Mastering Left-handed Sketching!

Well 'mastering' may be too strong a word but I have managed to finish my first sketch done with my left-hand. Having injured my right I'm endeavoring to continue my quest to sketch daily, now with my left hand, although admittedly at the moment it's more like once or twice a week! Not deterred by this, today I finished the left-handed sketch of one of the gargoyles from Merton College in Oxford. I've been using my favoured mechanical pencil and my Strathmore medium surface sketchpad.

 

Taking another look at the sketch I realised that the tonal values were not broad enough, I needed to have more tonal values and a greater distinction between the lights and darks. To do this I went back over some of the areas I'd already shaded and darkened some and then used the small eraser on the end of the mechanical pencil to gently lift off some of the lead in the lighter areas. Usually I would use a putty or kneadable eraser to do this but the mechanical pencil is all I have to hand and to be honest, it does an okay job given that my left-handed sketching is no Rembrandt!.

So hopefully you can see the difference in the tonal values between the two images. I think it makes the form look more solid. I'm still having to turn the sketchpad regularly to be able to shade at a more comfortable angle but I'm noticing that I have a little more control over the fluidity of my wrist movements so I'm not turning the pad as much as yesterday. Another noticeable difference in the sketch itself to those done with my right hand is the pencil marks are more visible; by that I mean the blending is rougher and so you can see the individual marks that make up the shading more easily.

 

I'm leaving the sketch as it is at this stage, I think to sketch in the hood would lose the form of the face as the tonal values are way too similar. It could be that my brain and my left hand are a lazy and easily bored combination and I want to go onto a new subject! On the whole I'm very happy with the results and well on my way to mastery!

Learning to be a Leftie

Disaster struck this week. One of the worst things for any artist - I broke my index finger on my right hand. I didn't just break the bone, I managed to get the finger crushed as well, so my right hand is pretty much out of action. I can just about hold a pen to write my name, yep, I'm right-handed, but it's so uncomfortable that sketching with my right hand for the next week or so is out of the question. So today I'm learning to sketch with my left hand. I have had to do this before, many many aeons ago when I was a student and badly cut my right hand (me, accident prone?!) but it wasn't a skill I kept up so I'm back to square one.

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!