Friday, July 11, 2014

Drawing with your non-dominant hand

Jury duty makes you do strange things...like start writing and drawing with your off-hand. Interesting results. It's kind of crazy how your brain remaps neuro-muscular commands, i.e. it's not very good at it, initially. For the first few days, your arm is all over the place, but stick with it and things start to click... sort of. One of the hardest things to control are those deft, little strokes used for hatching and those controlled strokes used for strong contours. I'm actually going to keep with this..it is definitely the best way to break out of a rut. Makes drawing the same old thing a completely new, challenging experience. Here's a Hulk, sketched with my left hand in Krita (a fantastic free, open-source drawing program).


3 comments:

MrGoodson2 said...

What a great idea.


There's a guy in the Okie Comics Creators that has been using Krita. It's obviously a great program.

Tom Moon said...

Cool experiment Ronnie.

Surly Bird said...

Thanks, Tom, Ellis. It's a weird thing...sometimes you feel like you're getting the hang of it....then, suddenly, nothing seems to work right. It can be very frustrating and the temptation to use the dominant hand will become strong. I cave from time to time, but try to jump back to the off-hand as soon as I vent my frustration. Not sure if this little exercise has that much value, or an actual point, but I am trying to stimulate my brain and encourage better lobe communication...if that makes any sense.