Linda Dransfield

Mr. Keyes
C.E. Drawing
October 14, 2014

Reflection
One of the things that really stood out to me in the fourth chapter was focusing on
drawing the lines of the picture rather than drawing from our own minds. One of the ways to
focus on the lines and shapes of a picture is to turn it upside down. In the book, it gave the
example that when you turn a picture of someone over, it is harder to process who it is. This is
because we look at the picture differently when it is upside down. In class, we found two
different pictures from the internet and printed them off. After that, we combined them into
one picture. I found a picture of the back of a girls hair and a bird. I cut out the picture of the
bird and stuck it in the girls hair. Mr Keyes then instructed us to begin drawing the picture
upside down. At first I hated it. I was not used to drawing upside down, and was tempted to flip
it right side up again. After a while however, I discovered that I liked the way it forced me to
look at the shapes in the picture, rather than just drawing my own thing. This activi ty helped
me pay attention to the shapes in pictures and objects in all the drawings I do now, even if I am
not drawing them upside down.

In the fifth chapter, it talked a lot about how children begin to draw, and how they
progress. As a one year old, the best that most can do is a scribble. However, around the age of
three and a half, many start to add arms, legs, eyes, and even attach a name or object to their
drawing, such as mom, dog, me, sister, table, hat, etc. There are many adults who do not like to
draw. In many cases, this stems from their childhood experiences of drawing. many children are
never satisfied with their work because it doesn't look "just right". This often causes them to
get discouraged and give up drawing. Although drawing comes naturally to some, others may
have to practice, practice, practice to learn to see as an artist sees.

In chapter six, it talked a lot about edges and contouring. A while ago, I did one of the
activities that was in the book. I drew the outline of my hand doing the I love you sign on a see
through board. After that, I was able to draw it onto my paper! It was super fun to try and
contour the picture so it looked like it had depth. It helped me learn the importance of
including different values. If you don't have any dark values, the drawing can look flat. But
when you add in a variety of values, the drawing pops and looks much better.