Two-handed drawing, tea pots, and shells
Dear Sarah - 023
Dear Nikki, January 23, 2025
I tried the two handed drawing, but was confused as to whether both hands were supposed to draw everything, which seemed very difficult, or one hand would draw the left side and one the right. I ended up with a wonky vase, drawn with Crayola markers. So then I drew a nautilus shell, which was very soothing. Following all those curving lines...
The third drawing is from Kianna. We both drew the metal teapot at the cafe, and I managed to photograph hers before she hit the erase button. What looks like an extra O after "pot" is the round knob on top of the pot. She wanted to make sure I mentioned this, because she knows how to spell POT! She doesn't often draw from "life"--her imagination supplies plenty of ideas--but it was interesting to see how closely she studied the teapot as she drew.
I took a photo today of a ship in drydock wrapped in white plastic. From a distance it looks remarkably like an iceberg. I also took a close-up of the gears that help raise and lower the Johnson Street Bridge. Since I started drawing, I'm looking more closely at things, be they shells or faux icebergs.
Hi Sarah - January 23, 2025
I'm not sure what the 'rules' are with the two-handed drawing (thank you to
for the inspiration).I simul-drew a sort-of self portrait with both hands - on very large paper - with crayons. Which felt a bit wild and carefree. Maybe because I wasn't thinking too hard, it went very quickly. Perhaps, too, the speed could be attributed to drawing twice as fast. Are you left or right-handed?
I like your two-handed vase - there is a freedom in drawing like this, I think. Please thank Kianna for her contribution! It's so cool to see how she tackled the challenge! And, love the shell - natural objects are so complex, lovely - I see why you find inspiration in these 'simple' items. Oh, how quickly we realize how unsimple it is to try to draw shells, rocks, cacti...
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It makes me happy that I was an inspiration for your experiments! As for the "rules" for two-handed drawing, there are none. I don't even remember what got me doing them, but it seems impossible that I could have made it up so I must have seen something somewhere?
Anyhoo, the way I do it is to paint/draw with both hands simultaneously, ie, both hands are drawing at the same time. In the case of a face, I'm drawing the two eyes at the same time, the two ears at the same time, etc. Funnily enough, after doing them for two weeks they're starting to get too easy and they aren't producing the same zen-like concentration, so I may soon have to move on to something else.