Draw-N-Paint

Lets start with focusing on box image number ONE to the right of this paragraph. If you where to draw it, it would appear simple to draw because it is simple and why may that be? Think for a moment and say what was the first thing that popped into your mind as you looked at it. When you first looked at this image did a thought similar to box or square register in your minds eye? If so you have just experienced an example of the logic portion of the mind kicking in and locking out the creative part.

Now lets make things a little less simple and look at box image number TWO to the left of this paragraph. It’s the same square as box image number ONE but turned one hundred and eighty degrees. Now did you  draw what you see versus locking into this image as being a box or square as quickly as the first image? More than likely you did have to think little about why this image was turned in such a way just a bit. Ah, the beginning of focusing in on something different that we are not accustomed to. The mind had to discern the locations of the lines for each of the box edges.

Hopefully your seeing an artist drawing concept beginning to form. In actuality by refocusing your thought patterns your retraining your mind to see as an artist sees things. Over the years of schooling the historical and mathematical areas are usually the dominating ones. Creative advancement in the areas art needs to be pursued by each individual as an extra activity.

Focus on distance and space between and in drawing elements. What do we mean by this? A hint was given when we turned box TWO one hundred and eighty degrees. The lines them selves became more interesting in our mind and the registering of the image being a drawn box was not the first recognizable attribute.

And here we introduce the image of box number THREE. It’s a square box again but with an added element. You need to draw it. When drawing it focus on the inner box and where it resides within the larger box. Take a piece of paper and pencil and draw it before moving on.

I’ll wait.

Did you think about the distance or location of the smaller box in relation to the bigger box without thinking that it was a box? How far was the outer edges of the smaller image to the edges of the lines on the bigger image? Notice I started to use the term image and not box. Migrate your thought pattern in that direction and you move from the logic side and open up the creative side of your mind. Yes it is a box but if your going to see as an artist sees you need to put what the image is on hold until the drawing is complete.

The whole importance in this drawing exercise is to help understand to focus on distance between elements or as some call it negative space. Don’t focus on what you can identify so much but what you can not.

Let’s move things around a tiny bit in the next two illustrations. Draw these two illustrations and while doing so look at the distance of the smaller images in relation to the larger images that they are in.

Practice these examples but when doing so don’t focus on so much what the shapes are in each box but focus more on the distances of the lines of the shapes are from the outer box. If you focus too much on the shapes you begin to lock into the logic side. Then the thought process slows down because you already know what it is. Your no longer creating. It’s a good little drawing exercise to check your focus.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 15th, 2008 at 6:16 pm and is filed under Graphite Pencil Drawing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.