sets
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Sketch Book Value Pack
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Say hello, and tell me about your favorite art teachers or art books!
Hey no pressure! Just a hello is fine too
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Reply
- aj2008 aj2008 Dec 8, 2009 @ 4:30 am
- Inspirational lens! SquidAngel Blessings for you, from the mother of three very artistic daughters.
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- Braazenart Braazenart Dec 8, 2009 @ 1:19 am
- This is great! I feel inspired and will pick up the pencil in a minute ... thank you!
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- charlino charlino Dec 2, 2009 @ 6:48 pm
- From one artist to another, this was a joy to read through. Excellent source of information.
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- theraggededge theraggededge Dec 2, 2009 @ 6:10 pm
- Brilliant lens. Refreshingly so. Featuring it on my Zentangle page. More please!
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- makingamark makingamark Dec 2, 2009 @ 12:23 pm
- Excellent lens and thanks for your self-nomination. I've now added this group to the
Resources for Artists who draw and paint (HQ) http://www.squidoo.com/groups/resourcesforartists and lensrolled it on my lens about drawing and sketching http://www.squidoo.com/makingamark
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