WOB

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White-on-Black drawing exercise

Background:

This is a texbook exercise for drawing classes, taught to me by Borka (Barbara Sitar.) It has become my flagship exercise for right-hemisphere training. It's a full hour and I do it most class sessions, with a planned monologue to set the mood.

Intent:

To enlist the students' right hemispheres in the drawing process. In the context of the Betty Edwards program, the student is presented with a weird task that causes the left brain to step aside and allow the right brain to pick up the slack.

Materials:

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• Black and gray construction paper;

• White "charcoal" pencils (e.g. General's, NOT pastels or grease pencils);

• Soft black charcoal sticks.

• White drawing paper and pencils for the first segment

• Erasers, preferably pencil-format.

Plan:

There are three or four poses in the sequence, and the full exercise takes up a full hour, usually between the first and second breaks in the class.

Point illumination from the spotlight is very important to create a pattern of crisply-defined boundaries between light and shadow on the model. Dark-skinned models have better contrast than light-skinned ones. The model must be posed so that all students get significant amounts and light and dark around the whole circumference. Having the model recline with the body pointing on the line of the spotlight is good, so no directions get eclipsed.

Have the model change the pose a bit between segments, while still keeping the illumination visible from all angles. For a reclining pose, just rotate 180 degrees on the model stand or flip over from lying on the back to lying on the stomach.

The monologue introduction of the exercise is very important. (See below.)