I’ve been working my brain hard today with some reverse gestures and using my left hand for common tasks.
A good artist friend of mine recently broke his drawing hand. Yikes! He is in store for a challenging couple months as he does everything with his non dominant hand. But challenges, when faced and overcome, is where we grow the most so I’ve been inspired to use my non dominant hand also.
I’m not brave enough to work on a drawing with my left hand yet, but I expect that will come soon. What I have been doing is brushing my teeth and eating with my left hand. I’ve found that because it’s such a new and different way to approach such a simple task that I’ve become much more present with each. Besides, I’ve wanted to slow down how fast I eat.
This is very similar to one of my recent posts where I talk about walking differently to improve my joint health. Another exercise that has brought extreme presence to the commonplace.
All of this doesn’t have much to do with my drawing of Sheldon although I’m still working my brain hard trying to figure out the best way to describe curved shapes with straight lines.
Previous Sheldon Drawing Posts
- Back to Sheldon Cooper Drawing
- Drawing In a Hurry
- Conservation of Values
- Describing Form with Crosshatching
- Calm and Productive
- Transplant Anniversary
- Sheldon Cooper Drawing
Warm-up and DrawABox exercises
The normal 15 minute warm-up in graphite.
The challenges continue with the 250 box challenge. Another good page! This is the second in a row. The key is to slow down and consider each line. I should have known because this is what I have to do to make any drawing good.
Reverse Gestures
This exercise is also working my brain hard. Looking at a figure, reversing it in your head and drawing it’s reverse in less than three minutes is difficult. I think smoke is coming out of my ears…
Daily Composition and Sketch
Another sketch of my desk and a composition of a guy in an alley way shoveling dirt for some reason.
What went well, what was awesome! Celebrate It!
I’m working my brain hard with art practice and in life. If you ever want to slow down and really consider the hear and now challenge yourself.
What needs work? What did you learn?
Need to build up my motivation for the drawing of Sheldon, it is waning a bit.
How am I going to Optimize moving forward?
Tomorrow I’m going to try hard and find what is most interesting about my current drawing and focus on that.
I like trying to do mundane tasks with our non-dominant hand. It was weird watching you brush your teeth, because you were being a bit deliberate, and it seemed natural (because that’s my dominant hand). It does bring presence to our activity.
Yeah! It’s also very hard to remember to do it and not automatically switch. It’s very similar to bad habits! Easy to fall back into them at first.