Drawing with your other hand

[mtw]

I've been doing a lot of self portraits the past couple of days for a class. I'm kind of new to drawing so I'm having trouble with proportions. Anyways, I decided to try drawing with my left hand and I noticed that my proportions came out better that way. I also like the sketchy look of it. Could it be that my right hand had gotten too used to drawing my face, so I wasn't paying attention anymore to what I was doing?

[LeeSmith]

I think it is more likely that by using your non-natural hand you are forcing yourself to concentrate more on the drawing, in turn making you pay more attention to what you are drawing. I think if you put the same amount of mental effort into your natural hand you could achieve the same result, if not even better.

Lee

[Darrell Bowman]

There was a guy in the studio (i am a rendering artist for advertizing) that could use both hands. draw with one and paint with the other but they come along once in a hundred years but it might be you are good with both hands i play hockey with my left hands but write with my right hand.

try drawing the figure from the floor up
think of it as architecture and a building from ground floor.
and think of a invisible grid going up to find the points on ther figure etc.

also draw light so that you can search for the figure better
you want almost a H pencil line to start with then pull the figure up getting darker as you find the line that is right.

there is also different holding positions for a pencil some like
life drawing tip up and some between the index and second finger more of a bob peak line.

[mtw]

Originally posted by BASTION
I think it is more likely that by using your non-natural hand you are forcing yourself to concentrate more on the drawing, in turn making you pay more attention to what you are drawing. I think if you put the same amount of mental effort into your natural hand you could achieve the same result, if not even better.

Lee
That's probably what it is. I tend to rush with my drawings right now.

[fletchgirl]

I agree with bastion. a favorite mentor of mine told me that when he was in life drawing, he was like me (and like you, i'd guess, you go on auto-pilot when you life draw, huh?) and his teacher made him tie his art boxes to his wrists to weigh his hands down. :D he liked the results so much he kept them that way for the rest of the year! he threatned to do that to me, or he was gonna make me draw with my non-dominant foot! :eek: but yeah, that's probably it. it sounds like you were'nt actually "used" to drawing your face, but you never stopped and really looked at it. that's a good exercise too. look at whatever you're going to draw for even a minute or so before you start drawing. don't let your pencil go on cruise control!

[Martial Loh]

its funny you should mention this, as I have started to train my left hand to draw and write... It sounds silly, but Im worried that by the time i finish uni, my right hand will too stressed out by using the computer everyday! I cant say that im pleased with the stuff I've done with my left hand, but Im sure things will improve with time.
You guys made some good points above... cool.
Heh...half this message was typed by my left hand! Woohoo!