A Mr. Miyagi Style Exercise
I call it that because it is sort of a "wax on, wax off" drill. It may not seem like it's very useful, but it does do a lot in the way of strengthening the muscles in your hand and forearm that you use while drawing, and that makes a bigger difference than you realize. At one point, as a teenager, i managed to break my right hand by punching a wall. (I know what you're thinking, but believe me, the wall deserved it; talkin' shit on my mom like that, what did it think was gonna happen?) after about two months of immobility in a cast, the muscles from just below my elbow down were good and atrophied. i spent the next two weeks drawing wobbly crap that pissed me off to an amazing degree before I finally rebuilt enough strength to draw anything decent, and even then it was a while before I'd reclaimed my former prowess, being able to draw retarded amounts of detail for upwards of an hour at a time before having to stop cause my hand started to cramp.
In addition to hand strength, this exercise also helps demonstrate a fundamental aspect of drawing on a two dimensional surface while trying to create the illusion of depth. The human eye/brain is pretty lazy, and is naturally drawn to open white space. Conversely, darker colors, either solid or clusters of lines, such as cross hatching, are perceived as being set into a design, behind the surrounding areas of lighter tones. when coupled properly, the light and dark areas of a picture fool the eye into sensing depth when in reality, none exists. Are you writing this down? This shit is gold, people, pure freaking gold.
All you need for this is your sketchbook and a pen or pencil. And time. probably a good bit of it. Maybe a beer or six. Keep one cold and save it for when you're through; if you did this right, your hand and arm will be burning at least a little.
In addition to hand strength, this exercise also helps demonstrate a fundamental aspect of drawing on a two dimensional surface while trying to create the illusion of depth. The human eye/brain is pretty lazy, and is naturally drawn to open white space. Conversely, darker colors, either solid or clusters of lines, such as cross hatching, are perceived as being set into a design, behind the surrounding areas of lighter tones. when coupled properly, the light and dark areas of a picture fool the eye into sensing depth when in reality, none exists. Are you writing this down? This shit is gold, people, pure freaking gold.
All you need for this is your sketchbook and a pen or pencil. And time. probably a good bit of it. Maybe a beer or six. Keep one cold and save it for when you're through; if you did this right, your hand and arm will be burning at least a little.
Start off with a totally blank page and draw a wave line through the middle. This is not rocket science (unless you're doing this with a sharpie on the side of a rocket, in which case I recommend you nix the beer. Alcohol and high explosives tend to lead exactly where you'd think they would.) It doesn't need to be fancy, though after you've done it once or twice, you can be creative. Anyone who tells you there's a set of rigid rules to any kind of art is likely an art major, or art history professor, and you'd do society a service by taking them out and bludgeoning them to death. If you have a quill on you, you can use their pseudo-artistic blood for this activity.
After you have your line, start on one side of the page (probably the left, if you're right handed,) and draw another line, bouncing from peak to valley all the way across the original line. Don't lift the pencil, just keep going till you get to the end.
Once you've done that, start over from the left, repeating the process above the line you just drew. There's no standard for how closely you have to pack the lines, but the tighter you make it, the cooler it's gonna look when you're finished, and the more you'll get out of the strengthening aspect of the exercise.
Keep it up till you fill the top half of the page. obviously, I stopped short of that, but like I said, this can be time consuming, and I have a website to run. Oh, also, I'm actually at my "real job" while I do all this.
The "mounds" of lines (what would you call them, smartass?) will most likely be bulging and growing. When they get too big or I start to get bored, I like to put new connection points in there for my lines. Try it. Or don't. I don't really give a damn, honestly.
Once the top of your page is full, go ahead and do the same thing to the bottom, but don't flip the page upside down to do it. Keep it oriented the same way, draw your bouncy pointy lines upside down this time. This is important, because it works a different muscle group, and they both need to be properly conditioned in order to optimize your drawing ability. I actually have no idea if that's true, I just made it up; it sounds good though, doesn't it?
And that, as they say, is that. This is one of many fun line designs I use regularly to fill in background space in doodles and drawings, normally because my strategy is "if you use enough pointless, extraneous detail, no one notices the mistakes you made in the drawing itself." This works, consistently. Everyone will look at a doodle I did and say things like, "That's an awesome dragon! I love the way you did all the individual scales and feathers!" while I just smile and think about how it was going to be a snowman till some idiot bumped my arm.
Here are a couple examples of this exercise done by people that aren't me.
