It Gets Everywhere

The stars have aligned, friends, and I am finally taking a beginning drawing class at my local rec center. (I’ve tried to take this class a few times before, and it either gets cancelled, or it’s at an impossible time, or…)

It’s two hours every Monday for the duration of October, and apparently each month the teacher picks a technique for everyone to practice. This month we’re doing straight pencil drawings (which is good, because that’s what I wanted, and if it were charcoals or pastels or something I would be disappointed) and working on reproduction using a grid. Basically, you draw a grid on whatever you want to copy, and a grid on your paper, and then you painstakingly copy everything, square by square, to help you get everything in the right place.

We’re doing M. C. Escher’s Drawing Hands (just one hand, so as to not go insane). I mean, we are anyway, but it’s the thought that counts.

On one hand, I’m not wild about copying another picture, even one by Escher. It’s a good technique to know, I suppose, but I’d really like to learn more about how to draw in general.

On the other hand, I get two hours to myself to do nothing else but draw, which is relaxing and wonderful, and it really helps clear everything out of my brain.

So, you know, it evens out. Though I do really just want to learn how to draw, and shade. Specifically shade. I am terrible at it. Though I have learned, by copying Escher, that he doesn’t draw a lot of detail, but implies them through his shading.

Maybe books from the library?

I’m almost done though, after two weeks (there’s 30 squares, and I have 22 done), so I wonder what I am supposed to do after I finish. Hopefully not do another one. Though I suppose it’s not quite as relaxing if you have to think about what to draw where.

I smudge though. Not intentionally. Get graphite all over the side of my hand and then get it all over the clean parts of my drawing. I think the solution is to cover the parts I’ve already drawn with a piece of paper. Suggestions?

But I am glad that I finally got to take the class. It’s been fun, all things said and done, and the people are nice, and they are very complimentary of my admitted uneven shading. (The teacher complimented my interesting shading technique which is really me getting bored of making dots and being lazy by drawing lines on top of them.)

Trying anything new this month, friends? Suggestions for helping me learn how to draw? (Beside landsquid. I am good with landsquid.)