The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - Betty Edwards [102]
Now that you have, with great care, seen and drawn your own face and the faces of other human beings, surely you understand what artists mean when they say that every human face is beautiful.
A showing of portraits
As you look at the portraits on the following pages, try to mentally review how each drawing developed from start to finish. Go through the measurement process yourself. This will help to reinforce your skill and train your eye. Three of the drawings are instructional demonstration drawings from our five-day workshop.
A suggestion for a next drawing
A drawing suggestion that has proven to be amusing and interesting is a self-portrait as a character from art history. A few such examples might include “Self-Portrait as the Mona Lisa”; “Self-Portrait as a Renaissance Youth”; “Self-Portrait as Venus Rising from the Sea.”
“The object, which is back of every true work of art, is the attainment of a state of being, a state of high functioning, a more than ordinary moment of existence. . . . We make our discoveries while in the state because then we are clear-sighted.”
—Robert Henri
The Art Spirit, 1923
Two additional self-portraits by instructor Brian Bomeisler. Note how they differ one from another. You will find that your self-portraits will differ, reflecting the mood, feeling, and surroundings of each sitting. Remember, drawing is not photography.
A beautiful self-portrait in light/shadow by instructor Grace Kennedy.
A three-quarter self-portrait by student Mauro Imamoto. The composition is especially fine.
11
Drawing on the Beauty of Color
“No one knows how far back in time the human passion for color evolved, but . . . its transmigration from one culture to another can be traced from archaeological fragments as old as recorded history.”
—Enid Verity
Color Observed, 1980
Miss Helen Keller, who was both blind and deaf, writes of color:
“I understand how scarlet can differ from crimson because I know that the smell of an orange is not the smell of a grapefruit . . . Without color or its equivalent, life to me would be dark, barren, a vast blackness. . . . Therefore, I habitually think of things as colored and resonant. Habit accounts for part. The soul sense accounts for another part. The brain with its five-sensed construction asserts its right and accounts for the rest. The unity of the world demands that color be kept in it whether I have cognizance of it or not. Rather than be shut out, I take part in it by discussing it, happy in the happiness of those near me who gaze at the lovely hues of the sunset or the rainbow.”
—Helen Keller
The World I Live In, 1908
IN AN AGE LIKE OURS, color is not the luxury it was in past centuries. We are inundated by manufactured color—surrounded, immersed, swimming in a sea of color. Because of sheer quantity, color is perhaps in danger of losing some of its magic. I believe that using color in drawing and painting helps us to recapture the beauty of color and to experience once again the almost hypnotic fascination it once had for us.
Human beings have made colored objects from earliest times, but never in such great quantity as now. In past centuries, colored objects were most often owned by only a few wealthy or powerful persons. For ordinary people, color was not available, except as found in the natural world and as seen in churches and cathedrals. Cottages and their furnishings were made of natural materials—mud, wood, and stone. Homespun cloth usually retained the neutral colors of the original fibers or, if dyed with vegetable dyes, was often quick to soften and fade. For most people, a bit of bright ribbon, a beaded hatband, or a brightly embroidered belt was a treasure to guard and cherish.
Contrast this with the fluorescent world we live in today. Everywhere