Inversion Therapy
This is an exercise that really teaches you how to look at things from a dissected, spacial-reasoning point of view. That's important in any kind of art, except surrealism, which is just weird. Like most of these exercises, this goes a good way towards providing a decent foundation for drawing, but it really comes in handy in teaching you how to see an image in simpler terms. If you're into still life or you like to try to redraw existing characters or scenes from pictures, you'll use this technique a lot.
Now, I'm gonna start off by saying that I'm not going to post an "example" of this for three reasons. 1.) Since I already drew these pictures once, it'd be kinda redundant for me to do it again; 2.) I don't remember what my second reason was; and 3.) because personally, I really hate this exercise. It just gets on my nerves. Apparently, this is because what it's trying to teach you to do I do automatically, as some people just do. You know who you are, too; a lot of artists have always done it, that's why they're artists, engineers do it but lack any real talent, so they become engineers, architects do it but lack any real imagination, so they become architects, etc..
Basically, you take a relatively simple picture, black and white lines, and flip it upside down and draw it that way. The idea is, your brain has trouble interpreting the overall picture, which is what you naturally do when you look at something. You skip right over the part where your mind considers the base shapes and angles and lines that compose the image and go straight to the image as a whole. This is very efficient behavior for someone who just wants to see stuff, but you're one who also wants to draw stuff, aren't you? You're not? In that case, get bent.
So what you're looking for and focusing on is this: concentrate on the interplay of the lines and the shapes formed between the lines. Look at the angles at which two lines interact when drawing them yourself. Do your best to accurately recreate the distances and gaps between pencil strokes.
The two pics I posted below are alright for this exercise, if a little light on detail and line-play. This is one of those things that, if you need help in this area, you'll have to work on, and that means more than two attempts. Go buy a Transformers coloring book, or something to that effect. Coloring books will always be your best bet, because you want to stay away from distracting things like color and overly-large pools of shadows and the like. You also want something with a lot of line-play, nothing too simple; the more detail, the higher the amount of lines, the better off you'll be, and the less likely you are to end up with a finished product that looks like an amorphous pen fart.
Oh, and it should go without saying that the picture you draw should be oriented in the same fashion as the one you are using as a model. In other words, don't be stupid and try to draw an upside down picture upside-right. If you were already that much of an art ninja, you wouldn't be doing exercises like this.
Now, I'm gonna start off by saying that I'm not going to post an "example" of this for three reasons. 1.) Since I already drew these pictures once, it'd be kinda redundant for me to do it again; 2.) I don't remember what my second reason was; and 3.) because personally, I really hate this exercise. It just gets on my nerves. Apparently, this is because what it's trying to teach you to do I do automatically, as some people just do. You know who you are, too; a lot of artists have always done it, that's why they're artists, engineers do it but lack any real talent, so they become engineers, architects do it but lack any real imagination, so they become architects, etc..
Basically, you take a relatively simple picture, black and white lines, and flip it upside down and draw it that way. The idea is, your brain has trouble interpreting the overall picture, which is what you naturally do when you look at something. You skip right over the part where your mind considers the base shapes and angles and lines that compose the image and go straight to the image as a whole. This is very efficient behavior for someone who just wants to see stuff, but you're one who also wants to draw stuff, aren't you? You're not? In that case, get bent.
So what you're looking for and focusing on is this: concentrate on the interplay of the lines and the shapes formed between the lines. Look at the angles at which two lines interact when drawing them yourself. Do your best to accurately recreate the distances and gaps between pencil strokes.
The two pics I posted below are alright for this exercise, if a little light on detail and line-play. This is one of those things that, if you need help in this area, you'll have to work on, and that means more than two attempts. Go buy a Transformers coloring book, or something to that effect. Coloring books will always be your best bet, because you want to stay away from distracting things like color and overly-large pools of shadows and the like. You also want something with a lot of line-play, nothing too simple; the more detail, the higher the amount of lines, the better off you'll be, and the less likely you are to end up with a finished product that looks like an amorphous pen fart.
Oh, and it should go without saying that the picture you draw should be oriented in the same fashion as the one you are using as a model. In other words, don't be stupid and try to draw an upside down picture upside-right. If you were already that much of an art ninja, you wouldn't be doing exercises like this.
For anyone that uses these pictures for this exercise, I'd love it if you'd send me a copy of your finished product at ArchAngel@StumblingAngel.com. I'll be happy to post them right here next to the originals. Don't be shy, I won't put your name on them, no one will be laughing at you.
Except me. I'll be laughing a lot. Hard.
Except me. I'll be laughing a lot. Hard.