Trying again.great challenge!

As I have done more and more art and taken a few lessons I am finding I think I have a serious visual perceptual issue. I have that same facial recognition disability Brad Pitt has, I sometimes do not recognize even familiar people until I hear their voices. So I really struggle with this negative space, upside down drawing exercise as I have a huge issue with spacial relationships and proportion just looking at things the way they are, I think I have really poor visual memory. So this just does not work for me.

I was surprised at how good the bird really looked when I turned it right side up. However, all that looking from one thing to another made me kind of dizzy.

I found this exercise to be more difficult. My brain wanted to go back and draw the whole outline of the sparrow. I stuck with the process. I really focused on the negative space and it made a huge difference as far as proportion and the relationship of the wing, head and tail to the body.  I am pleasantly surprised with the results.

This was challenging but an interesting exercise.   I still saw the image as a bird, rather than being able to focus just on the shapes.  Keeping track of where I was with the lines on the branch and the breast plumage was hard, but focusing on the negative space and where the lines linked up on the body was helpful.  I was pleased with how the drawing turned out.

I found the markings on the belly and feet to be the hardest. I think it turned out better upside down than it would have right side up. 

This was much easier than I thought it would be initially.  The picture looked complicated at first but when I just concentrated on the shapes and their relation to each other, it was really manageable.  I think this turned out a lot better than if I had just tried to draw the bird.

Drawing upside-down was interesting. I looked at shapes and negative spaces. Arcs were challenging to draw. I learned so much about the subject. When I turned it to look at the final drawing, I was amazed.  

Almost like paint-by-numbers... I tried drawing each shape, making sure that their sizes, proportions, and locations accurately represented how they were shown in the illustration. Very happy with the results of this exercise.

Wow - that worked out way better than I expected! Starting to put together ideas of negative space, propertions, and really seeing. It's nice to see a little progress :O)

This was fun and a challenge! For me, the hardest part was probably being patient and not trying to cut corners and start drawing random shapes, especially on the body. It was hard not to rush! So this was a good exercise for seeing shapes and for just focusing and being patient.

I'm resubmitting this, because I don't think this registered the first time. This is a great exercise to shift to the right side of the brain and think less literally! I'm sure I also trained my eye to see proportions better, as I worked very slowly and thought as much as possible about shapes and relationships. I did find it a bit tedious, though. At one point, I even thought to myself, 'Wow, one of the stripes on the chest looks like a two headed prehistoric antelope!' (LOL)  I was pleased when I finished it and turned it right-side up and it did look a lot like a sparrow! Great brainteaser and probably a really good anti-aging exercise for those of us over 65:)

This was the toughest task so far! It is well timed to bring us back to truly seeing. I feel proud that I took my time with it.

I think I saw both what it was and the shapes and lines depending on what part I was drawing. It didn't seem any more difficult than drawing right-side up but that is still difficult for me.

I really enjoyed this! It was almost meditative just drawing shapes, and I found I concentrated more on the negative space between shapes that when I am trying to draw the 'whole' subject all at once. It was also exciting towards the end when I could see it coming together. He ended up being a little bit chubby - but overall happy with it!

drawing something upside down helps me to 'not conceptualize' the image.

Was challenging.  I did focus on the individuals shapes but still am not sure of the concept of negative space

A great exercise to try again. Lots of erasing but helpful for me to draw what I see not what I think it should look like.

this exercise is strangely calming. its hard to disassociate it from what you categorize it is, but it gets better as you go along. i enjoyed it!

Fun drawing upside down.  Took forever!

Upside-down drawing was fun, difficult, challenging and surprising. At first, I thought I would not be able to make it, as it looked kind of confusing to the eyes. But I wanted to try it, so I started in the foot area, down to the head. It took me some time to get the angles and lines right. When I was happy about it, I moved to the belly area - and those shapes were difficult! I draw them once, and they didn't look nice; I erased them, took another try and... I was able to do it!! Overall, I think that I forgot that I was drawing a bird, and focused on the lines, shapes and proportions.

Fun exercise. I tried to keep my lines loose. The contour and gesture drawing exercises helped in focusing on the subject. Wondering though about drawing accurate images or something that approximates to the subject.