I just did the upside down drawing exercise. Is what happened to me normal?

Question

I got that Drawing From the Right Side of the Brain book and I just did that upside down drawing exercise. When I did the drawing upside down, it come out ok but some of the lines were still in the wrong spot. I thought I would try to draw it rightside up and I think it actually looks better. I don't know if it's because my right brain is still active or something. The drawing is very liney so it's pretty easy to copy. The reason why some of the lines in the upside down one don't fit is because I was getting frustrated because I didn't know what I was drawing. I've only tried the upside down one once so it could just be a case of not practicing. But anyways, the rightside up one looks better, and the upside down one looks sort of ok. Is it just that my visual side became active during the exercise, or is it just a case of one thing that works for someone else just doesn't work for me?

Answer 1

In my experience with this exercise. It seemed that I had to treat it like a totally different picture. I think you might have had the original image in your mind, and you might have tried more drawing from memory than what you saw.

    I assume that you have drawn right side up quite a bit more than upside down, like anything else this might be a good thing to practice. After all if you find yourself getting better at upside down drawing, I'd lay odds that you would get even better at drawing things right side up.

Answer 2

you said you were getting frustrated drawing upside down because you didnt know what you were drawing. when you draw right side up, you look at the picture as a whole and it makes sense, so you can just assume the eye is there or the head is this big, however when drawing upside down you must focus on the lines and not what the shape of the line makes up.

i find drawing upside down takes longer because i have to truly focus on each individual line, that line has to be that long and that far from the previous line drawn etc etc however if you don't get frustrated its alot more rewarding and also a great drawing exercise for people to focus on the element line.

eventually if you practice drawing long enough, you can single out lines right way up without taking in the rest of a picture as a whole, it is very good for realism