Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain

Quite a while ago now while listening to Fatman on Batman, a pod cast hosted by Kevin Smith (Yes, the one that made Clerks, and not the Matrix), Greg Capullo current artist on Batman was on.  During his interview he mentioned that while he was trying to break into the comics industry he got advised to read through a book called Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain by Betty Edwards.

Having just started paternity leave I actually had the time to go to the library and they had the book! My intention is to work through the book, and each Sunday I’ll post up some of the exercises that go with each chapter, that way if you can’t get the book, you can at least do the exercises, though, for full value I would recommend getting a hold of a copy as the text is worth the read so far.

So the first drawing exercise is the pre-instruction drawings.

1) Draw the face of someone while you look at them.  I was alone in the basement, so I used my superman toy since he has no mask or anything.

2) Draw a person without looking at anything.

3) Look at your non-drawing hand, and draw it.

4) Draw a chair while looking at a chair.

About each drawing asses what you don’t like, and what you do like.  I’ll keep those for myself other than that I’m a bit disappointed in the Superman headshot, and my hand looks weird.  I do like the person though (which is clearly me) but I was able in that drawing to revert to my usual style.

Next week, the first couple of actual exercises.  If you have any questions, or you use the basic instructions of the exercises to do them for yourself, please link up in the comments!  This would be a great thing to share with people!