The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards Read Free Book Online

drawing board. Now I have made our Portfolio available for purchase. It includes as well a two-hour instructional video of the lessons in this book.

    Construct a viewfinder as follows:
    1. Take a sheet of paper or use thin cardboard of the same size as the paper you use for drawing. The viewfinder must be the same format, that is, the same proportional shape, as the paper you are using to draw on.
    2. Draw diagonal lines from opposite corners, crossing in the center. In the center of the paper, draw a small rectangle by connecting horizontal and vertical lines at points on the diagonals. The rectangle should be about 1 x 1¼". (See Figure 2-1.) Constructed this way, the inner rectangle has the same proportion of length to width as the outer edges of the paper.
    3. Next, cut the small rectangle out of the center with scissors. Hold the paper up and compare the shape of the small opening with the shape of the whole format. You can see that the two shapes are the same, and only the size is different. This perceptual aid is called a viewfinder. It will help you to perceive negative spaces by establishing an edge to the space around forms.

    Fig. 2-1.
    If you are interested in purchasing a Portfolio, you will find an order slip at the end of the book, or you can contact my website at www.drawright.com . But the few items listed above will be sufficient if you would rather put together your own set of materials.

Pre-instruction drawings: A valuable record of your art skills
    Now, let’s get started. First, you need to make a record of your present drawing skills. This is important! You don’t want to miss the pleasure of having a real memento of your starting point to compare with your later drawings. I’m fully aware how difficult this is, but just do it! As the great Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh wrote (in a letter to his brother, Theo):
    “Just dash something down if you see a blank canvas staring at you with a certain imbecility. You do not know how paralyzing it is, that staring of a blank canvas which says to a painter, ‘You don’t know anything.’ ”
    Soon, you will “know something,” I promise. Just gear yourself up and do these drawings. Later, you’ll be very happy that you did. The drawings have proved to be invaluable in aiding students to see and recognize their own progress. A kind of amnesia seems to set in as drawing skills improve. Students forget what their drawing was like before instruction. Moreover the degree of criticism keeps pace with progress. Even after considerable improvement, students are sometimes critical of their latest drawing because it’s “not as good as da Vinci’s.” The before drawings provide a realistic gauge of progress. After you do the drawings, put them away and we will look at them again later on in the light of your newly acquired skills.
What you’ll need:
    • Paper to draw on—plain white bond paper is fine
    • Your #2 writing pencil
    • Your pencil sharpener
    • Your masking tape
    • A small mirror, about 5” x 7”, that could be attached to a wall, or any available wall or door mirror
    • Something to use as a drawing board—a breadboard or a sturdy piece of cardboard, about 15" x 18"
    • An hour to an hour and a quarter of uninterrupted time
What you’ll do:
    You will do three drawings. This usually takes our students about an hour or so, but feel free to take as long as you wish for each of them. I will first list the drawing titles. Instruction for each drawing follows.
    • “Self-Portrait”
    • “A Person, Drawn from Memory”
    • “My Hand”
Pre-instruction drawing #1: Your “Self-Portrait”
    1. Tape a stack of two or three sheets of paper to your drawing board or work in your pad of paper. (Stacking the sheets provides a “padded” surface to draw on—much better than the rather hard surface of the drawing board.)
    2. Sit at arm’s length (about 2 to 2½ feet) from a mirror. Lean your board up against the wall, resting the bottom