When I started getting serious about drawing I did a lot of it.
Copying my favourite cartoon characters, characters from books,
tearing out pages from the radio times and trying to recreate the photos,
setting up scenes at home and drawing them,copying family photos, drawing my own hand, drawing my face in a spoon.
You name it, I drew it.
This process wasn't always much fun. When you are trying to recreate something thats in front of you onto the paper and it looks nothing like the thing. gahhhhhhhhhh. So frustrating.
The harder you gripped the pencil, the crosser the lines became, the more I looked,
the less I could see.
One day I was sitting at the kitchen table, a giant piece of plain wall paper stretched out, tongue between teeth, trying to make what I saw there - happen here.
My mum walked past and sensing my frustration suggested turning the photo of the person and my drawing paper upside down and then looking again.
Wow , that simple trick made everything better, my brain relaxed, it stopped seeing a face and saw more a collection of shapes and lines, the pressure of making it " look like a face" was off and i just started to see more clearly what was in front of me. It became easier to sketch it down and when I was done and spinned everything the right way - Bingo!!
So as much as this is a hack for getting started with drawing , I guess its also a reminder to relax and remember that sometimes looking at things upside down is exactly what you need to do.
Let me know if you draw something, i'd love to see it.