So to make life a little easier on myself I've chosen to sketch one of the gargoyles from Merton College in Oxford. The reason for this is that the weathering of the stone face gives it a softness and simplicity of form that should hopefully make it easier to sketch given that my left hand is not used to even drawing a straight line, let alone creating fine detail.
It takes me easily twice as long to sketch the basic composition of the face than it would normally do, but with patience and perseverance I mange to render a pretty good likeness.
I can see already that things are a little 'off' from the original, the nose is not quite the right shape, the eyes are too simplified and I've got one of the fangs slightly too far out, but on the whole I'm impressed with my efforts so far. I'm discovering that as I'm thinking about sketching the lines my right hand is almost twitching to get at the pencil and paper. It's a very strange sensation. Maybe it's the frustration of not being able to effectively control my left and produce the fluid lines I'm so used to. Or maybe my brain's just lazy and wants the easy road!
Adding the shading means that I am constantly turning the sketchpad around to an angle that seems to suit my left hand best. I can go one way smoothly but not the other, so turning the paper allows me more control over my shading.
I'm planning on finishing this sketch tomorrow, although getting to sketch daily is not proving possible at the moment, it's something I really miss now when I don't get to put pencil to paper. By this stage of the sketch I'm almost 'in the zone' and don't even notice the time passing although I do find when I've stopped that I'm a little tired. It's not easy but it's definitely a challenge that I'm going to enjoy and hopefully I'll see significant development in my new leftie skills!
