I then placed the photograph UPSIDE-DOWN, so my features were no longer completely familiar to me. The exercise is designed to make one's left brain hemisphere (the side that controls language, structure, order, time, (and I suspect, anxiety), literacy and numeracy, recognition, and which in western cultures tends to be the more dominant side), to give up the task of recognising components it already knows and will encourage us to replicate (based on our memory of an object or component), and hand control, (by simply relinquishing it as too difficult), over to the right side. The right brain hemisphere is responsible for spacial awareness, perceptions of light and shade, outlines, music and creativity, apparently...
So a good work out of the right brain hemisphere, without the dominant left one coming in and taking over ( often - as a caution in the book would remind, by hearing our own conciousness & voices (i.e. from the left hemisphere) and trying to interfere with proceedings, by saying "what about the washing; have you called your mum today; that thing needs fixing; you need to pay that bill" etc., etc.), was a great way to spend an hour or so, and then complete the exercise by writing up this blog!
So, this is what happened; this was my own process, it may be different for you as a reader if you try, but the important thing is to devote some uninterrupted time to the task, once a suitable upside down photograph is found of course.
The process;
I started by drawing the negative space, (upside down of course), first, and then carefully working on the proportions and positions of my facial features as quickly as I could, I then moved on to trying to get the shapes of shadows and values of colour and shadow delineated.
I worked quite fluidly, holding a graphite stick between all four fingers and thumb, so as to keep it's shallow / a near flat position as low as I could, effectively keeping the graphite stick in the same position of about 20 degrees, - as one would when picking it up by the whole length as it lay on a table.
This made for a much more expressive arm movement. I was not controlling it with my hand alone, but with proportionately more-so, with my arm. My wrist was almost still as its' responsibility was to keep the graphite stick at a shallow angle, and to feel and gauge the pressure of the tip as it made its' mark on the paper. My hand's job was not to move the stick, but to simply hold the stick between all four fingers and thumb...
The outcome, which only took about 15 minutes of actual drawing, is shown below, correctly rotated of course!
It was almost an epiphenomenal! (...easy for you to say)...It was comparatively easy to transfer my mental state from one which is usually ruled by my concious voice scrutinising and subconsciously judging "right & wrong" to one of just looking at shapes, drawing those shapes and ignoring any inner desire to correct a laid line or curve.
Interestingly, you will notice that my left brain hemisphere still managed to interfere and get in the way!... This can be seen as the tilt of my head has been "mirrored", and my right and left shirt collars have been transposed in the drawing. This is because the left brain is continually trying to straighten what it perceives as right and left with reality and perception in tension.
What a wonderfully simple but fascinating exercise. I was able to draw my face upside down in a much more fluid way than trying to use my conventional, controlling left brain hemisphere. This meant that I was drawing what I saw, not what I believed I was seeing (in other words, not letting the left hemisphere of my brain coming in to control and automatically putting it's own pre-recorded image through my right hand and it's usual movements).
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