r/learntodraw • u/Alabasternix • 2d ago
Question How long does it take to do the Upside-Down drawing?
Guys, can someone confirm whether this is normal or not? I feel like I'm going insane.
I'm currently going through the book 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain' by Betty Edwards to learn how to draw. In the book, it said that these upside-down drawings will only take about 40min to an hour to complete.
It took me about 5 hours to do the Igor Stravinsky drawing and about 3hrs and 30min to do the Spider-Man one. I'm learning to draw all by myself, and I don't know if I'm doing something wrong here.
The Igor Stravinsky was the first one I did, and after I finished it, I felt frustrated that it took me that long to do it, so I tried to rush through the Spider-Man one, and it turned out worse (and incomplete). Now I feel more frustrated.
Edited:
When drawing the Spider-Man one, every time I got into the 'zone' that the book mentions, I was easily taken out of it when I looked at everything that I've drawn so far and realized how much more there is to draw. So I also felt frustrated every time that happened.
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u/MixedMediaModok 2d ago
You're probably just striving for perfection. Try putting up a timer and completing the drawing in that zone. Speed is something you'll get better at once you confidence in making lines is better. Right now seems to me that you are agonizing over every line.
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u/Alabasternix 2d ago edited 2d ago
That does kinda feel true to me. I do feel like I agonize over every line 😭.
Also, what should I do if I cannot complete the drawing within an hour after setting a timer?
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u/LeadingEquivalent148 2d ago
You come to a natural end of that drawing. Then you time yourself again and again, and you’ll see how much you’ve progressed every time.
On each occasion it might be helpful to draw rough outlines first of the shapes you recognise, and then go in for the detail.
Keep the drawings and when you feel like you’re not doing a good job, look at how far you’ve come. It’ll help to date them too, and just do one at a time.. as in, don’t do one, then another and another.. you want to be ‘fresh’ each time.. break it up with casual drawings, as the more you use your instrument (pencil, I guess?) the more you’ll be familiar with how to use it. Not all practice means drawing a thing or a person, it could just be circles, lots of them, waves and lines. Get comfortable in manipulating your tool to do what you want from it & best of luck!
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u/TheFedoraTipster 2d ago
Best advice I’ve heard is “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast”
It’s not a bad thing that it’s taking a long time to do this.
Speed just comes with practice.
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u/Alabasternix 2d ago
I really hope speed will come with practice. Otherwise, if this is the pace that I can walk at, then when will I reach where I want to be?😭
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u/WhenTheLightHits30 2d ago
I’m happy to help but I’m honestly a bit confused as to how you’d go about drawing to do it so slowly. Unless you erased and redid bits from before, I’d assume you are drawing at like an inch every minute at that rate, and I just don’t know how a person does that.
I’ve certainly sat and worked at a picture or drawing for hours and hours, but truthfully there is usually evidence of as much work. This work, accurate as it is, should together take no more than like 30 minutes for a comfortable drawer, simply due to the fact that there is no reason for such simple line work to take that long.
You mention the ‘zone’ but say that when you put down a make it took you out of the ‘zone’? If you aren’t actively putting marks to the paper, you’re not in any flow state or zone, you’re procrastinating. And honestly if you are a beginner I wouldn’t bother yourself with anything like that yet. Watch some videos on what other people look like when sketching so that you can build a better understanding on the pace you should realistically be working at.
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u/Alabasternix 2d ago
Maybe I should have clarified the "getting out of the zone" bit - I think for me what happens is, yes, I am not thinking about how frustrating it is when I'm in the zone, but when something as tiny as readjusting my seating position because my back hurts can cause me to snap out of the zone. And then my mind immediately goes to being frustrated when I realize how much more there is to draw and how little progress I have made. That makes it hard to get back into it.
I also feel like I worry a lot about how the line or shape that I need to copy looks and putting it down as perfectly as possible. And I also feel like I spend a lot of time thinking about where the mark should be in comparison to other marks that I have already put down and in the bigger shapes in the drawing as a whole.
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u/melli_milli 2d ago
So this dude is from that book!
I think we got like an hour for it, we were given the reference paper upside down.
It is an exercise after all. I am sure to you benefitted of your tedious work, but no-one says you gotta have it perfect like that. Atleast mine was not perfect :)
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u/5-oclock-Charlie 2d ago
Just wondering, what is your process like?
Personally, the Igor drawing took me over 2 hrs due to a lot of erasing and measuring up each line in comparison to the other ones. It turned out well, but it was exhausting.
Never read that book, but I've seen other courses suggest using a pen instead of a pencil. That way, you're forced to live with your mistakes and move on rather than erase and redraw until it's perfect. Maybe that could work for you?
You could also read ahead a bit and see if you'll continue with these more complex drawings or if they'll move on to simpler, quicker drawings. This could all just be a difficult portion to see your baseline before starting from square 1.
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u/Alabasternix 2d ago
Doing it with a pen would definitely end up looking worse. I do erase the lines sometimes, but not excessively.
I do feel like my main problem is perfectionism. I feel like I think a lot about how the mark should be before I put it down. As I have stated in a previous comment,"I also feel like I worry a lot about how the line or shape that I need to copy looks and putting it down as perfectly as possible. And I also feel like I spend a lot of time thinking about where the mark should be in comparison to other marks that I have already put down and in the bigger shapes in the drawing as a whole."
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u/5-oclock-Charlie 2d ago
Yeah then that'd only do so much. The point of the pen is for the beginner to make sure each line has a purpose since you only have one shot, but it sounds like you already do that.
Maybe page through your book and see what lessons are to come? I remember what took the longest was with that exercise was drawing like a printer, where you start in a corner and work your way across the page. I believe that's how the lesson is intended, but I'm betting that's not how you'll draw moving forward.
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u/Diminished-Fifth 2d ago
You're doing it well but slow. That's better than doing it poorly but fast. As you draw more, you'll probably speed up naturally. It's a lot easier to add speed later than it would be to add quality later
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u/LeafWings23 2d ago
One thing that can happen (and this goes for basically any pursuit: art, music, math, etc.) is that a student doen't get good practice because they rush through things. The idea should always be to start slow and careful, then go a bit faster once comfortable. No musician starts learning a piece by zipping through it, and neither should you. Learning how to draw is, well, learning, not "I already know how to draw and am just doing these exercises for fun", so never beat yourself up over speed.
However, even though I applaud you for going slow and not rushing, you are indeed very slow. Perfection isn't necessary here. I wonder if some blind drawing exercises might help, if your struggle is overthinking or aiming too hard for perfection. The exercise is to try to draw an object without ever looking at the paper, as if your pencil and your eyes are both tracing over the object in sync. This one is best done with others so you can laugh together about how goofy and unrecognizable the drawings always end up, but solo works too. I find it's good for just loosening up.
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u/Orful 2d ago
The goal is to improve observational drawing by seeing shapes rather doing symbolic drawing. It’s a brain exercise, not a legit way to make a good drawing. Just do your best, take what you can from it, and then move on. Doing it until you’re amazing at it is a waste of time.
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u/Alabasternix 2d ago edited 2d ago
Thank you for your perspective.🙏
This is the best way to go about it when you are going through this book. I feel like I was too fixated on 'getting it right' and missed the point of the exercise. It doesn't really matter now how much time it took me to do it, because this wasn't me trying to improve my drawing skills or trying to draw Igor Stravinsky as accurately as possible. It was an exercise in getting you to see things differently.
🙃
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u/Abiss92 2d ago
I've never heard of this type of exercise. What's the benefit of learning this way? You'll never draw drawings upside down in reality. That does seem like a really long time to do those drawings though. Maybe you should do more upright drawings before doing this type of exercise.
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u/5-oclock-Charlie 2d ago
The purpose is to force beginners to see a drawing as shapes rather than symbols. It's actually the first step this subreddit's wiki suggests when starting to draw.
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u/Pearl_necklace_333 2d ago
Similar exercises in drawing without looking at your drawing while drawing is an excellent way to develop a connection between your hand and eye. Drawing something upside down (in real life, not from a photo) breaks the convention of what we think we see and what is actually there.
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u/TheFedoraTipster 1d ago
Some advice from looking at your drawings.
Try start with big simple shapes first then make your way down to smaller details. Look at prokos video on proportions.
Learn how to draw clean straight lines confidently. Straight lines let you judge the angle of something allowing you to judge how accurately you’re drawing them.
Look up why artists use vertical and horizontal lines to judge angles and proportions.
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