Monday 31 Mar 2008 by Orphi the AweKid.

So, I started reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain the other day.

I can’t draw very well at all. I had always assumed that there was some “trick” to it, some special technique that makes the seemingly impossible task of reproducing several billion lines with mathematically precise position, orientation, curvature and scale somehow tractable. So I took a course of drawing lessons. As a result of this, I discovered that… there isn’t any technique at all. You have to just practice, over and over again, endlessly, for many decades, and then, maybe, you’ll become a mediocre drawer. (Despite our teacher’s bold claim of “by the end of this class, you’ll all be able to draw well”. That didn’t happen!)

This book boldly asserts that once you learn how to enter the mystical trace-like state of the True Artist, you will instantenously become able to draw anything you desire with astonishing realism and effortless ease. In just a few days, this book will show you how to enter The Trance, and then everything will magically happen for you.

Yeah, right.

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Wednesday 10 Oct 2007 by Orphi the AweKid.

Well, I’ve just had a little go at sketching some stuff on my new sketch pad. Unfortunately, unlike the beautiful drawing I did last night, these drawings all suck. I’m going to blame the crappy BIC pen at work or the lack of a good resting surface or something. (Although in solemn truth, I’m just talentless…) We’ll see how tonight’s drawing class does.

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Tuesday 09 Oct 2007 by Orphi the AweKid.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but every time I visit a stationary shop, I have to stop myself buying everything in sight.

“Oh my God! They have pens! Pens that work!! Ooo, and *paper*! Oh, and it comes in different colours! And they have lined paper too. And graph paper, yays! Wow, over there they have rulers!…”

Maybe it’s something to do with never being able to find any pencils, pens or paper in my house? I don’t know. Anyway, it’s pretty addictive.

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Thursday 04 Oct 2007 by Orphi the AweKid.

Well, that didn’t go too well. I managed to arrive 5 minutes late, and I forgot to bring a mirror like they told me to.

Oh well. Anyway, they had a spare mirror, and I had a go at doing a self portrate. It looked awful, obviously. Then the tutor had a look at my drawing from the homework exercise. I thought it was actually quite a good likeness, but she was so unimpressed with it that she made me do it again. Indeed, I spent about 90 minutes working and reworking just one tiny portion of the image, and the proportions are still incorrect.

What can I say? I guess I really really suck at drawing…

(For what it’s worth, nobody else seemed to have done quite as badly as me. I felt particularly singled out. Still, I suppose this is to be expected for one of inferior talent.)

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Monday 01 Oct 2007 by Orphi the AweKid.

I don’t remember whether I mentioned it, but we were given a small exercise to do before next week’s session. We were given a line drawing by that Picasso bloke, and asked to copy it as best we can. Oh, but the drawing is upside down, so you won’t “recognise” it and you will see it “as an artist”. In other words, you will draw what’s there rather than what you’re expecting to be there.

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Friday 28 Sep 2007 by Orphi the AweKid.

I spent much of yesterday and a little of today drawing on PostIt notes with my ball-point pen. Trouble is, all you typically end up with is a nest of lines. Unlike a pencil, a pen only really draws in one shade of black.

Or does it? In fact, I seem to be able to get a small number of shades of grey out of mine. If I skim it across the paper lightly, it does make a faint grey line, and if I press harder I can full black. And then there’s various kinds of hatching to play with.

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Thursday 27 Sep 2007 by Orphi the AweKid.

Well, last night I attended drawing class #1.

My classmates consist of 1 grey haired old man, 3 grey haired old women and 1 apparently normal girl. The tutor is a 30-something women. (Bearing in mind that my assessment of people’s ages is scientifically proven to be wildly inaccurate.) She’s quite friendly, but she’s one of these people who is easily distracted into rambling at length about subjects tangential to what she was saying in the first place.

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