Man In Pink And Green

Drawn Thursday morning, from life.

Pastel and charcoal on approximately 10"x16" pastel paper.

Another drawing with my non-dominant hand.  This time, I remembered to angle the easel appropriately. 



After this drawing, another artist and I played a game.  We each started drawing, switched drawings and easels after 10 minutes, and continued switching until one of us declared a drawing done.  Interesting exercise in working with another person's starting vision and materials   The final drawings, which I will not post, are amalgams of style and vision.

To clarify, this posted drawing is not one of the two-artist drawings.  Those ended up looking like a tug of war was fought over them, with line over line, concept over concept, color over color.  Kind of a mess.

This drawing had one artist, me.  

Sketches Of Woman In Marker And Ink; Seated Woman With Feathered Back; Reclining Woman With Feathered Back

 Drawn yesterday morning, from life.

The first  is Tombow marker and ink on Yupo paper, about !8"x24".

The remaining two are Tombow marker and ink on 9"x12" drawing paper.

The model has an amazing, elaborate and beautiful tattoo of feathers on her back and upper arms. It was added to her body over the course of a summer.

I did all the one minute poses (the drawings in the background of the top drawing) with my left hand, and I also did large portions of the remaining drawings with my left hand (sometimes I'd forget, when coming back to a longer pose).  The longer poses this day were from 15 minutes to 30 minutes long.

Using my left hand for drawing is not what I normally do.  So I am much slower with that hand.  But the most awkward part was that I am so used to setting things up for right-handed drawing that I placed my easel in a very unnatural position for left-handed drawing.

It's fun to switch to the non-dominant hand, and I find it also helps to diminish bad habits:  seems like a fresher take on the subject matter.

Why draw with the non-dominant hand?

Well, it is a standard drawing exercise. The idea is that it frees one up to use the "right brain" to draw with. I don't know how valid this concept is, but it is a popular notion.

A practical reason, that PA is now bumping up against, is that sometimes you need to. Hands wear out or get injured.

Exercising that spare hand and arm and training and strengthening them, just gives the artist an extra drawing arm: a good thing.